Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1888-03-01

secured the place OF associate editor OF the
National Reporter System, published at St.
Paul, MINI. In the courtroom he was an
advocate with less than Ciceronlan eloquence,
but with all of the conviction and fervor of
Hofer, the Tyrolese patriot, pleading for his
native land. His wish was to be just to OPP
poneIt or defendant and if to either he
seemed to do a wrong he dropped in secret
like the willow when autumnal rain has been
withheld. He could take revenge, but it
given by nature to the sweet offices of friend
ship and not to the sayagery of feud.
In his leisure hours he was not stranger
to literature and the pen. He read and he
wrote. He gave us through our county pa
per, paragraphs upon natural and human
law, upon the principles of Democracy and
upon philenthropic legislation. The ''labor
problem" engaged him and he wrote as the
friend of the working classes.
He was citizen, but not of the Roman
type in the days of her degeneracy, when
patriotism was dead and the freeman was
warned to the polls under penalty of death.
He had a citizens cons ,ience, for he was
| heard to say, in his first address upon local
option, 81 would give a thousand dollars, If
had il, to be free from the conviction that
| 1t is my duty to stand in this temple of JUS
| tice (the CONTINUOUSLY and talk to my fellow
citizens upon this ISSUE" His influence was
felt in the politics of our county and State.
| At his fathers fireside he learned the prin-
ciples of Democracy, and when he reached
| independently of thought he became Demo
f,.n, hi
office was to be filled, it must be given to the
best man in the party. Ii men were to be
entrusted with office on account of mere
neighborly feeling, q wish-you-well senti-
ment, then there must be an end of the safe
conduct of public affairs. Though a patri-
otto citizen in politics, it was not love of con-
| test, but it was duty that was his spur.
With other lovers of the public veal, who
fam would shun the strife and roar of battle,
he heard within his breast:
"Oh, for lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumor of oppression and deceit,
OF unsuccessful or successful war
| Might never reach me more"
He was churchman. He had fondness
for theology. If he had all the while retain
ed the fai h Of his youth he might have been
added to the number of the ministry. In
youth he broke away from the Christian
faith and entered the tread-mill OF Panthe-
ism, where he made the weary, sunless round
of transmigration and fatalism. Later he
| found more comfort IN Deism, with its per-
sonal God and personal immortality. But
the morality of both these systems was not
pure enough, not positive enough. He found
that while waiting for TRANSPORTATION into
the heaven of pantheism or entrance into
the I.know- not-what state-of desm, that
one may easily drift into heartless ruin here
below. He found reason enough for be.
coming churchman. In thought he said
| what johnson, the photographer, said in
words: "To be of no church is dangerous.
Religion, of which the rewards are distant
and which Is animated only by faith and
hope, will glide by degrees out of mind, un.
less it be invigorated and reimpressed by
external ordinances, by stated calls to wor-
ship and the statutory influence of example"
Mr.. Walker found at last all that could be
desired, as to form, in the ordinances of the
Christian faith to which he returned, and all
imitable goodness in the example of Him
who is both God and man.
| Until yesterday, our fellow citizen, law
yer, churchman, friend-go, if thou wilt, to a
sweeter vintage from the vine of time; go,
and forget US, if thou canst! but let us not
| forget thee.
| $50! forget us; why should sorrow
| O'er thy brow a shadow fling?
| Go! forget us, and to- morrow
| Brightly smile and sweetly sing
Smile, though we shall not be near thee,
Sing, though we shall never hear thee"
HIS FRIENDS.