The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-10-15
oliver Wendell Holmes.

THE audience at the theatre CONT
fortablv filled the lower floor to near
the lecture on DR.. Oliver Wendell
Holmes. The service opened with ms
Sunday hymn beginning, Lord OF aa
heing throned affair."" and many selec-
tions of prose and poetry were read.
The chief points of Mr.. Utters olS-
course were the following:
First-His versatility. DR.. tonnes
was a man of science, as well as OF
literature; was a teacher ana pracIl-
tioner of medicine. He invented the
hand stereoscope, thus bringing what
had been an expensive instrument into
the hands of everybody, but he gave
AZ ia the world, not obtaining patent.
He wrote poetry and prose with equal
facility, and in his essays touched a
thousand subjects in such a way as
to win all hearts.
Second-His kindness. There IS a
human quality about all that Holmes
has written, that disarms all opposl-
ton. AS Curtis said of Emerson, his
was not the stroke Of the trip-hammer
that skaters, but the touch Of the sum
beam that melGs. He seems never to
have forgotten any possible reader. II
is as though he had asked himself now
each thought that he expressed would
strike a child, a philosopher, woman
in sorrow, and so on, till he had
thought of all and so shaped his eX-
preston as TO give never more offense
than truth demanded.
Third-As a poet his reputation was
made long ago. In 1929, just after his
graduation from Harvard, he wrote
the verses that hallowed the frigate
Constitution The Last Leaf, TO an
Insect" and others followed, and many
of his shorter pieces had a way OF
clinging in the memory and nesting III
the heart that soon placed their author
among the best loved, If not the great
est, of American poets He might have
shone more brightly had he not APP
peared with that brilliant company that
have been now for half a century the
glory of American literature. Holmes,
Emerson. Longfelfow, Bryant, Whit
tier, these are our greatest names, and
now the Last Leaf has fallen! Wing VIII
take their places? No one. Such Is
not the way of nature. The present Is
not and is not to be an era OF htera-
ture It is a period of science, OF IN
vention, Of study and experiment III
sociology, and in these directions our
greatest minds will be called, on such
fields our greatest triumphs won.
In religion, Holmes. as well as Long
fellow. Lowell, Bryant and Emerson
was a Unitarian. In his life he was
greatly beloved, and we feel like say
| ing, if he was not great man. he was
better. than great.
| The announcement was made thai
the next Sundays service would com
memorate the life and character OF
Prof. David Swing, of Chicago. The
following hymn Of trust by DR.. Holmes
was sung:
HYMN.
! o love divine that stopped to share
Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear
| On thee we cast each earth-born ca q,
We smile at pain while thou art ncar
| Though long the weary way we tread,
And sorrow crown each lingering year
No path we sliun, no darkness dread,
Our hearts still whispering, thou ar
near!
When dropping pleasure turns to grief,
And trembling faith is changed to fear
The murmuring wind, the quivering lea
Shall softly tell us thou art near.
On thee we fling our burdening woe,
o love divine. forever dear,
| Content to suffer while we know
Living and dying, thou art near.