Morning journal and courier., 1880-02-20

| could to save them, but the boat returning we all left the house to be refreshed on shore, l and as soon as the weather did permit, we re- l turned again and finished all, and put up the | light on the 14th of Nov, 1898, which being so late in the year, 1t was three days be-
 fore Christmas before we had relief to get on shore again, and were almost at the last ex- tremity for want of provisions. But by good Providence, then two boats came with pro-
 visions. and so ended this years work. It was hamburger of good omen for the | 18th century, that 1t opened with such work
 as this, and the people not alone of Plymouth town, but of all England, might well mingle | thanksgiving with their rsjoioings over Win
 stanley's Christmas gift Seldom does city
 or nation receive, free of all expense, such | a royal gift-a gift in which, ultimately. all
 the world were to be sharers. For Winstan- | ley, alone, unaided, and in the teeth of ridi- | cule and skepticism and danger, had shown
 the way and demonstrated the possibility of | that which before was thought impracticable. Once proved that house could be built and | live at sea, and in such sea, men and
 means were easily to be found to repeat the experiment, and cause lights to burn on every | dangerous spot and along every dreaded | coast.
 ssIn the fourth vsar'' the report goes on, | ssths work wae .xlsed to 120 feet and yet the
 sea in storms flies in appeara nee one hun l dred feet above the vane, and at times doth 1 cover half the side of the house and lantern l as if it were under the water"
 Let those laugh who win! It was now Winstanley's turn to make merry, and he did
 so right heartily, in his own characteristic and eccentric fashion. Not build a tower upon
 that rock Why, I'll build ye, an ye will, ! Chinese pagoda!" And he added gables and | turrets and balconies, and heaped up insult
 and pointed his mockery, by representing himself as quietly fishing out of the kitchen | window
 | battle as desperate an any in the bloody annals | of war. Upon the highest point of it's jag ged back, he placed beacon, and many gal | lant ship and brave sailor were saved by it during the next three years, and had cause to bless it's warning light and the man who set | it there, in the midst of the wind and the | waves.
 If Winstanley, with all the power and wealth of great nation to back him, had de- l stroyed, in an unjust war, az many lives and as nlUch property as by his own unaided and her pie efforts he has saved, or even killed of few wretched, half naked savages, history
 would have lauded his name as that of great | captain, and titles and medals would have l shOwered upon him in profusion. But sim pie mechanic, who leaves behind him only | rio legacy of happiness and prosperity in J stead of hatred, what has history to do with such Even though the influence of his life
 and death and works is felt to-day throughout | the world
 History! Why if the fancifuI prophecy of \ a writer in the Atlantic of month or two
 ago should ever come true, when the coming | New Zealander of 375S (1878 years later) shall
 uncover the ruins of our present boasted civ- | iIization, and seek from the flow remaining rel ics of the past, which the all devouring tooth of time may have spared, to reconstruct anew \ the life at times of to-day-it will not be | from the rotting volumes which line the
 shelves of yonder library that ha will glean ' [ bat ha nbc C,1nI 1%v | remnants as may then remain of our indus tries, and OUT manufactories, and our arts, will be all that will be left to speak to him of the \ power, and the genius, and the character of 8 once mighty people-of the age of the print | ing press, and the steam engine, ,and the tele- graph and the telephone, and the electric light.
 And should he perchance turn
 over the mouldy pages of our histories" | so called, to learn the names and read the lives ! of those giants of our race, whom we
 must have 50 delighted to honor-thoss great benefactors who bore upon their mighty shoulders our entire civilization like feath- ! er, and whose words alone remain to rescue us from oblivion and challenge the respect | of posterity-he will search among the
 records of bloody battles and party strife, and | local politics. and puerile Congressional de-
 bates and the wranglings of presidential cleo
 tions, and he will turn and seek and search in
 vain. That which gives to us to-day, and
 will give to us then, if that time ever come,
 our real character and genius and national | havor-our true place in the history of the
 worlds progress in thought and achievement, ignored and unnoticed, while vain pretension
 and martial achievement and crafty diplomacy | fill the volumes which claim to record our na- | tional existence.
 We'll! you all know the end of my story. | How in the fearful storm of Nov. 26, 1703, one of the most terrific storms that ever rag
 ed on that coast before or since, the elements ! combined in one last and final struggle
 against the adventurous man who had dared
 to oppose their mighty power, and swept
 both house and builder into the pitiless
 sea. When morning broke after that fearful
 storm, the dead lined the shores of Plymouth
 Sound, and of in the distance lay, growing
 savagoly, that angry monster, dark, sullen, ter | rible, still unconquered, and only the more
 ravenous for blood and treasure by reason of | its long enforced fast. And the one man in \ all England who had ever dared to give battle, lay tossing in the breakers, the sport of the
 mercless clements he had so long defed, his ' stout heart stilled forever, his idle hands that l were SO strong iu good works tossing feebly
 and aimlessly to and fro, and his dead white
 face looking up to the gloomy wintry sky. | Of the light he had with so much toil and he- roic labor erected, not stick or a stone re- | mained.
 But yet ono thing remained-those twelve | small holes in the monsters back, holding up to all the world their lesson of patient sndeav-
 or, and proclaiming to every passing vessel, ! WINSTANLEY-HIs MARK And another
 thing remained-the memory of the man who
 made them and his great example. The rock
 had not conquered the man, for the man still l lived. We may even fancy that in that terri | bls night which was his last on earth, as each l sea burst over the doomed house and shook it l to it's foundations, he heard in the roar of the
 storm and the hoarse shriekipg of the wind, | the cheers of dead mariners and the plaudits l of the living and az the wreck came crashing down, he may even have smiled in his brave,
 undaunted heart at the thought that let come
 what may he had yet conquered, and with that smile in his heart and on his face, went
 calmly to his fitting death and grave.
 Winstanley showed the way. He demon I strated that the thing could be done. As Smeaton generously observes, ''It was no ! small degree of heroic merit in Winstanley to
 undertake piece of work which had bsfore | been deemed impracticable, and, ,by the suo- | cess which attended his endsavors, to show mankind that the erection of such building
 was not in itself thing of that kind" Win
 stanlsy's work and example were not lost.
 Such lives and examples never are. But at
 first, no one stirred to follow, until one day | the monster opened his maw again, and this | time it was the Winchelsea, richly laden | homeward bound vessel, lost with every soul l on board. Then, at last, the Government awoke | to the necessity of lighthouse on that dan gerous reef and John Rudyerd was the man they called to the work-singularly enough, another London mercer
 Rudyerd was the son of Cornish laborer of
 bad habits and worse character, and the rest of the family seemed to have been but little better. "A worthless set of ragged beggars'' Smiles calls them, ''John being the one sound
 chick in all the brood" Certainly, opportuni- \ ty does not seem to have done much for him. | yet he must have become well known for me
 chanical ability, or he would never have been selected for such a work. The philosophic
 Smeaton remarks concerning him as follows
 ''This shows that though education and ex- | ample may do much, yet there is something l in natural disposition not totally to be eradi- ] cated by education. Had MT. Rudyerd's par | ents been of the most amisble character, if | one of their children had turned out the re- verse, who would have wondered ? We should
 readily have explained it, that it arose from i'll l impressions from without. But the wonder
 in this case is that in spite of all the force of evil example, here is mind capable of eman-
 cipating itself by the most violent of all rem
 edies that young people generally take, that of | separation from parents and household by l flight"
 Stimulated by Winstanleys example and warned by his errors, Rudyerd erected light, | simple and nasterly in it's design and execu-