The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-05-31
MYRON REEDON VICTORHUGO
An Eloquent Tribute to the Life and In
fluence of The Great Frenchman.
Great Men Have Been Lonely in Their
Periods, but Every Man Can Be Faith
full to His Best Self.
sermon preached ! a Dqaser. Nav a.

like apples of gold in pictures of silver accord
framed work Of silver'-that is in framework of
silver.
Sir John Falstaff, in his soliloquy before
Shrewsbury battle, defines honor as "a word, y
and inquiries "What is in that wordr The an
swer is air" Sir John was too careful of his
carcass to make his analysis Of word of much
value. Thomas Carlyle says, HE who sings, or
says or in any way brings home to our hearts
the noble doings, feelings, darings and endur-
ances of brother man has verify touched our
hearts as with live coal from the altar The
quantity of the words of Victor Hugo is
immense. He was writing words for more
than sixty years. A complete edition OF his
works, novels, plays, poems, letters would
make fifty good-szed volumes and he had
enough manuscripts finished and unfinished to
make ten more. His argument for immortality
is this: I arm at the end of this life. have
thousand things to finish and thousand to be-
gin. / have not an opportunity here to do these;
then in justice must have an opportunity else
where 1t seems so.
hear o. good deal said of life at high pressure,
and see many men retiring from business,
thinking thereby oprolong life The life of Victor
Hugo and others leads one to think that life is
held by living; that the fuller youcan make your
life of thought and action, of experience, the
more secure it is, the more sure to last. The
work of Europe seems to be done by old men
Bismarck, Gladstone, Bright, Won Moltke. These
men do not seem to suggest decay, much less
death.
Victor Hugo has disappeared, gone abroad.
Of the quality of his work the fact that his
words are all translated, most of them into eight
tongues, is an evidence that eight nations wish
to read them The form Of his sentence is
French, the thought of his sentence is universal
read his greatest book in leaky tent behind
the cannon of Decatur. My circumstances were
miserable as the time, and the book seemed to be
the book for the time and place. It's hand of
power seized me then, and has never let go.
You read description of battle written by
Lever or Thackerav, and you say, that is good, !"
but Victor Hugo's picture of Waterloo makes
all other descriptions stale and fiat. Marshal
Ney stands, his dying horse beside him reekng
with sweat, foam Oh his mouth covered with
mud, his epauet half severed by saber
stroke his badge of the eagle split by bullet, a
broken sword IN his hand. He stands there
steady in the shameful flow Of defeat, and says
to some one who is making off, What. are you
not going to diel' The desire to live after Wa
terloo is incredible to him.
Victor Hugos request that his body should be
carried to the grave in a hearse used for paupers
is significant of the impulse of all his books
Thad Stevens, having put his mind and heart
into his voice for the slave, left like request
that he should be buried in the negro burying
ground at Lancaster. Livingstone desired that
his grave should be made in Africa, and Mar
Quette thanked God for the honor He did him in
allowing him to die where his work was, in the
wilderness. No man has seen the "hearse OF the
pauper' with the eyes of Victor Hugo His
works are meditations of the significance of that
hearse. Why its rapid wheels should always
roll?-why so much freight
The great Frenchman received the honor Of
Punishment. France was not large enough for
him, and even Napoleon, the ittle;" it was a
fortunate thing. When a man has seen all there
is to see-has the fact in memory, and has the
gift to tell it so all will listen-what could hap
pen to him better than Punishment, where there
is nothing to do but remember and writea AN
island of the Guernsey" is the finest kind of
study Sir Walter Raleigh speaks we'll of the
quiet of his room in the Tower of London
where he could, unvexed by tia world, write the
history of England But the Guernsey Island"
is better. From kings point of view
it would have been much safer in the long
France and busted him in active politics. and so,
perhaps have wasted him. But there is "a
power not ourselves" that so arranged things
that for nineteen years he had nothing to do but
think and write, and for recreation play with
the children. hardly need to recall to your
mind the people of his books, the sufferers of
the city, the toilers of the seattle people born
on the unhappy side of the barricade. No books
outside of the Bible SO emphasize the inherent
worth of man-his brthright. No circumstances
of birth or fortune hide the man in men. He
has as seeing an eye as Robert Burns. The
ragged little fatherless, mOtherless gamin whose
''strong step-mother" is Paris street, can on oc
casion give his life for liberty as well as an
other. On his way back to the barricade with
his last load of cartridges for the empty guns,
he is a sublime child
But perhaps the greatest miracle is to make a
hero and saint out of a man whose wrist and
ankle show the mark of the fetter of the galley.
he not only has been in the place of felon but
he has been and is felon. Not simply MUIR
derer-we all know something can be done for
him-but this man has been thief. The man
has been sentenced to penal servitude for five
years for theft and re-sentenced several times
for trying to make his escape from the hulks
Nineteen years of association with rufians had
done its work on him. Year by year his soul
became more and more withered, slowly but
fatally. dry soul must have dry eye, and
on leaving the hulks nineteen years had elapsed
since he had shed tear Being released he
must carry with him yellow passport. as sig
nlhcant as yellow flag or leper's cry.
This savage starved and tired wretch. knocks
st the door of bishop. and the door
opens, and he is received to food and fire.
silver plate tempts him. His host had called
him sir and trusted him. II was battle, but
the thief in him was too old and too strong for
the newborn feeling in his heart He stole the
silver plate and vanished. But before morning
he is brought back by the police. The plate was
engraved with the bishops arms. The old bishop
rises to meet the group as they enter. 'Ah" he
said to the thief ~ am glad to see you, but l
gave you the candlesticks, too. which are also
silver, and will fetch you 200 francs. Why did
you not take them away with the restT
The bishop dismisses the police and then goes
M to the convict, puts his hands on his shoulder
sni says, my brother remember that you here
promise to employ this silver in becoming an
honest man. You no longer belong to evil, but
to God / withdraw your soul from black
thoughts and the sport Of perdition and give it
to God" OF the warfare and final victory Of
this wretch of the hulks you are familiar He
il saved by what some one calls 1.-THE contagion
Of trust" 1t was said of Edward Irving The
went about making men noble by thinking they
were 40 and the Rnphv hoyc said Of DIR Ar