The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-06-02
GARRISON.
EULOGY By WENDELL PHILLIPS.
The Lesson of the Liberator's Life.

The following is the address delivered by
Wendell Phillips at the funeral of William
Lloyd Garrison:
1t has been we'll said and repeated that we
are not here to weep, and neither are we here to
praise. No life closes without sadness. Death,
after all, no matter what hope or what useful
ness surrounds it, is one terrible mystery We
never part hands that have been clasped life
long in loving tenderness that the hour is not
sad; but we do not come here to weep. In
other moments, under other roofs, we can
clasp in tender and loving sympathy the hands
whose roof-tree is so sadly bereaved. But in
their wish, in the spirit of the great life which
we contemplate, this hour is for the utterance
OF lesson; this hour is given to contemplate a
grand example, a rich inheritance, noble life
worthily ended. That is the reason that you
come together, not to pay tribute, loving trib-
ute merely, to the friend you have lost whose
features you will miss from daily life, but to
remember the grand lesson of that career, to
speak to each other and to emphasize what the
life teaches; to tell it in the hearing of those
whose immature youth did not witness that
untiring effort; in their hearing to construe the
meaning of the great name which is borne
worldwide, and tell them why ON both sides
the ocean the news of his death is matter of
interest to every lover of his race. As my
friend said, we have no right to be silent.
Those of us who stood near him, even during
portion of his life, who witnessed the secret
springs OF MS aCU1On, the CONSISTENT inward
and outward essence of his life, have no right
to be silent. The largest contribution that will
ever be made by a single mans life to the
knowledge OF the working OF our institutio ms
will be the picture of his career. He sounded
the depths of the weakness, he proved the ul-
innate strength of republican institutions; he
gave us to know the perils that confronted S.
he taught us to rally the strength that lies hid
To my mind there are three peculiarly re-
markable elements in his career. One is sim
,1or nIIt of nytrt1
aided moral existence came the motive which
consecrated himself to a great idea. 1t con-
fronted him in very youth. We marvel at the
words that my friend has quoted Where
were they uttered? By mature lips, on the
Senate floor, by man to whom the nation lis
tened? Uttered by STRIPPING, twenty-three or
four years old, in the very bloom of his youth!
Other men ripen gradually. The youngest of
the great names that will compare with his
was between thirty and forty when his first
anti-slavery word was uttered. This man was
in Jail for his opinions when he was just twen-
ty-.hree. He had confronted nation in the
very bloom of his youth. 1t could be said of
him more than of any other American leader
that 1 chance now to remember in any epoch,
that he did not neod circumstances, outside in
fuence, some great pregnant event to press
him into service, to provoke him into thought,
to kindle him into enthusiasm. His moral
nature is as marvellous as the intellect of Pas
cal. 1t seemed to be born fully equipped.
l.
old, while Christianity and craftsmanship, the
experience, the genius of the land, were wan
dering in the desert, aghast, amazed and con-
founded over great evil, this boy sounded,
found, invented the talisman, Immediate,
unconditional emancipation of the slave" You
may say he borrowed it-true enough-from
the lips of a woman on the other side of the
Atlantic, but he was the only American, just
on the edge of life, whose nature seemed so
perfectly open to the truth that it answered to
the far-off bugle note, and wrote it instantly
as a guide to the people.
Young men, you have no conception of the
miracle of the insight for it is not given you to
remember with any vividness the blackness
of the darkness of Ignorance and indifference
that brooded over what was called the moral
element of the American people. When 1
think of him, as Melancthon said of Luther,
''day by day grows the wonder fresh" at the
largeness Of the moral and intellectual life that
God gave him at the very opening. Then you
hear that boys lips announcing the statesmen
like solution written in words that absolutely
blinded the people-the great God-given solu-
ton of what had confounded the people, blinded
the churches and made statesmen dumb. With
equal single-hearted devotion, in words that
have been so often quoted, few years after
ward; with those dungeon doors behind him,
he enters on his career. marvel again at the
instructive sagacity. Archimides said, "Give
me something and 1 will move the world"
O'Connell leaned back on three millions of
Irishmen, all afame with sympathy. Cobden's
hands were held up by the whole manufactur-
ing interest of Great Britain; his hands were
full of the wealth of the middle classes of the
country, and behind him in fair proportions
stood the religious convictions of England.
