Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1874-03-26

manifold of each great nation has come by
the path of human sacrifice of thought
and toll, and even life; and so valuable
have been the national ideas that for all
the good the world possesses there have
been fields baptized with the hearts best
blood.
Young though any of the modern free
nations may be in their present name and
form, yet back Of each one lie thousand
years of active labor, and often of deep
agony. As biologists now tell us that be-
fore God fitted up this earth for man,
while the mists were rising from its heat
ed seas and condensing in the upper air,
there were often awful storms where the
thunder rolled necessarily for hundred
years, so each nation which we see stand
ing forth now in peace and beauty-En-
gland, Germany, America-has emerged
from q thousand-year storm, where the
wrath Of man has rolled in thunder and
the cruel skies have rained blood. One
of the poets says, "a thousand years
scarce serve to form state" and oh |!
what years of toll and v1cissitude they are
to the brains which stand at the throne,
and TO the hearts that stand in the battle,
and to the widow and orphan who weep
when the smoke rolls away and reveals
the Gead.
If, then, a great nation like our own has
come over two-thousand year path, I'M
der sky of alternate peace and storm,
come along from free Athens and free
Rome, and from sacred Palestine, there
must have been all along guardian-aRgels
Of its long journey, glorious leaders of its
wilderness march; souls that smote rocks
f,>r tfo nd
down mama In the still night. The NOR
Seneca, their Confucius, but chiefly their
divine Jesus; the art of our era looks
back and beholds its Phidias, its Apelles'
its Angelo link the future and the past !;
poetry and all literature look back and
cast smiles of gratitude to Homer and
Thucydides, and Dante. The law con-
fesses the deep devotion of Cicero and JUS
tinian as minds who studied justice when
the world seemed young; and now, be-
holding this differentiation of men by
a wise providence Of God, so that each path
of the souls vast vineyard may have
some one to love its vines, we reach the
easy conclusion that the same wisdom
will permit US always to hold in memory
and to love men who, turning aside from
other paths, have found in the study and
love and service of their nation their own
special path between the cradle and the
grave.
Oh, it is blessed thought that there
have risen up here and there hearts
not only that could weave the sweet songs
Of Virgil, not only hands that could
paint the pictures of Parrhasius, or that
strikes the notes of Mozart; not only
minds that may throw up dome of st.
Peters, or that may astonish the world
with their invention, but also other hearts
which have loved the idea of nation, and
have lived and died, not in the arms of q
friend, but rather in the arms of the coun-
try. Out of the thoughts and love and
specialization of these great ones we
humble children OF the State have all
drawn our happiness and freedom, as the
vioiets are invited into life by the all
loving sun.
In the week past the grave has opened
suddenly and taken back one of those
souls which seem sent Of God to know
nothing else but their country, as Paul
knew nothing else but the Cross. Into
that tomb which grows wider each year,
and which has received away from sight
Washington and the Adamses, and Jeffer-
son, and Clay, and Webster, and Lincoln,
at last has been gathered one more name
wreathed as heavily as any with the glo-
rious ideas of our great Republic. Ma
poleon loved not nation but his own
power. He was not a student Of justice
but of crowns-how TO destroy other
diadems, and of their jewels fashion one
for himself.
The triumph and the vanity
The rapture OF the strife,
The earthquake voice OF victory,
To thee the breath OF life.
The sword, the scepter and that sway,
Which man seemed made but to obey,
Wherewith renown was rife,
All quelfdl Dark Spirit, what must be
The madness Of thy memoryi
But the memory of that life just ended
has ne madness in it, but is reInem-
brance of honor, and charity, and peace.
1t seems especially fitting the day and
place that we should devote this hour to
thoughts over this fresh tomb, for the
greatness of Mr.. Summers career is
strangely inwoven with some of the no.
blest ideas of Christianity, and this union
is not accidental, but spiritual and intel
lectual, for Mr.. Sumner, in his life de-
voted to humanity, so framed all his argu.
ments, and SO based them upon the phi
losophy of Christ, that the perpetual
return of the terms Christianity and
Savior show that much of his eloquence
was the Sermon upon the Mount applied
not to the future of the soul, but TO the
true earthly progress of mankind
If any group of philosophers were to
sit down with the Life of Christ in their
hands, with the desire to elaborate con-
stitution from its pages, among the
many principles they would bring out
we should at once certainly find these:
Peace, justice, and equality. From
Justice would instantly come lib
erty. Now, of that eventful life
whose unlimely ending Grapes this
day with sorrow, these three Christian
ideas, peace, liberty and equality, were
the opening and final strain, the matin
and the vesper. The public career of Mr..
Sumner began by that unrivaled Grafton,
spoken thirty years ago, upon Peace as
the source OF national grandeur, and with
out any deviation, any faltering along the
path, he Is found at last on the border OF
death, asking Congress not to paint upon
its flags of the present and future the
names OF battles where brothers fought.
But before | ask you to think of those
three great ideas in which Mr.. Sumner
did great service for the Christianity out