291. Alexander H. Stephens
Alexander H. Stephens
Isa_60:22 : ’93A little one shall become a thousand.’94
In this prophecy is set forth that which we have all noticed; that the amount of avoirdupois weight does not decide the amount of one’92s effectiveness. Many a man with vast physical equipment does not weigh a half ounce on the side of the world’92s betterment, while many a man of insignificant stature and feeble forearm and decrepit limb has weighed a ton on the right side of the moral balances. David, the King of Israel, was so small a mite that he upset the gravity of Goliath, yet the sword of the giant is hung up in history as impotent beside the sling of his dwarfish antagonist. Napoleon was only about five feet in stature. Archibald Alexander, head and shoulders above other preachers of his time in theological attainment, yet not more than up to their elbows in physical height’97one of the smallest and one of the mightiest that God ever made. And some of the grandest and most decisive and resounding strokes that have been given for God and the Church and the world have been given by men whose bodily equipment has been only an apology for the soul’92s earthly retention. Isaac Watts set his diminutive personal presence into immortal rhythm:
Where I so tall to reach the pole,
And grasp creation in my span,
I must be measured by my soul;
The mind’92s the stature of the man.
One such man as I have mentioned, though built on contracted corporeal scale, in intellectual or moral force amounts to a thousand ordinary people’97their achievements far beyond anything their body prophesied. So my text has its splendid echo, and ’93a little one became a thousand.’94 Among these men of small body but great soul I place the name of one, the announcement of whose death falls upon me with this evening shadow. Alexander H. Stephens, Governor of Georgia, and late member of the Congress of the United States, is no more, for God hath taken him. With him I have had warm personal friendship, and the tidings came to me like a sharp blast out of the north rather than a message from the balmy south. I have nothing to do with Alexander H. Stephens as a politician; but as a warm-hearted friend, as a devoted Christian, as a simple-hearted man, as a great and magnificent soul wrapped up in frailest earthly tenement, I have something loving, and earnest, and solemn, and joyful to say about him. Though a little one, he was a thousand.
He was, first of all, a Christian. Not one of those men who adorn their speeches with the religion of Jesus Christ as a mere rhetorical allusion; not a man who serves the world and Satan all his life and then, just in the last moment of his earthly existence, cries out for God, and everybody eulogizes him as a Christian; but all his life a Christian, a member of our own beloved denomination. Bosom friend and lifelong companion of Rev. Dr. Samuel K. Talmage, whose name in all branches of my own family is a benediction. The theologian of whom I now speak, like his senatorial friend whom I commemorate, ’93a little one who became a thousand.’94 ’93Never,’94 said Alexander Stephens, ’93come to Washington without coming to see me, for your Uncle Samuel’92s sake.’94
Alexander Stephens believed in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only-begotten Son. With more brain than all the infidels now blatant, and blaring, and blaspheming around Washington, yet believing in the Bible from lid to lid, and in our glorious Christianity. All up and down the South are ministers of the Gospel who went into college and into theological seminary, and into the pulpit through the aid they received from Alexander H. Stephens’92 pocket. With no princely estate, I am told that for the last thirty years there has not been an hour in which he has not been supporting men on their way to the medical profession, or the law, or the pulpit, and at times supporting five and six young men struggling for an education. Himself starting for the Christian ministry and turning aside into the legal profession, yet today preaching all over the South the Gospel of good tidings which shall yet be to all people. He was one of the few men who, like James Lenox, of New York, could stay outside of the marriage relation and yet become kinder and more genial and more sympathetic and more generous as the years went by. First, he honored God, and next, he honored Christian womanhood. And wherever there was a burdened man who wanted help, or a wayward man who wanted opportunity of return, or a struggling young man who wanted an education, there was one who might count on Mr. Stephens as a powerful ally.
Within ten days I have heard his colored servants, in most unlimited terms, speak his praise. The devotion of the black men who waited upon him amounted almost to worship. His home at Liberty, Georgia, and in the executive mansion at Atlanta, and his rooms at the National Hotel, at Washington, were the centre of helpfulness and good cheer and hospitality and culture. His heart large enough for the whole world to enter. Only eighty-five pounds in physical weight, at any moment the last forty years a possibility that through the insufficient bars of the flesh his spirit might fly away.
Though he lived in stormy times, all who knew him knew that he was a champion of peace’97the very last man in his State to surrender to the decree of Secession; crying out after General Pope’92s defeat in Virginia for compromise; gladly going to Fortress Monroe to meet William H. Seward in treaty about the best way of stopping the war, and, after the close of the dreadful struggle, everwhere counselling amity on largest scale and forgetfulness of old grudges.
Some of you remember reading his speech of November 14th, 1860, in which he said, in the House of Representatives in Georgia: ’93When I look around and see our prosperity in everything’97agriculture, commerce, art, science and every department of education, physical and mental, as well as moral achievement, and our colleges’97I think in the face of such an exhibition, if we can, without the loss of power or any essential right or interest, remain in the Union, it is our duty to ourselves and to our posterity to do so. Our first parents, the great progenitors of the human race, were not without a like temptation when in the Garden of Eden. They were led to believe that their condition would be bettered, that their eyes would be opened, and that they would become as gods. They in an evil hour yielded. Instead of becoming gods, they only saw their own nakedness. I look upon this country, with our institutions, as the Eden of the world, the Paradise of the universe. It may be that out of that we may become greater and more prosperous; but I am candid and sincere in telling you that I fear if we rashly evince passion, and without sufficient cause shall take that step, that instead of becoming greater or more peaceful, prosperous and happy, instead of becoming gods, we will become demons, and at no distant day commence cutting one another’92s throats. This is my apprehension. Let us, therefore, whatever we do, meet these difficulties, great as they are, like wise and sensible men, and consider them in the light of all the consequences which may attend our action. Let us see first clearly where the path of duty leads, and then we may not fear to tread therein.’94
I read that extract to show you that in his bosom the dove of peace always nestled. He would not hurt a fly, much less a man. Had there been ten such men at the South and ten such men at the North, the grave trenches would never have been dug, and the great shadows of bereavement would not have fallen on every mountain and valley and home from the Penobscot to the Alabama, and from the Canadas to the Gulf. One such man at the North and one such man at the South could not stem the overwhelming tides. A little one might become a thousand, but could not become forty million.
