Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1892-09-08

tune Persons in positions to know say
that he was worth fully 800, 900, well
invested, and that his late annual in
come three or four times exceeded his ex-
penses.
A consistent Friend through life, his
creed was always of the broadcast and
highest. Many persons think that the
Friends have some distinctive creed of
their own but they have not The
founders of the society did not claim to
have discovered any new truth. Their
aim was to establish a change in man
ners rather than in belief, and to per-
suade men to live us the early Christians
lived. Members of the society do not
subscribe, on joining it, to any specific
articles of faith. They simply accept
Christianity, according to Protestant
ism, i'll its spirit and purity, as a com
plete guide in this life and to the life
hereafter. They hold that every man is
sufficiently endowed with divine light
and grace to distinguish good from evil,
and to correct his corrupt propensities;
that he can not, except through the
spirit inwardly revealed, enhance the
glory of God or effect his own salvation.
They have no ministers i'll the ordinary
sense and no pulpits. Any member of
either sex is entitled to speak at the
meetings if he or she feel the inward
promptings. They are without ritual,
ceremonies, regular form of prayer or
formal. or methodic preaching. Eut
they have always been noted for strict
honesty, purity and all moral practices.
Whittier lived SO very long that the
opinions of his contemporaries during
the past thirty years concerning his lit
erary WORK may be regarded rs the YER
dict of posterity. AS his reputation
grew steadily with his years, it is fair to
presume that his posthumous fame will
continue to increase. Beginning as
young man to sing of the wrongs of an
enslaved race, and continuing it for
nearly generation, his strain was earn
est and impassioned, ever simple, rich
and strong. The inspiration of his muse
sprang froil his compassion for an OPP
pressed people. and his broad, deep hu
manity fired him to the last. Despite
his age, his verse, after eighty, never fall
tered or hmped; 1t was as clear, vigor-
Gus and fervid as in his prime-a another
proof that poets are always young.
whittier's Poetry.
Whittier's poetry is remarkable for
its sustained power. His early work is
not thin or callow any more than his
late work is flaocid or senile. He was
eminently u full man. His subjects
came to him; he did not go in search of
them; and when they came they wooed
him or forced him into loving express
sion. Hence he was always adequate to
his task; the line responded TO his
thought and feeling.
To read his poems any one would
think him facile writer, but he was
net. He never composed easily, and
continued practice did not tend to make
him fluent. Unlike many authors, he
did not try TO conceA the great pains
that expression had cost him from youth
to old age.
MY own language he often said,
''seems at times foreign tome Words will
not come Mt my command; they elude
me when ! want them most; the word,
the one and only word, particularly. |
have frequently ransacked my brain,
tortured my memory for hours, before
could run down the sole word that
would exactly serve. | hope that the
labor spent on my poems Is not appar-
emit. If ID were, | doubt If any body
would or could read them.
This confession shows him 10 have