The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1898-06-13
PULPIT EDITORIALS.
,.,,,ered by DIR. Frank Crane at Indian
ola, Ia, Sunday, June LIZ
,,pp LESSONS FROM GLADSTONE.
copyrighted. 1881

w can die without leaving many
tue.s, hints to thoughtful youth.
,r''ather such a man be good or bad,
80 ar a Cincinnatus, carefui study
shts career will well repay the student
u u saaks for landmarks that may
- him 10 usefulness or enable him
eayoid catastrophe. And perhaps few
e,,,,res have ever appeared upon the
20 of history that, so signally as the
,ote English leader, have combined the
- elements of human grandeur with
,he unmistakable ingredients OF human
fraty.
NJ not all of the great minister's deeds
"a motives can we unqualihedly APP
roya He was indeed grand man,
"a his faults were of the same kingly
nonortions as were his virtues. But
.of the dead let us speak nothing but
GOOD" To the very presence OF the
things we condemn in him he doubtless
n,,ed much of his efficiency. For his
orrors were those of the British pub
lie He was near the people, ~ true
sense a retresentative man. His early
ssareer manifested all that stolid con-
servatism and that egotistic faculty fer
clothing pernicious rooted popular evils
IN the garments of plausibility. that are
Characteristic of the people among
whom he lived. Had he not begun his
public life as g champion ot human
Slavery Of protection and or the ex-
IRENE views of the state-church. he
would never have been hader at all.
Had he not possessed the dangerous
art of clothing public issues by his ma
iestc yet often meaningless rhetoric
he could not have commanded a fol-
lowing among those who knew as little
as he about the questions. but lacked
his calm assumption of knowledge.
And yet here, perhaps, Is the first
great quality to be mentioned in his
character He was always sincere. In
his youthful narrowness as in his later
liberalism. in his strenuous efforts at
one time to impose the establishment
of the Anglican church in Ireland as
in his later efforts at disesta blishment,
in his speeches for protection as in his
arguments at another time for free
dom of trade, no one has ever serious
ly considered him to be acting a part,
no one has successfully attributed TO
him sordid motives. The test of sim
cerity is thus shown to be, not the per-
sistent holding on to an opinion we
have once declared, merely because we
have declared it. but the bold and
frank avowa Of a change Of view when
We have come to see the error of that
which we formerly maintained.
Consistency" says Emerson, "ls the
hobgoblin of little minds, of philoso-
piers and of divines." A true man
grows With added experience he per-
ceves the fallacy of what he once
thought right. The path of honor is
then for him, simply and heroically to
follow his convictions. A great mind
will be often contradictory; a small in
telleet will continue to see the world
always through the same peep-hole. As
Gladstone grew in years and wisdom
he gradually altered his position upon
nearly every matter of public policyj
and yet such was his manifest earnest
ness that each party accepted him as
Sader when once he came into Its
folds. If physiognomy' means anything
surely the massive face, the deep lines
the square-set jaw and the bold eyes
that greet us when we look at the por-
Talt OF England's most famous parlia-
mentary leader, indicate that to him
HE was real, life was earnest" that
The affairs among which he moved were
never deemed trivial, and that to him
the mission Of a soul upon earth was
solemn and weighty.
Akin to his earnestness, perhaps the
foundation Of it, was his religiosity. In
tensely practical in all things he never
disturbed his religious convictions by
speculations which seemed to lead &c
no useful conclusion. To him religion
was not so much a matter Of creed and
emouon, although he was both intense
~ orthodox and passionate in his spir-
i'ual life, as Ii was a practical rule OF
eonuuct, form of training under which
'he noDler traits Of manhood grow most
easily power Incompatible by which
" rule The wild passions of the body ant
70 give symmetry and stability to thu
eAerelses or the intellect. He found re.
nsioh 10 be the most expedient thing
III the world; as such he refused to al
yer IL by any untried theories or e
eAchange IT for any looseness OF faitl
whleh ne observed to result in nothing
out unrest and contention. Although
,edreu IN the English church, yet wher
ne attained maturity, and when all hi
o'her views underwent radical trans
.ormauon, he chung to the form ant
practice OF that church, because, wher
Ever MS penetrating eyes might fall
ne could see no other faith that was a
enoe so digniied, so genuine and s,
nee' TO his church, therefore, he will
nsy rave the mistaken loyalty Of hi
mnole heart and passed. into the grea
unknown with the same sincere conf
oen n IN Its God which he held when
child at his mothers knee.
saustone was Of tyne peculiarl,
auap'ed for the profession of practica
e eonues' While sincere he was super
,a'' While courageous he wascalculat
r, while full Of sentiment for human
,, sn,s ne was just as thoroughly i'm
s yuea with respect for the ancien
,s en's OF property. II he had been NOR
rao,ouhd in his apprehension of socia
wy lungs, nc would have been more radi
o' III MS measures ana would bav