Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-09-05

From the Brooklyn Eagle.
The Grafton of Mr.. Robert Ingersoll at the
funeral of Horace Seaver, late editor of the
Investigator and president of the. Paine Me-
mortal Association hall of Boston, was not so
glowing in its periods nor SO happy in its met
aphor as some of the previous efforts of that
distinguished gentleman. Much is expected
OF Mr.. Ingerson on occasions of this kind for
however much people may disagree with him
as an apostle of free thought, there is invari-
ably beauty and pathos in his remarks which
render them worthy of careful perusal. The
GRAFTON at the Seaver obsequies does not attain
the level of that delivered at the funeral of
Courtlandt Palmer, but the keynote Of both
efforts was Identical
How little Of this life We know-this struggling
way Oh lie 'twlxt gloom and gloom, this strip Of
land by verdure clad between the unknown
wastes, this throbbing moment filed with love and
pain, this dream that lies between the shadowy
shores of sleep and DEATH We stand upon this
disappear Again We mngle with the dust and
the knot in trinsecate" forever falls apart
There is nothing here to indicate the slightest
departure from the doctrine which Mr.. Inger-
soil has SO consistently upheld and stubbornly
maintained. I'VE stand" he says, upon the
verge of crumbling time; we love, we hope, we
disappear" 1t is all darkness. But turning to
another portion of his address, that in which
he dwells upon the qualities of his departed
friend, we find the highest tribute to the spirit
the believer would call the soul Here are some
of his words:
Mr. Seaver did not belong TO the tribe to the
n alton, but TO the human race. His sympathy
was wide as want and like the sky bent a bove the
suffering world. This man had that superb thing
which We call moral courage. courage in Its high
est form. lie tested the past by the now
and judged of all the men and races of the world
by those he knew. He believed in religion of free
thought and good deed-of character, OF sincerity
OF honest endeayor, of cheerful hope, of sympa-
thy-and above all in the religion of love and hb-
erty-in a religion for every day, for the world in
which iive for the present; the religion Of roof
ual hospitahty-the religion that gives health and
happiness freedom and content-in the religion
of work and In the ceremonies Of honest labor.
lie lived for this world: II there be another he
will live for that
Thus it will be observed that what appealed
most keenly to the fervor of the orator was
precisely that which all men have in common
a better or spiritual nature-and not superior
intelligence or great mental achievement or
any Of the things which commonly win renown.
The simple and generous instincts which he
found in his friend move him far more than all
other things combined, and if he fail to attribute
to him the aspiration and faith Of the humbiest
Christian the picture in other respects is so
complete that it is doing violence to the mind
to suppose that this one element could be want
ing. II Mr. 1ngersoll really hopes to make
converts to the philosophy OF darkness it is in
cumbent upon him to be more discriminating
and less lavish in his praises. For the more
freely he imbues his heroes with the highest
attributes of human nature--the more gener-
ously he endows them with qualities pleasing
in the sight of the Master-the more loath il
mankind TO believe that the end il here.