The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1884-03-13
w endelI Philips.

That he was the greatest orator of our day
none who heard him can question. | remem-
Der the first time | heard him. 1t WAS at
thinly attended meeting of abOliiOnists held in
'FHnuel" Hail Gas the Old Bo>t0nians called it,
in 1878. lie Was speaking As entered 10 No
he looked like a king among hi, fellows. No
one could initiate him. Everett. the polished
man who made every gesture study, with all
his finish, was 10 match for the great agitator.
He impressed one with his mighty earnestness.
The world was his mission field. Such men are
raised up and fitted to drive the ploushshare
through the soil of conservatism and caste and
prepare the field for the more progressive hal-
vest of Justice and Truth. In the language of
Lowell
lie stood upon the worlds broad threshold; wide
The din of battle and Of slaughter rose:
lie saw God stand upon the weaker side,
That sank in seeming loss before its foes,
Many there were who made great haste ard sold,
INTO the common enemy their swords.
He 5corned their gifts OF fame, and power and gold
And, underneath their soft and ilowery words.
Heard the cold serpent hiss; therefore he went
And humbly joined him to the weaker part,
Fanatlc-nanneC, and fool yet well content
80 he could be the nearer to Gods heart,
And feel it solemn pulses sending blood
Through all the Widespread veins OF endless good.
His heart was on fire for equal rights. His
was democracy that was rooted and grounded
in the "Sermon on the Mount" There WAS no
compromise with wrong. TO him the crv of
the oppressed was like a moan from the famil,
cradle. The auction block, with all of its ac-
cursed surroundings, represented a sale of his
first born, and the lash of the overseer cut his
sensitive nerves and made him keep time with
the groans OF the tortured. The stamp of Gods
image was current. whether cast in silver or
copper. With him, Il creed or pulpit that de-
tended such system. was the rankest atheism.
Tie was terrible in his denuncations of the
apoogists and trimmers of his day. who We're
ready to cOndone and share in the spoils of sl;,-
very. The abolitlonists neither asked nor gave
quarter. and they were right. Great evils must
be overcome by steady blows upon their foun-
datlon with the sledge hammer of truth and
sincerity.
This was Phillipss way of doing things. and
none could excel him. He was Il volcano in
full blast when he aSsaed the ''sum of all vii
lanles.' He loved to praise where he deemed
it just. Who that heard his mastery tribute
to O'Conne, the first of orators and agitators.
can forget his manner when, in the midst of
his soul stirring eulogy of that noble lover of
liberty, he paused and repeated these lines:
80, Ireland my country the hour of thy pride and
thy Splendor hath passed,
The chain that was spurned in thy moments of
m power, hangs heavy around thee at last;
There are marks i'll the fate of each cline, there
are turns in the fortunes of men,
But the changes of realms and the chances OF time
shall never restore thee again.
Thou art chained to the wheel of the foe by links
which world cannot sever;
With thy tyrant through storm and through cloud
thou shalt go, and thy sentence is bondage for
Thou art doomed for the thankless to toll tbou art
left for the proud to .iisdain;
The blood of thy sons and the wealth of thy soil
shall be lavished. and lavished in vain.
Thy riches with taunts shall be taken, thy valor
with GOODNESS be paid
And of millions who thee thus sunk and for
saken, not one shall go forth in thy aid.
In the nations thy place is left void thou art lost
in the list of the free,
Even realms by the plague and the earthquake de
stfoyed' may revive, but no hope is for thee