The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1874-04-27
State Superintendent Of Free Schools.
Senator Summers Religion Extract
From a Sermon In Boston by Dan.
ieI Steele n. u. -

Published in the Intelligencer by Requeet]
"Of the religious principles of Senator
Sumner know nothing, more than that
he was an attendant upon Kings Chapel
as was his father before him. 1t is prob
able that he acquired them in that waning
system of Unitarianism, now styled Lib
eral Christianity" It findsits best exem-
plification in the life and death of Sum-
ner. 1t intensifies the ethical, and chills
and represses the religious nature. Vicious
men it cannot recover, with the masses It
is powetless. The few who have natu-
rally a high moral endowment It may
keep rom lapsing into immoralities and
may build up, into strength. But such
are moral monstr osities, their moral ma
lures tower up, like the domes of the
Yosemite, bold and bare, sublime
and unlovely. Evangelical Christianity
builds tho moral nature up to such
heights, but covers them with evergreens
that soften their sternnees and crowns
them with flowers 0Xhaling perpetual
sweetness There was moral sublimity
in the undergraduates Of the great Sena-
tor amid the agonizing fortunes which
convulsed his bosom and the recollection
of his unfinished life.work, the making Of
all American citizens, irrespective Of
color, equal before the law. "Take care
OF my Civil Rights bilr'-human rights
first and last, the ruling passion strong in
death. 1t was sublime. 1t would have
been more sublime If in addition the name
OF Jesus, the resurrection and the life,
had been uttered as the foundation OF his
hopes for the future; far more sublime if
the swan song of Christian triumph had
runC ont its music inthe stiffness of the
dying chamber: "Lh8Ve fought the good
fight; have finished my course; have
kept the faith, and hencetorth," SC.
The henceforth OF this incorruptible
statesman I will not divine; lam not his
judge. All that I see is the potent TACT
that he has left this poor world better
than he found it. But while utter these
words, there sounds in my ears those
other words which cut off the hope OF
Though speak with the tongues Of
men and of angels, and have not love
Coward God in Christ Jesus, as well as
toward men) am become as sounding
brass and tinkling cymbal, and though
I bestow oil my goods to iced the poor,
and though give my body to be burned,
lin martyrdom) and have not love, it
prof1tcth me nothing" There is with
God no acceptable substitute for the abb
sence OF love toward his only son, our
Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the
shed abroad In our hearts by
the Holy Ghost-love as well of water
within, springing up to eternal life, even
though listening Senates may have bowed
before our eloquence, and hoary iniquities
have vanished before our breath, and un1
fettered millions make pilgrimages to
scatter flowers upon our graves. Christi.
anity is more than a perfect system OF
ethics; it is personal love toward per-
sonal Saviour, enabling the soul to meet
death, not with the stoicism OF philoso-
pher, but with the believers p@an of vic.
tory on his lips. -
40 love thou bottomless abyss.
My sins are swallowed up in !ThCo,
Covered is my uprighteousness.
Nor spot of guilt remains on me,
While Jesus blood through earth aud skies,
Mercy, free, boundless mercy cries W.