The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1897-03-27

breadth, and depth, and height of the
anguish of the northern and southern
battle fields. Why did these fathers
leave their children and go to the
front, and why did these young men,
postponing the marriage day, start out
into the probabilities of never coming
back? For the country they died,
Life for life. Blood for blood. Sub,
stitution!
But we need not go SO far. What is
that monument in Greenwood? 1t Is
to the doctors who fell in the southern
epidemics. Why go? Were there not
enough sick to be attended in these
northern ATTITUDES? Oh. yes; but the
doctor puts a few medical books in HE
~valise. and some phials of medicine,
and leaves his patients in h hands OF
other physicians, and. takes the rail
train. Before he gets to the infected
regions he passes crowded rail trains,
regular and extra, taking the flying and
affrighted populations. He arrives in
a city over which "a great horror is
brooding. He goes from couch tC
couch, feeling of the pulse and study
ing the symptoms, and prescribing day
after day, night after night, unit a
fellow physician says, doctor, you
had better go home and rest; you look
miserable" But he cannot rest while
so many are suffering. On and
On, until some morning finds him
in a delirium, in which he talks
of home, and then rises and says he
must go and look after those patients.
He is told to lie down; but he fights
his attendants until he falls back, and
is weaker and weaker, and dies for
people with whom he had no kinship,
and far away from his w family, and
is hastily put away in a strangers
tomb, and only the fifth part of news
paper line tells us of his sacriice-his
name just mentioned among ave Yet
he has touched the furthest height of
sublimity in that three weeks of hui
ma%nitarian service He goes straight
as an arrow to the bosom of Him who
said: Il was sick and we visited me-"
Life for life. Blood for blood. Sub
stitution!
In the legal profession | see the same
principle of s~elf-sacrifice. In 1916,
William Freeman, a pauperized and
idiotic negro, was at Auburn, N. Y,
on trial for murder. He had slain
the entire Van Nest family. The foam
ing wrath of the community could be
kept off him only by armed constables.
Who would volunteer to be his counsel?
No attorney wanted to sacrifice his
popularity by such an ungrateful task.
All were silent a W one, a young law
yer with feeble voice, that could hard
ly be heard outside the bar, pale and
thin and awkward. 1t was William
Ii N-u. IL Al.A a. -.s~-2-
was idiotic and irresponsible. and
ought to be put in an asylum rather
than put to death, the heroic council
uttering these beautiful words:
Il speak now in the hearing of a peo-
pie who have prejudged prisoner and
condemned me for pleading in his be-
half. He is a convict, q pauper, a
negro, without intellect, sense or emo
tion. My child with an affectionate
smile sarms my care-worn face of its
frown whenever | cross my threshold.
beggar in the street obliges me to
give because he says, God bless your
as 1 pass. My dog caresses me with
fondness if / will but smile on him.
My horse recognizes me when | fill his
manger. What reward, what graft
tude, what sympathy and affection can
expect here? There the prisoner sits.
Look at him. Look at the assemblage
you. Listen to their ill-sup-
pressed and their excited
fears, and tell me where among my
or my fellow-men, where,
in his heart, l ear expect to find
a sentiment, u thought, not to say of
or of acknowledgment, or eve
of recognition? Gentlemen, you may
think of this evidence what you please,
bring in what verdict you can, but |
before Heaven and you.
that, to the best of my knowledge and
the prisoner at the bar does
not at this moment know why it is
that my shadow falls on you instead of
mis- own"
The gallows got it's victim, but the
mortem examination of the poor
showed to all the surgeons
md to all the world that the public
vas wrong. hat William II. Seward
was right, and that hard, stony step of
The Auburn court room was the first
step of the stairs of fame up which he
to the top, or to within one step
If the top. that last denied him through
he treachery of American politics.
Nothing sublimer was ever seen in an
American court room than William III.
without reward, standing be-
ween the fury of the populace and the
oathsOme imbecile. Substitution!
What an exalting principle this
which leads one to suffer for anptherl
SO kindles enthusiasm or
e~loquence, or chimes poetic
anto, or moves nations. The prinsi-
lie is the dominant one in our religion
Christ the Martyr, Christ the celes-
ial Hero, Christ the Defender, Christ
he Substitute. No new principle, for
t was as old as human nature; but now
N a grauder, wider, higher. deeper
nd more understanding scalel The
hepherd boy as a champion for Israel
With a sling toppled the giant of
.hilistine braggadocio in the dust;
1ut here is another David who,
all the armies Of churches
and triumphant, hurls the
of perdition into defeat, the
of his braZen armor like an ex-
at He'll Gate. Abraham had at
command agreed to sacrifice his
on Isaac, and the same God just in
ime had provided a ram of the thicket
~ u Ohb hSAS Al oAAONAAC
saac bound to the altar, and 10 hand
rrests the sharp edges of la~ceration
nd death, and the universe shivers
nd quakes and recoils and groars at
he horror.
All good men have for centuries been
rying to tell whom this substitute
Vas lilte. and every comparison, in
pired or uninspired, eVangelistic, pra=
apostolic, and human, falls
hort. for Christ was the Great Unlike.
Idam Il type of Christ. because he came
Iirect from God; Noah u type of
because he delivered his own
amily from the deluge; Melchisedec u
ype of Christ, because he had no pre-
lecessor; Joseph a type of Christ, be-
ause he was cast out by his brethren;
loses a type of Christ, because he was
deliverer from bondage; Samson
type of Christ, because of his strength
o Stay the lions and carry off the iron
-ates of impossibility; Solomon a type
# Christ, in the affiuence of his domin-
on; Jonah r type of Christ, because OF
he stormy sea in which he threw him
for the rescue of others; but put
ogether Adam and Noah and Meehise.
lee and Joseph and Moses and Joshua
nd Samson and Solomon and Jonah,
nd they would not make u fragment