Page:Memorial services.djvu/16

 too, lie was in the flush vigor of a young man, and no position assumed could have been more odious and unprospective. Thus showing, beyond doubt, that he never did calmer to public sentiment, if that sentiment was vitiated and contrary to the rule of right.

And while he was a friend of all men, a world-wide benefactor, a cosmopolitan in the fullest sense of the term, with inclinations and predilections as impartial as the sun-beams, which fall indiscriminately upon all races and climes. He would, nevertheless, seem to be the special friend of the colored race; yet, he was no more our friend than he would have been o£ the Jew, the Irishman, the German, the Italian, or the Frenchman, had they been in our condition. Jesus said when he was on earth, "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." And again he said, the whole need not a physician but they that are sick. Mr. Sumner did not feel that white men needed his help like the poor negro whose mouths were locked and whose hands were tied, yet, his great abilities were not by any means restricted to our race, for when the nation stood in need of one to champion her cause, measure arms with the diplomats of the world, and vindicate her honor with foreign powers, to whom did she look but to Charles Sumner? the man who could read and translate the languages of all the civilized nations on the globe, the man who understood all the treaties, all the international laws and the man above all others in America, who was respected by the great men of every civilized nation in the world. The truth is, Mr. Sumner hated slavery, because he thought it was wrong per se, and subversive of the end, for which his country had been released from British tyranny. White slavery or black slavery were equally obnoxious to him, and on the other hand he believed as both revelation and reason teaches, that the negro was the image of God set in ebony, and in a fair race would win distinction as well as other people. He did not believe in crippling a man and condemning him for being lame, therefore he said give the negro fair play and then if he fails condemn him, but not hamstring you and then ridicule your inactivity. Such is an epitome of the creed of that great statesman, however, as he saw the colored race the most needy, he