The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-05-24

Minister to Spain, wrote of him: THE
| people of this country, amid all the vii
ification that has been heaped upon his
head, recognize in that name the great
est orator and most illustrious genius
who has ever served his country" H
said: THE people love and follow be-
cause they have unquestioning and un-
stinted confidence in his sincerity and
integrity, his want Of self-seeking. his
diCinterestedness. He dares to
array himself against the demands Of
the hour. to stand up, if alone. for the
right and the just and the enduring"
DR.. Curry wrote that after a close
study of Gladstone in his own country.
If we had space and time. we would
delight to make a survey of his chief
performances in craftsmanship and
oratory, and in theology and literature,
(for he wrote and published enough for
| any literary man not burdened with the
affairs and cares of state), but we must
hasten to a close of this rapidly written
article-a tiny leaf laid before his
mighty name. If we ever loved in our
heart any men we never saw in the
flesh it was Tennyson and Gladstone,
men of the highest gifts and of the
most inspiring and impressive person
atty. They were as pure and noble
and great in soul as they were in gen.
Jus. 1t would be an inviting task to
make a critical study of Gladstone's
exalted oratory and mortal makeup.
Although so great an orator-with abso-
lutely the most wonderful voice of the
century-he dealt but little in tropes
and figures. He did not seek to be
imaginative and rich in his rhetoric as
was the great Burke. He even lacked
simplicity owing to his excessive sub
tility and refining. But he was beyond
all fair question the very greatest ora
tor of his long career, unless John
Bright shall be excepted, who sought
more than Gladstone the adornments
of speech. He had what no other
statesman seemed to have, a high spir-
itual power, a decided preponderance
of the moral element which traversed
his whole character and formed his life,
his thinking, his action. There was a
robust nature in him-a genuine seam
"of primitive granite"
He was learned, vastly read, a stu
dent, an observer, a philosopher. He
was critic, essayist, statesman, orator,
practical administrator, financier Gore
most of alp a master of all details
without a rival, intensely Industrious,
consumingly in earnest, with wide, most
varied versatility. His library amount
ed to more than 10000 volumes, and he
was a great reader almost to the very
end He had a reputation for personal
honor that no malignant can ever as
sail. Thrice he declined an Earldom
and died plain Mr.. Gladstone, the
greatest of all COmmoners. We have
before us what John Stuart Mill and
Chamberlain, n job Morley and j.
A. Froude and John Bright and other
said of him. We give but one-what
his great rival in oratory, said to a
lady who was abusing Gladstone, HAS
your son ever seen Mr.. Gladstone?'
no" she aid "Then take him at
once to see the greatest Englishman he
is eve likely to look upOn.' He loved
music, (played WELD loved the arts, HI
loved his home, and he might have aid
in Leigh Hunts happy line
Write me then
AS one who loves his fellow men,"
Nc man was ever blessed with a purer,
better, nObler wife-"a help meet" to
him indeed. Alas! alas! 1.-The silver
cord" Of the great mans life is broken,
but all is we'll, for Ibis heaven COM
menced ere the world be past" For
him, in the early hour of Wednesday it
was "the dawn of the morning" while
to his dear good wife and children it
was "the solemn good night" The
grandest of men who through so long
a pilgrimage kept the whiteness of his
soul" will live forever Gin fame though
not in life" The great statesman now
reposes in peace and rest in the bosom
of the Father.