Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1897-03-31
NO. l6.

man, II pauperizel ana iiiOtlc 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
OF him only by armed constables. VINO
would volunteer TO be his counsel? No
attorney wanted to sacrifice his popularity
by such an ungrateful task. All were silent
save one-a young lawyer with feeble voice
that could hardly be heard outside the bar,
pale and thin and awkward. 1t WAS William
II. Seward, who saw that the prisoner WAS
idiotic and irresponsible and ought to be put
in an asylum rather than put to death
the heroic counsel uttering these beautiful
words:
II speak now in the hearing OF a people
who have prejudged prisoner and con-
demned me for pleading in his behalf. He
Is a convict, pauper, negro, without intel
lect, sense or emotion. My child with an
affectionate smile disarms my careworn face
OF its frown whenever L cross my threshold.
The beggar in the street obliges me to give
because he says. God bless your as / pass.
My dog caresses me with fondness IL | will
but smile on him. My horse recognizes me
when flll his manger. What reward, what
gratitude, what sympathy and affec-
tion can L expect here? There the pris-
Oner sits. Look at him. Look at the assem-
blags around you. Listen TO their i'll sup
pressed censures and their excited fears and
tell me where among my neighbor5 or my
fellow men, where even in his heart eau
expect to find a sentiment, n thought. not to
say of reward or of acknowledgment, or
even of recognition? GentIemen you may
think OF this evidence what you please,
bring in what verdict you can, but l assev-
crate before heaven and you that. to the
best of my knowledge aud belief, the pris-
oner at the bar does not at this moment
know why it is that nv shadow falls on you
instead of his own"
The gallow5 got its victim, but the post
mortem examination of the poor creature
showed to all the surgeons and to all the
world that the public was wrong that Will
lam Ii. Seward was right and that hard,
stony step of obloquy in the Auburn court
room was the first step of the stairs of fame
up which he went to the top, or to within
one step of the top, that last denied him
through the treachery of American politics.
Nothing subimer was ever seen in an Amer
lean courtroom than William II. Seward,
without reward, standing between the fury
of the populace and the loathsome imbeciie.
Substitution!
In the realm of the fine arts there was as
remarkable an instance. A brilliant but
hypercriticised painter. Joseph William
Turner, was met by a volley of abuse from
all the art galleries of Europe His paint
in-S. which have since won the applause OF
all civilized nations-"The Fifth Plague OF
Egypt" 'Fishermen on a Les Shore In
Sdually Weather" " "Calas Pier" The Sun
Rising Through Mist" AMI "Dido Building
Carthage" then targets for critics
to shoot at. in defense of this out.
rageously abusei man "a young author OF
twenty-four Years, just one year out OF
college, came forth with his pen and
wrote the ablest and most famous essay.
on art that the world ever saw or ever
will see-John Ruskin's "Modern Pain
ters For seventeen years this author
fought the battles of the maltreated artist,
and after, in poverty and broken hearted
naintar had Iigl AM nub Ia
tried to undo their crueties toward him by
giving him big funeral aud burial In st.
Paul's cathedral. his old-tims friend took
out of tin box l9 200 pieces Of paper con-
tanning drawings by the old painter, and
through many weary and uncompensated
months assorted and arranged them for pub
lie observation. People say John Ruskin
in his old days Is cross. misaIthropic and
morbid. Whatever he may do that he ought
not to do, and whatever hn may say that he
ought not to say between now and his DEATH
he will leave this world insolyent as far as
it has any capacity to pay this authors pen
for lis chivaric and Christian defense of
poor painters pencil John liuskin for VIII
lam Turner. Blood for blood. Substitution
All good men have for centuries been try
ing to tell whom this substitute was like.
and every comparison, inspired anl unin-
spired, evangelstic, prophetic, apostolic AMI
human falls short, for Christ was the Great
Unlike. Adam II type nf Christ. because Re
came directly from Col. Noah type of
Christ. because he deiivere his own family
from hedeuge; Melchisedeca n type OF Christ,
because he had no pre- tecessor or successor,
Joseph type of Christ. because he was
cast out by his brethren, Moses a type OF
Christ, because he was deiverer from bond
age; Samson II type of Christ. because of his
strength to slay the lions ami carry off the
iron gates of lmposSibility; solomon "a type
of Christ in the atIiuence of his dominion,
II
sea in which he threw himself for the rescue
of others. But put together Adam and Noah
and Melchiseiec an 1 Joseph and Moses and
Joshua and Samson and solomon and Jonah,
and they would not make Il fragment Of
Christ, a quarter of a Christ. the half of
Christ or the millionth part Of Christ.
He forsook throne and sat down on His
own fooistool He came from the top of
glory to the bottom of humiliation and
changet Il circumference seraphic for n
circumference diabolic. On ,e waited on by
angels, now hissei at by the brigands
From afar and high up He came down; past
meteors swifter than they; by starry thrones,
Himself mere lustrous, past larger worlds to
smaller worlds; down stairs of ornaments.
and from cloud TO cloud and through tree
Gops aud into the cRmel's stall, to thrust His
shoulder under our burdens and take the
lances of pain through His vitals, and
wrapped Himself in all the agonies which we
deserve for our misdoings and stool on he
splitting decks of laundering vessel ii mid
the drenching surf of the sea and passed
midnighIs on the mountains amid wild
beasts of prey and stood Mt the point where
all earthly and Internal hostilities charged
on Him at once with their keen sabres-our
Substituted
When did attorney ever endure so much
for pauper client or physician for the pa
tient in the lazaretto or mother for the child
in membranous Group, as Christ for us, as
Christ for you, as Christ for me? Shall any
man or woman or child ia this audience who
has ever suffered for another find it hard To
understand this Christy suffering for usa
Shall those whose sympathie5 have been
wrung in behalf of the unfortunate have no
appreciation OF that one moment which was
lifted out OF all the ages OF eternity most
conspicuous, when Christ gathered up all
the sins of those to be redeemed under His
one arm, and all his sorrows under His
other arm and said Il will atone for these
under Ny right arm ami will heal all those
uuder My left arm. Strike Me with all thy
glitteriny shafts, o eternal justice! Roll
over Me with ali thy surges, ye oceans OF
sorrow,' An! the thunierbOitS struck Him
from above and the seas of trouble rolled
up from beneath, hurricane after hurricane,
and cyclone after cyclone, and then and
there in the presence OF heaven and earth
and hell--yea, all worlds witnessing
price, the bitter price, the transcendent price,
the awful price, tho glorious price, the in
finite price. the eternal price, was paid that
vets Us free
A man hurts himself more In III:
wife's esJima by being brutal to
other people than he does by being
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