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Show g6 l'heodore 'I'il ton. thi" <.by gone to the gallows, and th~t, as he looked up· for the last time toward the heavens over lus head,- "God's glory smote him on the face ! " (Cheers and hisses.) lie died nodi honorable death. Did you noti ·e, in his late letter, which Dr. Furness read, the little line to his wife, "Think not that any ignomy has fallen upon you or upon your children, beeau ~c I kwe come to the scafTolu ! " Ah ! the scaffold i sometimes a throne greater than a king's. They who suffer upon it rule the world mor than emperors! you heard 1\fr. Hale's lc ·ture la t night. I Ie saitl, " The highe t province of history i:-J to vindicate a good man from obloquy and reproach." To that impartial history which vindicate the martyrs and turns their martyrdom into glol'y, we commend to-day the name and memory or the mal'tyr, Jolm Brown! (Applause and hi sses.) The de ·d of this tlay will not die! It wilt li,'e in hi~tory as long as there ·lmll be a hi ·tory for hero •s! Baid Latimer to Ri<lley, when the blaze of martyrdom wa ' wrapping them l>oth around like a garment, "Be of good comfort, l\Ia ter Ri<1l 'Y ; we have this day lighted a candle in Englaml which, by God's grace, no man shall ever put out." To-day God looks down fi·om h<'a.ven on a martyrdom who~e light shall shine over the world brighter than any blazing fire that, ever gilded fagot or :take! This scaflold in Virginia shall stand a long a the world hall tand! No man can ever strike it down, or put it away! It will abide forev<.'r, as the monum nt of a Chri - tian man who lived a ltero and died a martyr, and who~e name, to-day bequeathed to hi tory, shall go down through the world ga.theriug increasing honor through all coming time! ( Grcnt clapping and hi:sing.) I recall at this hour or noon those beautiful wor<l:-; or the New T<·stam nt, in tit, ~tory of Saul, the per~ecutor or the prophets, ,' (I'll ·k down Oil lti:-; way 1~1 H'odorc T'i l ton. 97 to Damascus-" At mt"drl(f.1J, 0 kt"ng, I saw ·in the 'Wrt.tJ a b'ght from lll'm·en aboce tl1e br(fjltlJU•ss of tlw sun 1" 1 fe f't!ll to tho gi'OLmd, blinded and l(' rrified! Ife ro:e to bis f(•ct, converted and transformed! I pray God that at, this hour of midday, at thi ,olemn and awful moment of death, this nation may be .. truck down upon its knees, by the sudd ·n glory of God bursting out of IIeaven- and tltat it may be humbled in the dust until it shall rise repentant, and the scalcH shall fhll from its eye. , and the ·whole nation !'hall ~ tand at last in the light an<.l liberty of the sons of Gocl! (Applau:e and l1is cs, during which 1\lr. Tilton took his ~eat.) |
