Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/437

Rh passing occurrences and roamed over almost every field of human interest. And even now, when the happenings or conditions which occasioned them have long been forgotten, or live only in dim reminiscence, the “Easy Chair” papers can still be read with delightful enjoyment as entertaining literature, full as they are of animated pictures of life, of instructive suggestions or keen judgments, and, without obtrusive moralizing, of elevating sentiment.

And as the political editor and leading writer of Harper's Weekly he unceasingly spoke to the untold thousands of his countrymen all over the land; and all those thousands felt that every word he said to them was the truth as understood by an honest intellect and a great heart; that he always endeavored to discover the truth by conscientious inquiry and careful consideration; that every praise bestowed and every censure he pronounced on any public man or any political party, was dictated by the most scrupulous desire to be just; that his very denunciations were tempered with charity; and that every advice he gave was prompted by the most unselfish zeal for the honor and true greatness of the Republic and the elevation and happiness of the people. They had, even when their opinions differed from his, instinctive confidence in the purity of the source from which the utterances flowed; they knew that in that source there was nothing of greed, nothing of envy, nothing of vain pride of opinion—nothing but an ardent love of his country, and of liberty and justice, and a profound devotion to the highest ideals of human civilization.

But however effective his regular journalistic communion with the public was, the most valuable and impressive of his teachings were contained in that grand series of orations and occasional addresses which not only placed him in the first rank of the great orators of