The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1912-09-06
Tribute to Judge Lawson.


Following address was delivered Wed.
nesday afternoon, last week, at the Meth
odist Church in memory of Judge Law
son by his beloved minister and friend,
Rev. W. G. Sellars.
After reviewing Judge Lawson's early
career and the causes which led him into
the miasma of skepticism, over which
we are all ready with the sweetest char
ity to rest in brief, Rev. Sellars pro-
ceeded in the following way:
Fortunately there were three or four
preachers, whom Judge Lawson always
respected, among them John E. Beck.
Fortunately, too, he was an omniver-
GUS reader and had the power of dis
elimination, and while reading Byron
and such authors he formed his own
opinions. Some of these writings filled
him with positive disgust, and he threw
them down with adherence. In after
years he branded some of them with
terrible invective. But he read other
things. His soul was hungry. and Ten
nyson fed him. You recollect that
Christmas time, when the poet wrote
In Memoriam," his heart restless and
hot, he heard a bell, and, after seeing
earth's misery-the false, the grief, the
feud, the strife; the want and care and
sin, false pride and civic Islander, and
then all nature, red in tooth and claw. |
and wrote again at the bell ringing:
Ring out the wild bells to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty night;
The year is dying in the night:
Ring out wild bells and let him die
Ring out the want the care the sin
The faithless, GOODNESS, of the times;
King out ring out, nay mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in,
Ring in the valiant man, and free
The larger heart the kindlier hand:
Ring out the darkness of the land
Ring in the Christ that is to be-
Then it was that he, after the blood
and storm OF war, turned to the remem- [
bered words of his mother; then it was t
that the Gospel by Luke brought him
face to face with one who was able to Z
lift and bear his burden, carry his grief '
and bring rest to his soul. a
The full rest did not come all at once, I
for, although he rested his feeble faith a
on the burden bearer, joined with Gods S
people and united with the Methodist v
sang songs and prayed, it was t
not until under a tent at Trenton, under Y
the matchless voice and message of Sam I
Jones, God sent his word, whatsoever /
will may come" the twilight became il
The brightness of MONDAY splendor /
He never had any more very serious @
trouble, but in the faith of Christ, and S
confding in the providence of God, he
was the most cheerful man and most t
uniformly happy Christian I have ever v
known.
From this time on the Bible was his n
book and the Christian poets were his c
lelight. His very meals were a sacra- b
nent, his friends perpetual joy. J
For now Sidney Lanier came with c
long that was like lullaby to his soul, T
or
His heart is at ease from men and the weary 5
some sound of the stroke. G
IF the scythe of time. and the trowe1 of trade :,
is low;
And belief overmasters doubt, and know that Il
l know and my spirit is grown 8,
o 1ordly great compass within. y
And as the marsh-hen secretly builds on the
watery sod
ehold will build me nest OIL the greatness b
of God
will fly in the greatness of Cod as the marsh y
hen flies n
will lay me ahold of the greatness of Cod Sc
And the "Grace of God wrought ST
Nightly in him, and made him, most ia
ali, man in whom the elements b.
ere so mixed that all the people recog- R
lied the manhood-a sanctified man m
God that was wrought in him through N
hrist Jesus. And so even God was not
'hamed to call him brother, and that or
as enough, for it made him brother b.