The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-06-26
THE LATE LUTHER BENSON.

To the Editor of the Indianapolis Journal:
The death of this remarkable man removes
a hero from the battlefield of life after
long, sad and bitter fight against the
worlds most deadly foe. In this battle the
hero both lost nd won. He saved thou
sands but never was able to carry himself
beyond the fiend whose touch is death. In
a strange yet beautiful way he used his own
suffering to enchant and lead others beyond
the valley of misery, where an appetite for
rum was forever, leading him. At times
Mr.. Benson would reach the most exalted
beatitudes of faith and hope and the glory
of redemption through love and patience,
and, for the time being, he stood bodied
forth alone, divinely inspired; but again with
the outfowing tide he drifted as a helpless
wreck, tempest and tempter tossed.
This two-fold life emanated from two
fold being, one in whom two great ex-
tremes met. The base of his brain was wide
massive and heavy, giving the possessor, as
l told him twenty-five years ago, appetites
that would call for eternal vigilance and
courage to overcome. He also possessed
great breadth of intellect matchless de-
scriptive powers, extraordinary love Of the
sublime, grand and beautiful; and from his
heart flowed river of human kindness.
Whom Benson could not love the gods them
selves would hate. When circumstances
and conditions awoke Luther Bensons bet
ter self-his beneYoleEce, his veneration, his
ideality-he burst forth in strains of ora
tory seldom equaled in any age. He then
rose above his kind, as the Sierras above
the valley, and lowered alone in the mag
nlheent glory of a Starlit hope. He then
became an orator. q philosopher and poet.
When this was over, plauditS ended and
the curtain rung down, the demons of appe-
tite for drink stalked abroad to wave the
torch of hell above a defenseless head.
Luther Benson was responsible for his good
and glorious works. The licensing of the
rum traffic was responsible for his depart
ing from the way of Sobriety. His higher
and better self lacked the steady and contin-
uous power TO govern, guide and direct his
other self. Temptation, with the sanction
or the state, threw open wide the door; he
entered but to bewail and curse his lot. The
time may come will come, when this noble,
generous, moving man. who always strove
for the good and always suffered the evil
will pass up the broad, white love-lit way of
peace to hear, well done, thou good and
faithful servant" while those who grew
rich by spreading temptation will go out
into the eternal darkness and torments, that
their traffic brought in fitful dreams for a
short time to him. The State that licenses
wrong invites its own destruction. He who
profits by it barters the peace of his soul
for the gold of anothers purse.
Luther Benson is no more. We will not
hear again those wonderful words of love,
nor see the tears of suffering on his kind
face, but we can remember him as one of
earths kindest and Saddast children, and
likewise one of its grandest, noblest men.
His shadows have passed; his temptation is
over. No more will the night of tempta-
ton break through the golden bar of day.
His better self has found the sun-kissed isle
that lies far beyond the shores of rum
Indianapoiis Ind lime o.