The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-12-07

I
he loved to declare and to describe.
These were the sources of his faith ia
the triumph of good over evil. These
were the roots Of his convictions and
of his working creed. He had fight
ing faith in Almighty God and his in
finite resources. 1t was this faith
which made his heart so strong and
his sword -thrusts so trenchant.
There is yet another word which
helps to outline DR.. Miners character
and describe it's salient traits. 1t is
the word Duty. To him conscience
was authoritative, supreme and final.
Every truth had its moral bearing and
had to do with conduct. Faith in
volved works, and pointed invariably
to deeds. 1t would be almost impos
sible for those of us who knew him
even to imagine him in the act of
Sinking a duty, or of evading re-
sponsibility. When his conscience
uttered the solemn word sought"
that ended the matter. He turned at
once to do according to his abilities
the thing he was called to do. If he
had his hesitancies or his rebellions, if
he ever tried to avoid the thing which
conscience ordained, if he ever sought
to escape it by running away, he GER
tainly kept the fact concealed and no
man outside his closest friends was
aware of it; for prompt to the hour
and the moment, he appeared at the
rendezvous of duty. He and bis task
were never seeking each other. He
always found the thing he ought to
do, and what he ought to do always
found him.
1t has been common to think and
to speak of him as man run in the
mold of a military character, a type of
/, the soldier. There was indeed much
about him to justify the comparison.
He had the soldiers courage and his
ardor in combat, and the insight
which clears as the smoke of battle
thickens. He had the heroic qualities
which in a more martial age would
have laughed at wounds, and courted
the perils of the charge, and always
kept his face to the foe. Even his
form had all the attributes of the
warrior, and to see that graceful fig
ure in the saddle, was to be irresisti-
bly, reminded of Won Moltke, of
Wellington, or of Washington him
self. But chief of all the traits which
suggested the soldier, deeper than
the martial bearing and the heroic
mold and the brave heart and the
zeal for the combat, was his loyalty to
duty. That, after all, is the under
lying granite of the warriors nature;
and that was the basis of his charac-
ter. 1t was revealed in the loyalty
with which he followed his convic-
tons, and enlisted in the service of
a despised and suspected church and
fought her battles and shared her
fortunes and Jared with her "for
better or for worse" 1t appeared in
the courage and ardor with which he
espoused the cause of temperance,
mourning all the sneers and the re-
sistances and the enmities which
that long warfare brought upon him.
1t echoed in those last faint words,
whose failing whisper was like the
exhortation of the dying King Arthur,
'Tell the brethren to be faithful"
No man ever had better right to
send that dying challenge of con-
science to consciencei 1t was s'the
ruling passion, strong in death"
For fidelity was in his very blood.
1t was his meat and drink to do the
will of his Lord. He had lived by
that watchword himself. He might
we'll lay the charge upon the hearts
of others.
For it was this fidelity which 80
often drove him from the side of the
men he loved and honored, whose
companionship and sympathy would
have been as dear to him as to any
man. He could sooner break with
! those whom he would fain have had
as comrades and friends than he could
break with duty. That was the whole
matter in a word. That was what
led him to head forlorn hopes against
the citadels of evil. That was what
sent him ahead of his generation in
theories of social order and efforts
for human veal. That was what won
the hate of the vicious, the wrath of
the narrow-minded, the dull resist
ance of the bigots of ignorance and
loose morality. That, too, was what
made him seem to the young men
whose loyalty he had won, a bright
and shining incarnation of the sol
dier's fidelity and the apostles zeal,
Al