The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1885-10-31
BetCher on Grant.


fremont Temple this afternoon:
Another name is added to the roll
of those whom the world will not
willingly let die. A few years since
storm. laden clouds filled his heaven,
and obloquy, Islander and bitter lies
rained down upon him. The clouds
are all blown away. Under a serene
sky he laid down his life, and the ma
ton wept. The path to his tomb is
worn by the feet of innumerable pill
grims.
The widowed lips of SANDER are
silent, and even criticism hesitates
lest some incautious word should mar
the history of the modest, gentle,
magnanimous warrior. The whole
nation watched his passage through
humiliation and msfortunes with un,
feigned sympathy ; the whole world
sighed when his life ended. At his
burial the unsWOrded hands of those
whom he had fought lifted his bier
and bore him to his tomb with love
and reverence. Grant made no claim
to saintShip. He was man Of like
passions and with as marked Iimita-
lions as other men. Nothing could
be more distasteful to his honest,
modest soul while Lying. and moth
ing more unbeComing to his memory
than lying exageration5 and fulsome
batteries.
Men without faults are apt to he
men without force. a round dia-
mond has no brilliancy. Lights and
shadows, hills and valleys give beau
ty to the landscape. The faults of
great and generous natures are often
Over-ripe goodness, or the shadows
which their virtues cast. Three ele-
ments enter into the career Of a great
citizen: that which his ancestry gives;
that which opportunity gives that
which his will deYelOpes, Grant came
from sturdy New England stock,
New England derived it from Scot.
land, and brt it at time when Gov
enanters and Puritans were made
men of iron consciences, hammered
out on the anvil Of adYersity. From
New England the stream flowed to
theOhio, where it enriched thaooiI till
it brought forth abundant harYests
of great men, When it was Grants
time to be born, he came forth with
out celestial portents, and his youth
had in it no prophecy of his man
hood. His b0yhood was wholesome,
robust, with vigorous frame. With
a heart susceptible of tender love, he
yet was not social. He was patient
and persistent. He loved horses and
could master them. That is a good
sign. Grant had no art of creating
circumstances opportunity must seek
him, or else he would pIOd through
life without disclosing the gifts which
God hid in him. The gold in the hills
cannot disclose ITSELF 1t must he
sought and dug. A sharp and Wiry
politician for some reasons of Prov-
dence performed a generous deed in
sending young Grant to West Point,
He finished his course there, diStin-
guished as skillful and bold rider,
with an inclination to mathematics,
but with little taste for the theory
and literature Of war, yet with SYM
pathy for its external and material
developments. In boyhOOd and youth
he was marked by simplicity, can
dor, veracity and silence. After leaV-
ing the academy he saw service in
Mexico and afterWard in California,
but without conspicuous results.
Then came a cIOudea period,
sad life of irresOute vibration be-
tween self-indulgence and aspiration
Through intemperance he resigned
from the army and at that time one
would have feared that his life would
end in eclipse. 1t was later in his
life that Grant destroyed the enemy
that "biteth like serpent and sting
eth like an adder" At length he
struck at the root of the matter
Others agree not to drink, which is
good. Grant Overcame the wish to
drink, which is better. But the cloud
hung over his reputation for many
yeas and threatened his ascendency
when better days came.
Ofail his victories, many and great,
this was the greatest-that he con
quered himself. His will was strOn-
ger than his passions. He was good
subaltern, good farmer. worse tan
ner, worthless tralticker. Without
civil experience, without literary
gifts, too difficult to he ambitious, too
modest to put himself forward, too
honest to be a politician, he was Of
all men the least likely to attain EN-
inence, and absolutely untitled, ap-
parently, for pre.eminence yet Gods