A Funeral Panegyric pronounced at his death, now before me in the original pamphlet of the time,[159] testifies to more than family or office. In himself he was much, and not of those who, according to the saying of Saint Bernard, “give out smoke rather than light.”[160] “Pure glory and innocent riches”[161] were his; and he was the more precious in the sight of all good men, that he showed himself incorruptible, and not to be bought at any price. It were easy for him to have turned a deluge of wealth into his house; but he knew that gifts insensibly entangle,--that the specious pretext of gratitude is the snare in which the greatest souls allow themselves to be caught,--that a man covered with favors has difficulty in setting himself against injustice in all its forms,--and that a magistrate divided between a sense of obligations received and the care of the public interest, which he ought always to promote, is a paralytic magistrate, a magistrate deprived of a moiety of himself. So spoke the preacher, while he portrayed a charity tender and effective for the wretched, a vehemence just and inflexible toward the dishonest and wicked, and a sweetness noble and beneficent for all; dwelling also on his countenance, which had nothing of that severe and sour austerity that renders justice to the good only as if with regret, and to the guilty only in anger; then on his pleasant and gracious address, his intellectual and charming conversation, his ready and judicious replies, his agreeable and intelligible silence,--even his refusals being well received and obliging,--while, amidst all the pomp and splendor accompanying him, there shone in his eyes a certain air of sweetness and majesty, which secured for him, and for justice itself, love as well as respect. His benefactions were constant. Not content with merely giving, he gave with a beautiful manner, still more rare. He could not abide beauty of intelligence without goodness of soul; and he preferred always the poor, having for them not only compassion, but a sort of reverence. He knew that the way to take the poison from riches was to let the poor taste of them. The sentiment of Christian charity for the poor, who were to him in the place of children, was his last thought,--as witness especially the General Hospital endowed by him, and represented by the preacher as the greatest and most illustrious work ever undertaken by charity the most heroic.
Education Journal
Charles Sumner; his complete works, volume 19 (of 20) — Part 113
Tags