C. Edwards Lester, Life and public services of Charles Sumner: Born Jan. 6, 1811. Died March 11, 1874.

[555] in self-examination, and too careless of the thoughts of others for the largest popularity.

The Pall Mall Gazette is silent; for which, all thanks. So is The Saturday Review for this week. It is pleasant to find in The Examiner the following paragraph:

The obituary of the week includes the name of Charles Sumner, an American for whom Englishmen have always felt the greatest respect and sympathy. His voice was most powerfully raised against the institution of Slavery in the Southern States long before the issue of civil war came to solve the otherwise unsolvable question. On all other matters where individual liberty was at stake, Mr. Charles Sumner was ever found among the boldest and most uncompromising champions of the oppressed; and he was not without that meed of persecution which is the invariable fate of men of his heroic character. * * * He annoyed some of his friends by supporting the claims for ‘indirect damages’ in the Alabama case; but we have reason to believe that the conduct of our Government in the proceedings which led up to the arbitration, went far to bring Mr. Sumner back to his former appreciation of England and Englishmen.

All the more pleasant, because the controlling influence in The Examiner is now in the hands of one of the men I have referred to as faithful friends to us during the Rebellion, and then losing patience and waxing wroth during the arbitration business.

Among all the articles I have seen in English papers there is none comparable for careful study of Mr. Sumner's character and acts, and wise estimate of them, to that in The Anglo-American Times; a journal, I should add, edited by Englishmen, and written by Englishmen, and which other Englishmen would do well to study for its teaching and example. It says:

Perhaps of all Americans, Charles Sumner stood foremost in the esteem of his countrymen. He was eloquent, he was cultured, pure in character, lofty in aspiration, patriotic and unselfish in his aims. Few men have been so tried by the perversity of human nature, yet he never lost faith in it. In all the broad Union there was no more ardent lover of freedom, nor any man with a stronger faith in the institutions of the Republic he loved so well and worked for so long and faithfully. Indeed, he may be called a martyr to his devotion to human rights; for his death is traceable to the assault Mr. