Boston, that persecuted
and would have slain him, is now exceedingly busy in building his tomb
and rearing his statue. The men that would not defile their lips with
his name are thanking God to-day that he lived.
He has taught some lessons--lessons that the young will do well to take
heed to--that the most splendid gifts and opportunities and ambitions
may be best used for the dumb and lowly. His whole life is a rebuke to
the idea that we are to climb to greatness by climbing up on the backs
of great men, that we are to gain strength by running with the currents
of life, that we can from without add any thing to the great within that
constitutes man. He poured out the precious ointment of his soul upon
the feet of that diffusive Jesus who suffers here in his poor and
despised ones. He has taught young ambitions, too, that the way to glory
is the way often-times of adhesion simply to principle, and that
popularity and unpopularity are not things to be known or considered. Do
right and rejoice. If to do right will bring you under trouble, rejoice
in it that you are counted worthy to suffer with God and the providences
of God in this world.
He belongs to the race of giants, not simply because he was, in and of
himself a great soul, but because he had bathed in the providence of God
and came forth scarcely less than a god; because he gave himself to the
work of God upon earth, and inherited thereby, or had reflected upon
him, some of the majesty of his Master.
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