What an example for all ages as to what invalidism may accomplish is this one sick and emaciated man now departed. He told me he had not been well for sixty years. First coming to one cane, then to two canes, then to a cane and a crutch, then to two crutches, afterward to a wheeled chair. Wheeled into the rail-train, wheeled onto the steamboat, wheeled into the hotel, wheeled into Congressional hall, wheeled into gubernatorial mansion, wheeled onto the stage of the opera house at Savannah, where in their great celebration he took his final cold; wheeled up to the sick bed where he was laid down to die. What an inspiration for all invalids! Why give up the battle of life because some of your weapons are captured? Take from the world the work of the invalids, and you make an appalling subtraction.
The great victories for God and the truth have not been gained by those who had full equipment. John Milton saw further without eyes than thousands of men ever saw with them. Look out for the soldier’92s crutch and the old man’92s staff, if they be wielded for patriotism or Christianity. In garrets, in cellars, in sick rooms, in asylums, in hospitals, how many of the Lord’92s troops! Some in one way and some in another way efficient for good.
Is there not some one in your house unable to come to the house of God through illness? That one is the most potent for good in your household. Many a man with one arm has accomplished more for the Kingdom of Christ than others with two arms. It is not the number of guns we carry, but the way we unlimber them. It is not our grandeur of opportunity, but the use we make of it. With two eyes and two ears and two hands and two feet we may not be worth the space we occupy, while Alexander H. Stephens can make his wheeled chair a conqueror’92s chariot. Sportsmen go out to see two stout pugilists batter each other into undistinguishable visage; but I in my discourse go out to see poor eyesight and shriveled arm and palsied foot and rheumatic knee capture Congressional hall and Senatorial chamber and gubernatorial chair and the respect of all Christendom.
More than anything am I impressed as I see this little one become a thousand, with the fact that the soul is distinct and independent of the body. That man was a fool who thought the puny creature of the invalid’92s chair was Alexander H. Stephens. It was only the shell of him; it was only the scaffolding of an Alhambra, it was only the anchor of a winged ship ready to sail away as soon as the impediment was lifted. Away with all your modern agnostic talk about the soul being only a development of the body! Do you really think that the great architect of the universe would build such a magnificent cupola on such an insufficient foundation? No. The poor body that this week bereft Georgians shall put into the dust is not Alexander H. Stephens. He lives! He widens out into grander existence. He has moved up and on. He has gone among the giants. Never has there been for this century a grander lesson of immortality for the American people. So large a soul in so little a body! What a relief it must be to get out of cripple’92s vehicle. What a promotion, from the arms of the dusky servants who helped him from room to room and up the marble stairs of the Capitol at Washington, to the arms of angels and the arms of Christ, and the arms of God. Wing instead of crutch! Health instead of sickness! Rapture instead of pain! Heaven instead of earth! Great and gracious spirit, fare thee well, until we meet again under cloudless skies and in gardens of eternal summer. With more meaning than ever before that little one has become a thousand.
What a mighty place heaven must be! From exalted and humble spheres the great souls are ascending. Roll on, sweet day, which shall bring us into companionship with those who on earth were so kind and genial and loving, and who having passed the flood are now more radiant than when we knew them here. Yea, though you and I are so weak now, we shall be mighty. It doth not yet appear what we shall be. Ten times better than now, a hundred times better, five hundred times better. Yea, a little one shall become a thousand. A thousand times more speed, a thousand times more holiness, a thousand times more strength, a thousand times more like God.
I am glad for this additional evidence that Christianity is not an imbecile fabrication. Oh, young men, hear this: if religion had been a sham, Alexander H. Stephens was the very man to find it out. I am glad to point to his name on the scroll of the Gospel mighties. On that same scroll the Sir William Hamiltons, and the Blackstones, and the Raphaels, and the Mozarts, and the Gladstones, any of them a thousand. Young men, scoffed at for your verdancy and weakness in still adhering to the religion of your fathers, I advise you to carry in your pocket a scroll a yard long, all full of the names of those who, like Alexander H. Stephens, believed in Christ and the Bible, and ask these scoffers to explain it. Yea, copy down the words of the strongest American intellect of his time, the dying experience of Daniel Webster, a coadjutor and warm friend of the illustrious Georgian. At Marshfield hear the ejaculation of the dying orator: ’93Amen, amen. Even so come, Lord Jesus.
Should words conspire to drive me hence,
Moveless and firm this heart shall lie,
Resolved for this my last defense,
If I must perish here to die.’94
Then a moment after crying out, ’93Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief,’94 And a moment after that exclaiming, ’93I shall be to-night in life and joy and blessedness.’94 In such a hope expired Daniel Webster, the expounder of the Constitution. In that same hope expired Alexander H. Stephens, the illustrious Georgian.
Autor: T. De Witt Talmage