The Burke County news. [volume] (Morganton, N.C.) 1899-1901, 1899-05-12

honorable and consecrated for q long
While, but by the deed OF one son sacri.
nceo, disgraced and blasted. Look out
now you rob your consecrated ancestry of ,
the name they handed to you unsuliied! !
Better as trustee to that name add some |
thing worthy. Do something to honor the
OLD homestead. whether a mountain cabin
or q city mansion or a country parsonage.
Rev. David Dudley Field. though thirty
two years passed upward, Is honored to.
day BY the Christian life, the service. the
death OF his son Stephen. |
Among the most absorbing books OF the
Bible is the book OF Kings, which again
and again illustrates that, though piety is
not hereditary. the style Of parentage has
much to do with the style OF descendant.
1t declares OF King Abijam, He walked in
all the sins OF his father which he had done
before him, and OF King Azariah, "He did
that which was right in the sight of the
Lord, according to all that his father ANA
z1ah had done" We owe a debt to those
who have gone before In our line as GER
tainly as We have obligations to those who
subsequently appear in the household. Not
so sacred is your old fathers walking staff,
which you keep in his memory or the eye
glasses through which our mother studied
bore, the name which you inherited.
Keep it bright. l charge you. Keep it
suggestive Of something elevated in
character. Trample not underfoot that
which to Jour father and mother was
dearer than life itself. Defend their graves
rs they defended your cradle. Family coat
OF arms, escutcheOns, ensigns armorial,
lion cOuchant, or lion dormant, or lion
rampant, or lion combatant, may attract
attention, but better than all heraldic In
scription is a family name which means
from generation to generation faith In
God, self sacrifice. duty performed, a life
we'll lived and a death happily died and a
heaven glorlOusly won! That was the
kind Of name that Justice Field augmented
and adorned and perpetuated-a name
honorable at the close Of the eighteenth
century, more honored now at the close of
the nineteenth.
Notice also that our illustrious friend
was great in reasonable and genial dis
sent. OF 1912 opinions he rendered, mono
were more potent or memorable than those
rendered while he was in small minority
and sometimes in a minority Of one. A
learned and distinguished lawyer Of this
country said he would rather be author OF
Judge Fields dissenting opinions than to
be the author Of the Constitution OF the
United States. The teDdency is to 81
with the multitude, to think what others
think, to say and Go what Others do. Some
times the majority are wrong, and it
requires heroes to take the negative.
but to do that logically and in good
humor requires some elements of make up
not often found in judicial disseaters or,
indeed, in any class of men, There are SO
many people in the world opposed to every
thing and who display their opposition in
rancOrousa and obnoxious ways that a Judge
Fold was needed to make the negative re.
spected and genial and right. Minorities
under God save the world and save the
church. An %unthinking and sprecipitate
Eyes" may be stopped by a righteous and
he roic mo-" The majori:.-s are not al
ways right. The old gospel hymn de-
clares 1t:
Numbers are no mark that men will right
be found;
A few were saved in Noah's ark to many
millions drowned.
The declaration OF American Independ-
ence was q dissenting opinion. The Free
Church OF Scotland, under Chalmers and
his compeers, was a dissenting movement.
The Bible itself, Old Testament and New
Testament, is a protest against the the
cries that would have destroyed the
world and Is a dissenting as we'll
as a divinely inspired book. The deca-
logue on Sinai repeated ten times "Thou
shalt not" For ages to como will be quoted
from lawbooks In court rooms Justice
Fields magnificent dissenting opinions.
Notice that our assembled friend hal such
a character as assault and peril alone can
develop. He had not come to the soft
cushions OF the Supreme Court bench step
ping on cloth Of gold and saluted all along
tue line DY na~nuclapplnR oi applhuse'
Country parsonages do not rock their
babies in satin lined cradle or afterward
send them out into the world with enough
in their hands to purchase place and
power. Pastors salaries in the early part
OF this century hardly ever reached 800 a
year. Economies that sometimes cut into
the bone characterized many OF the homes
OF the New England clergymen. The young
lawyer Of whom we speak to-day arrived
in San Francisco in 1S49 with only s1C
in his pocket. W~iIliamstown College was
only Introductory to Il postgraduate
course which our illustrious friend took
while administering justice and hating
rufianism amid the mining camps OF Cali
fornia. Oh, those "fortv-niners." as they