Morning journal and courier., 1886-04-12
TWO PICTURES
Of Notable Scenes on Exciting Occasions Drawn by Rev. Dr. New man Smyth Yesterday.

Of Notable Scenes on Exciting Occasions Drawn by Rev. Dr. Nev- man Smyth Yesterday
 Following is an extract from discourse delivered by Rev .Dr. Newman Smyth yester- day forenoon in Center church pulpit:
 t'Let us hail the coming power and domin- ion of the Christian righteous man. For tho signs of the times give promise of the in crease of the government of righteous Chris tian manliness over men. Within the past week two scenes have occurred in opposite parts of the world, and totally unlike in all their circumstances and dramatic surround ings, which nevertheless, to the observant eye signify alike the coming to dominion and throne of moral responsibility, and righteous manhood. Upon the one grand scene the gaze of the civilized world was riveted. MT. Gladstone's speech last Thurs day evening in the House of Commons marks an epoch in English history. And the nor al significance of that scene is not dependent upon the fact of the measures proposed by the government. The moral power of that event lies in the supreme fact that ques tion of government has been boldly uplifted from question of policy to question of righteousness, and that question, once raised | can never henceferth be settled until it shall be settled upon the conscience of England. l The grandly significant fact is that, whatever may he the inmediata fortune of his pro- posed legislation and his party, an English statesman walking in the fear of God before the eyes of the world, has crowned his life's work, and come in the admiration of friends and foes alike to his throne in history by trampling under foot the policies of parties, and attempting to solve most vexed ques tion of government by the simple statesman ship Of righteousness. His measures may fail, his government may go out, but his moral idea will remain, and when once a
 great leader has looked upon the eternal
 &ha
 and proclaimed these to the people, the full
 illment of the prophets vision, albeit in bet
 ter ways than he knew, shall some day surely follow. Meanwhile, let us thank God and take courage for another and splendid illus tration of the fact that not the "hickeriHg lantern" of the politician, but the statesman ship of the righteous Christian man is the true light of the nations.
 The other scene which illustrates the com ing of sober righteousness to power in our world was marked by no pomp of circum- stance and in contrast to the historic scene at
 Westminster, it finds it's place only in the newspaper record of yesterday. Yet to one who looks into the moral forces beneath the troubled surface of things, it was part and DOT ton of the same deep current and movement of moral ideas in the progress of the world The scene was on the street, and the audience was an angry mob. The sovereign State of Illinois had just maddened the crowd by
 
 it should have shown an arm able to save be- strong to smite. And there stood up in the midst of that naddened crowd a single man representing the intelligence of the industrial respon- sibility of the American werkingman who has received the life and who respects the law of liberty, and in the love of his country, and by his devotion to the future welfare of his class, with courage rising to the peril of the hour, that man pleaded with that mad dened mob for loyalty to their own knightly pledges and for peaceful obedience to the law of the land. It is not the preacher who has put these two scenes together for sermon. The providence of God in the worlds history of last Thursday and Friday has called upon us to behold and to consider these two scenes;-a great ruler pleading for the settle ment of a question of centuries of wrong in Christian righteousness and peace;-a hum ble workingman, unknown to fame, repre- senting the moral intelligence of his class, throwing himself fearlessly into the midst of the explosive passions of mob, and seeking for Gods sake to put out their hot wrath, and to save them from their own destruction. It has come to this-let US thank God that in the politics of the world and in our own country it has come to th1s,-that only moral leadership has power; and shall prevail The statesmanship of righteousness finds it's throne, sure, peaceful, eternal, in the heart of the people. Henceforth no questions are to be settled until settledsright. The conflict is always inevitable, and never more so than to-day, between right and wrong.