The age-herald., 1901-11-24
IN HOTEL LOBBIES
 AND ELSEWHERE
A Strong Mans Death.

The death of Judge James W. Laps- ley of the Anniston City Court will sliccK all Alabamlans and bring personal sorrow to. thousands of good men, said a public man last night
 Morally and intellectually Judge Lapsley had no superior amongst our people. He was big man-big of heart 1 and intellect and human love-and so he passes from us and his passing sewers one of the few remaining ties that bind us to the noble yesteryears. Few lights of. leading to Alabamians have shined so luminousy for the public good: none has been more bravely good. All his teach ing, all his work. all his life-all this, and more than I can tell-has been for the public well-being. He was latter Nathaniel, man without guile; and he was for the most part man who la bored quietly of his own heart and his own intellect for the general good, with out trumpeting himself from the walls of the besieged City of Virtue and with out sending through the highways and the byways announcing heralds to pro- claim I am come
 " Ecce Homol' his world-our world cried as he passed on his way of right eousness, and he heard it not. Behold the Manr we all of us have been crying these forty years and more, and Judge Lapsley heard in that cry nothing more than the public acknowledgment Well done, thou good and faithful servant, even as Saint Paul, whom he adored, might have heard it two thousand years ago. For Judge Lapsley was conspicu- ously and in a remarkable degree a re- ligious man of Christianity. His stern, unanswering unyielding Presbyterianism may have been narrow and circum- scribed, as many of us who knew him best and loved him most have often felt, but there was never any question of his sincerity, his honesty, his integrity of. purpose.
 Many time in my own life, when moral or physical danger threatened me l have asked mysef, What would Judge Lapsley do?' This much I can say and do say, though his form of religious faith | and my own were widely divergent The last time l saw him, some months ago, he placed his hand upon my shoulder and said Son, l am glad you are come by your own way to see Truth loved him for that
 Tn my earliest childhood I heard and was made to know of his pre-eminent virtues as a man. In my early boyhood l came to know him personally, and ai- ways since then his influence has been about me and has blessed me
 More than the personality of any other one man Is he in the new constitution of Alabama. Day and night, night and day. for many months he strove to make the new constitution worthy instrument of I organic law, and he labored quietly even as he lived. With me- in our last meet ing, he went over the question of vital moment as concerned the constitution. He asked my opinion. I was content to listen, and was silent. My sense of my own inexperience forbade me to venture an opinion, observing which he rebuked me in gentle spirit. Some remark of mine that would not venture view in his masterful and beloved presence seem | ed to please him, and he drew closer to me as we journeyed swiftly upon the railroad together. He told me all that he knew and felt and hoped, and know he lives stilli that which is wisest and best in the new constitution.
 I have written to Judge Coleman this and that, he said. and am going down to Montgomery to spend two or three weeks, helping the judge out in his convention work he went on to say. Only Judge Coleman and myself perhaps could tell of the great work Judge Laps- | ley did in framing the new organic law | of Alabama, because Judge Lapsley was not free in giving his confidence in this or in any particular. But Judge Coleman. the master-mind of the convention, will bear me out in saying that the new con- stitution Is very much what Judge Laps ley wished 1t to be. As that instrument stands, it is practically as Judge Laps- ley would have written it. This much it Is due to his sacred memory to say, and l assume the privilege of saying that Judge Coleman of Greene will bear me out in holding true. In the nature of things Judge Coleman cannot speak, but I can; and what I have said of Judgo Lapsley Judge Coleman will in general terms consent to having said
 Judge Lapsley was at his death the closest and most intimate friend of Uni ted States Senator John Tyler Morgan. Nearly fifty years ago he and Senator Morgan were law partners and close per sonal friends. The friendship that early begun ripened with the years, and for a long time since General Morgan entered the Senate his Alabama home has been with Judge Lapsley. They were like brothers, Senator Morgan and Judge Lapsley and it Is wonderful the history the two of them made. Judge Lapsley had | been Circuit Judge and legislator, and died the judge of the Anniston City Court He was the first examiner of public ac- counts the state ever had. After the de- falcation of Isaac H. Vincent, state treas urer of Alabama in 1882 the Legislature created the office of state examiner, and | Governor ONeal induced Judge Lapsley | to accept the new office and he held it for ,some years. Bu. this is not the time or place for a worthy story of Judge Lapsey's life. His elder son went as Presbyterian missionary to Central Af- rica, and died on the Congo about ten years ago."
 Pure Fruithurst Wines. N md