Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-10-03
PRAISE SENATOR HOAR
MEMORIAL SERVICES HELD AT
ALL SOULS CHURCH.
Tribute to Sterling Character Of De-
ceased Statesman - Empty Pew
Marked by Wreath Of Roses

Memorial services in tribute to the mem
ory of the late Senator George Frisbie
Hoar were held yesterday at All Souls
Unitarian Church. of which the dead states
man had been member throughout his
career in Washington. The vacant pew
was decorated with a wreath of white
roses. Rev Ulysses G. B. Pierce, the pas
tor. preached the sermon. taking his text
from the book of Samuel, And his coun-
sci, which he counseled in those days, was
as If a man had inquired at the altar OF
God"
"There was never time" said the
prea cher, when it was so difficult for a
man to live a public life interrupted as
today This is because the temptations and
aIIurements of public Office are so many
and so insidious that, almost unconscious
", a man is apt to find his ideals lowering,
until he begins to deviate from what he had
hitherto considered right.
1.-The public man lives not only in house
of glass, but often the glass is magnifying
glass, which distorts the virtues and en-
larges the vices. Because of this fact' When
a man has devoted nearly all his lie 10 an
office in the full gaze of the pubic, ana
has not only been corrupted. but has earn
ed the respect and honor of his compeers,
it is a cause of congratulation.
1--WE are called upon today to congrat-
ulate one for having completed long life
of splendid service, rather than bemoan
one cut off in the prime of life. 1t would
be very helpful for us to consider his pub
lie service, but this we will leave for 9TH
er lips and more appropriate places. Here
we are called upon to mediate, not so much
on the deeds of his life as on the springs
of action which prompted those deeds.
Phases of His Character.
s1rbara ,ra ,nnorapt contra lotions in the
lives of all great men. This is none the
less true of Mr. Hoar He was loyalty it
self to his party, yet among his closest
and most loved friends are those of oppos-
ing political faith; himself half Puritan and
half knight in his origin, he presented in
his own character traits of both phases.
So in religion; half Quaker half Covenant
er, he showed the mystical tendencies of
the one and the ethical tendencies of the
other. In literature he divided allegiance
between George Herbert, the mystical, and
Robert Burns, the plowboy.
But these contradictions are apparent,
rather than real, and are easily dissolved
by two or three elements which contributed
to the real strength of his character.
"a biographer of Luther was fond Of call
ing attention to the fact that the same
strong hand which nailed the theses to the
church door afterward allowed the birds to
pick crumbs out of its palm. Carlyle said
of Emerson He's a triphammer with an
Aeolian attachment
These two traits are necessary to any
well-balanced character. There is a pas
sage of RuSkiD which, though written pri-
marily of architecture, perfectly describes
this phase of Senator Hoar's character.
Ruskin says: If you want to tell good
Gothic, see If it has the sort of roughness,
largeness and nonchalance, mixed in places
with the exquisite tenderness which seems
always to be the sign manual of broad
vision and massey power
His, indeed, was a Gothic character with
foundations settled into the deep rock of
Truth. and a steeple narrowing to the airy
SUBMITS of Sentiment"