Connecticut western news., 1899-04-27
"A GREAT MAN FALLEN
rR. TALMAGE EuLCG.ZsS THE LATE
 JUSTICE FIELD.
Che of the Most Notable Characters

Che of the Most Notable Characters
 of Our Times, Whose Life Is Worthy
 of Emulation, Says the Pulpit Ora
 tor.
 Copyright, Louis Klopsch, 1Ss9l
 WASHINGTON, April 23.-One of the most notable characters of our time is the subject of Dr. Talmage's discourse, and the lessons drawn are inspiring; text, II Samuel iii, 3S, ''Know ye not that there is prince and great man fallen this day in Israeli"
 Here is plumed catafalque, followed by King David and funeral oration which he delivers at the tomb Con- cerning Abner, the great, David weeps out the text. More appropriately than when originally uttered we may now utter this resounding lamentation, "Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel f'
 It was 80 minutes after 6, the exact hour of sunset of the Sabbath day, and while the evening lights were being kindled, that the soul of Stephen J. Field, the lawyer, the judge, the pa triot, the statesman, the Christian, ascended. It was sundown in the home on yonder Capitol hill as it was sun down on all the surrounding hills, but in both cases the sunset to be followed by 8 glorious sunrise. Hear the Easter anthems still lingering in the air, 'The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise"
 Our departed friend came forth boy from minister's home in New Eng land. He knelt with father and mother at morning and evening prayer, learned from maternal lips lessons of piety which lasted him and controlled him amid all the varied and exciting scenes of lifetime and helped him to die in peace an octogenarian. Blot out from American history the names of those ministers sons who have done honor to judicial bench and commercial circle and national legislature and presidential chair, and you would obliterate many of the grandest chapters of that history. 1t is no small advantage to have started from home where God is honored and the subject of worlds emancipation from sin and sorrow is under constant
 
 which are the foundation of all good law-Roman law, German law, Eng fish law, American law-are the best foundation upon which to build charac- ter, and those which the boy, Stephen J. Field, so often heard in the parson- age at Stockbridge were his guidance when half century after, as gowned justice of the supreme court of the United States, he unrolled his opinions. Bibles, hymn books, catechisms, family prayers, atmosphere sanctified, are good surroundings for boys and girls to start from. and if our laxer ideas of religion and Sabbath days and home training produce as splendid men and women as the much derided Puritanic Sabbath and Puritanic teachings have produced, 1t will be a matter of congratulation and thanksgiving
 Do not pass by the fact that have not yet seen emphasized that Stephen J. Field was minister's son. Notwith- standing that there are conspicuous ex- captions to the rule-and the exceptions have built up stereotyped defamation on the subject-statistic plain and un- deniable prove that larger proportion of ministers sons turn out well than are to be found in any other genealogio- al table. Let all the parsonages of all denominations of Christians where chil- dren are growing up take the consola tion. See the star of hope pointing down to that mangerl
 Member of Royal Family.
 Notice also that our departed friend was 8 member of royal family. There were no crowns or scepters or thrones in that ancestral line, but the family of the Fields, like the family of the New York Primes. like the family of the Princeton Alexanders, like score of families that might mention, if it were best to mention them, were "the children of the king" and had put on them honors brighter than crowns and wielded influence longer and wider than scepters. That family of Fields traces an honorable lineage back 800 years to Hubertus de la Feld, coadjutor of Will liam the Conqueror. Let us thank God for such families, generation after gen eration on the side of that which is right and good. Four sons of that coun- try minister, known the world over for extraordinary usefulness in their spheres, legal, commercial. literary and theological and daughter, the mother of one of the associate justices of the supreme court. Such families counter balance for good those families all wrong from generation to generation families that stand for wealth, unright- eously got and stingily kept or wicked ly squandered; families that stand for fraud or impurity or malevolence fam lily names that immediately come to every mind, though through sense of propriety they do not come to the lip. The name of Field will survive centu- ries and be synonym for religion, for great jurisprudence, for able Christian journalism, as the names of the Pha- raohs and the Caesars stand for cruelty and oppression and vice.
 While parents cannot aspire to have such conspicuous households as the one the name of whose son we now cele- brate, all parents may by fidelity in prayer and holy example have their sons and daughters become kings and queens unto God, to reign forever and ever. But the work has already been done, and I could go through this coun- try and find thousand households which have by the grace of God and blessing upon paternal and maternal excellence become the royal families of America
 Let young men beware lest they by their behavior blot such family records with some misdeed. We can all think of households the names of which meant everything honorable and con- secrated for long while, but by the deed of one son sacrificed, disgraceu and blasted. Look out how you rob your consecrated ancestry of the name they handed to you unsullied Better as trustee to that name add something worthy. Do something to honor the old homestead, whether mountain cabin ar a citv mansion or O cCuptrv poreop-