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Show ~56 !llanicl ttl cbstrr. llY WENDBI.L I'HlLLil'S. DANIJU. \V}~DSTER is dead. If the Fugitive Slave Law could havo died with him, he would indccu have slept in blessings. But tho evil that men do lives n.ftcr them ; when it does not, we will speak nothing but praise of tho dead. We have nothing to do with him hero as a jurist or an orator; nothing with his private character. "'ere we to pause a moment at that saddest of all sights, his death bed, it would be only to remark tho pitiful :flattery with which it has been described and dwelt on, in a tone which reveals tho emptiness of our spiritual life. One would think our Priests 257 awe-struck, or beside themselves with gratitude, that the Great Man condescended to die a Christian ! Tho two Wbig Chiefs have gone, and we find we have had Obcrlins and lfcnclons grinding in the mill of the Cabinet and the Senate IIouso, and never knew it ! Strange that he, one of the great trio, whose public ancl}Jrivatc life would best bear tho closest scrutiny, with tho added merit of actual Slaveholding beside, has alone escaped Canonization! Compared with such Protestantism, there was dignity, self-respect, and a true emblem in the Pope with an Emperor holding his stirrup. Pcrhn})S it docs not concern us here whether he was a great man. The slightest analysis, however, of most that has been said of him, even by those who begin by <Jmphatically }H"Onouucing him great, will show how utterly unworthy he was of the epithet. It is acknowledged by most that his life was, as a whole, a failure- that he failed to impress any great or original idea upon his times: that ho not only failed to carry any great measure, but never 22• |