Marvellous as was their agitation, as you gaze
upon it in its successive stages and analyZe it,
you are aStonished at what they invented for
tools. And yet this boy stood alone, utterly
alone at first. There was no sympathy any
where; his hands were empty. No matter If
I,a efa ra1 nd hn
mand the use of types, that was all. Trade
endeavored to crush him; the intellectual life
of America diSowned him.
My friend Weld has said the Church was one
thick cloud looming over him in the darkness.
Out of it thundered and lightened amalignity
that could not find words to express its hate.
At that moment, boy, with neither training
nor experience! Whence came that instinct
tive knowledge? Where did he get that
sound common sense? Whence did he summon
that almost unerring sagacity which started
agitation ON an unknown teld-never commit
ting an error, provoking year by year addition
al enthusiasm; gathering as he advanced help
er after helper to his side! marvel at the
miraculous boy. You must remember that all
these years it was an immature youth who had
never had any training, any administrative
experience, never had anything but an ambi-
tiOn to launch him into the columns of the
press. He had no means. Where he got,
whence he summoned, how he created the ele-
ments which changed 1924 into 1885, that even
made America mob him in every great city, Is
a marvel which none but older men than l can
adequately analyze and explain. He said to a
friend who demonstrated with him ON the en-
ergy of his utterances Look, am surrounded
and overwhelmed with icebergs. What lam
single soul into sympathy" Well, that dun
geon of 1924, that universal apathy, that dead
ness of SOUL that contempt Of intellect, i'll ten
years he changed into the whole country atiame;;
He made every single home, press, pulpit and
Senate chamber debating society, with his
right and wrong for the subject Fastened on
that daily life was malignant attention and
criticism such as no American citizen has ever
endured. will not call it a criticism Of hate;
that is not strong enough. Malignity searched
him with candles from the moment that he
uttered that God-given solution of the problem
to the moment when he took the hand OF the
nation and wrote out the statute that made 1t
law. Malignity searched those forty dreary
years with candles, and yet it is on record that
even that never lisped suspicion, much less q
charge-never lisped a suspicion, of anything
mean, dishonorable, dishonest. No man, how
ever mad with hate, however impetuous in as
sault, ever dared to hint that there could be a
touch on his escutcheon, unutterably bright,
without a stain.
Now, if you will contemplate this boy enter
ing the arena, confronting nation and all its
forces, utterly poor, with no sympathy from
any quarter, conducting widespread and pro-
found agitation for ten, twenty, thirty years,
amid the hate of everything strong in Ameri-
can life and the contempt otherwise of every
thing influential, and no stain, not the slightest
shadow Of one rests on his escutcheon! Sum-
mon me the public men, the men who have
put their hands to the helm of the vessel OF
State since 1889, and of whom can that be said
although love and admiration that almost
eliminated in worship attended the steps OF
some of them? Then look at the work he did
Ny friends have spoken of his influence. What
American ever held his hand so long and SC
powerfully ON the helm of social, intellectual
| and moral America? There have been giants
| in our day. Great men God has granted il
widely different spheres: earnest men, mer
whom public admiration lifted early into glad
power. / shall venture to name some of them
Perhaps you will say it is not usual on an occa-
sion like this but long-waiting truth needs to
be uttered in an hour when this great example
is still absolutely indispensable to inspire the
effort, to guide the motive, to cheer the hope
of the nation not yet in the promised land.
want to show you the vast breadth and depth
that this mans name signifies. We have had
Webster in the Senate; we have had Lyman
| Beecher in the pulpit; we have had Calhoun
at the head of a section; we have had a great
philosopher at Concord with his inspiration
| that penetrated the young mind of the North.
ern States. They are the four men that histo
~ perhaps will mention somewhere near the
| great force whose closing in this scene we COM
memorate to-day. Andyet if any one remem
L Al. L.. H. -