The Home Journal

"Alas! for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the sun."

A goodly number of reverend gentlemen in the northern pulpits have taken occasion lately to point the moral of Fisk's life and death for the benefit of their congregations. Many of them, however, were inconsistent enough to exercise that charity which is the sum and substance of Christ's teachings, and which is highly commended by St. Paul, the first great expounder of the gospel proclaimed from thousands of pulpits unto this day. But some acted more independently in the case of Mr. Fisk, and one New York clergyman, the Rev. J. S. Willis—we hesitate to give his denomination—thought proper to allude to the deceased in the most scurrilous and opprobrious language. His life was a "vanity fair," his character "a fungus and a stench;" he was "a bully without prowess," without a redeeming quality, without honor or decency of any sort. It is very easy to call names, but it is only a coward who vilifies another when he is out of sight and hearing; and it is only a blackguard who descends to the use of unsavory words and throws his mud at the prostrate form of a dead man. We fear the Rev. Willis is a coward and a blackguard.

There is no doubt that the late James Fisk had serious faults and vices. In deed, he did not deny the fact. His hypocrisy was not one of his failings, and he has left no evidence of a tendency to backbite a fellow being.

It is a poor revenge that a religious paper takes upon the man who cared so little for his strictures upon his conduct during his life, and who went his own way with a jovial carelessness of what the self-constituted conservators of the public morals might say. To slap the cold cheek of the boy that was once James Fisk, Jr., must be small satisfaction, but it seems to afford no little gratification to those who gather about his grave to indulge in such manifestations. The pulpit joins in the demonstration and, by way of making the most of a terrible example, spares no epithet, however unseemly, to belittle the memory of a man who, with all his glaring faults, had so much of the better part of humanity in him.

We have, unfortunately, been too often made cognizant of examples of sinfulness among the clergy quite as awful as that afforded by Fisk among the laity, and of errors to which those of Fisk are purity itself. We do not need to refer to them, and do not wish to recall detestable remembrances; but it would seem more graceful and more Christian that the members of a profession which often needs the charity of the world, should show some little of that divine quality toward an erring fellow mortal whose faults are now judged much better than they can judge them.

We remember to have read, in "Lamartine's Memoirs of Celebrated Characters," about the infamous poet named Melitus, who had been a pupil of the immortal Socrates. But excited by a low envy which was not able to pardon the reputation it could not rival, brought against his former master a charge of atheism. Whereupon Lamartine says: "Melitus was one of those men who sanctify personal hatred to the public eye by affecting an overwhelming zeal in the service of the gods. They thus skillfully impress the divine character of their cause on their unholy passions, and elevate personal vindictiveness as the result of divine impulse. They calumniate, they insult, they denounce, they strike their enemies, always in the name of Heaven. The sincerely superstitious admire their zeal and give them credit for persecution as for the fulfillment of a religious duty."

May the Southern pulpit, especially of our good town of Winchester, forever frown upon such a course. As Burns says:

"Who made the heart? 'Tis He alone
Decidedly can try us,
He knows each cord—its various tone,
Each spring—its various bias."

Two Characters.

The New York Post is drawing a contrast between the character of the late Col. Fisk and the late Gen. Henry W. Halleck. It says: "Both were sons of poor men. Both had to make their own way in the world. Both showed peculiar ability in their different lines of action early in life. The great difference between them was in their aims of life. Halleck was in love with knowledge. He pursued knowledge and gained it. Colonel Fisk, on the other hand, kept a trade, and was constantly on the watch for 'the main chance.' We shall see how these men shall change places as the years go by. History will come to assign to them their rightful positions. Master Jack Sheppard, in his day, was a prominent person; but the Quaker, George Fox, is a revered friend in homes whose owners rigidly keep the name of the former from their thresholds."