The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-04-22

Of my knowledge and belief the prison.
er at the bar does not at this moment
know why it is that my shadow falls
on you instead of his own"
The gallows 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
were wrong and William H. Seward
was right, and that hard, stony step of
obloquy in the Auburn courtroom 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 sublimer was ever
seen in an American court room than
William H. Seward, without reward,
standing between the furious %populace
and the loathsome imbecile. Substitu-
ton!
In the realm Of the fine arts there
was as remarkable an instance. A
brilliant but unprecedented painter,
Joseph William Turner, was met by a
vOlley Of abuse from all the art gale
ries of Europe. His paintings, which
have since won the applause of all civ
ilized nations, "The Fifth Plague of
Egypt" "Fishermen on a Lee Shore in
| Squaly Weather" calais Pier" "The
Sun Rising Through Mist" and Dido
Building Carthage" were then targets
for critics to shoot at. In defense of
this o~utrageously abused man, a young
author of "a years, just one year out of
college, came forth with his pen, and
| rr,ro%1 +I@ 4I1o~4 49, oo,,~ ~
say on art that the world ever saw or
ever will see-John Ruskin's Modern
Painters" For seventeen years this
author fought the battles of the NAL
treated artist and after, in poverty and
broken heartedness, the painter had
died and the public tried to undo their
cruelties toward him by giving him a
big funeral and burial in st. PauPS
cathedral, his old time friend took out
of a tin box 10000 pieces of paper con-
tanning drawings by the old painter,
n through many weary and uncom-
| pensated months assorted them for
| public observation. People say John
| Ruskin in his old day is cross, nissan
| thropic and morbidWhatever he may do
| hat he ought not to do and whatever
he may say that he ought not to say
between now and his death, he will
leave this world insolvent as far as it
has any capacity to pay this authors
| pen for it's chivalric and Christian de-
| tense of a poor painters pencil. John
Ruskin for William Turner! Blood for
blood! Substitution!
SUFFERING FOR ANOTHER.
What an exalting principle this
| which leads one to suffer for another!
| Nothing so kindles enthusiasm or
awakens %eloquence, or chimes poetic
canto, or moves nations. The principle
is the dominant one in our religion
| Christ the martyr, Christ the celestial
| hero, Christ the defender, Christ the
substitute. No new principle, for it
! was old as human, but now on a grand
| er, wider, higher, deeper and more
world resounding scale. The shepherd
| boy as a companion for Israel with a
| sling toppled the giant of Philistine
| braggadocio in the dust, but here is an
| other David, who for all the armies OF
| churches militant and triumphant
! hurls the Goliath of perdition into de-
! feat. the crash of his braZen armOr like
| an explosion at He'll Gate. Abraham
! had at Gods command agreed to sacri-
| flee his son Isaac, and the same God
| Just in time had provided a ram OF the
| thicket as a substitute, but there is an
! other Isaac bound to the altar, and no
| hand arrests the sharp edges of lacera-
| ton and death, and the universe shlv-
| ers, and quakes, and recoils, and groans
at the horror.
All good men have for centuries been
| trying to tell whom this substitute was
like, and every comparison. inspired
| and uninspired, evangelistic, prophetic,
apostolic and human, falls short, Tor
Christ was the Great Unlike. Adam
| a type of Christ, because he came di-
! rectly from God; Noah a type OF
! Christ, because he delivered his own
| family from deluge; Melchisedec a
| type of Christ, because he had no pre-
decessor or successor; Joseph a type OF
Christ because he was cast out by his
| brethren; Moses a type of Christ, be-
cause hewas a deliverer from bandage;
J Joshua a type of Christ, because he was
! a conQueror; Samson a type OF Christ,
| because of his strength to slay the
| lions and carry OFF the iron gates OF
impossibility; Solomon a type OF
|sChrist, in the affluence of his domin-
| ion; Jonah a type of Christ, because OF
| the stormy sea in which he threw him
self for the rescue of others, but put
| together Adam, and Noah, and Melchi-
| sedec, and Joseph, and Moses, and
| Joshua, and Samson, and Solomon, and
Jonah, and they would not make a
fragment of. a Christ, a quarter OF a
| Christ, the half of a Christ, of the mill
| lionth mart of a Christ
He forsook a throne and sat down on
| his own footstool. He came from the
| top of glory to the bottom of humilia-
| ton and changed a circumference Sc
| raphic for a circumference diabolic.
| Once waited IN by angels, now Kissed
| at by brigands. From afar and high
| up he came down; past meteors swifter
| thar they; by starry thrones, himself
more lustrous; past larger worlds to
| smaller worlds; down stairs of firma-
| ments, and from cloud to cloud, and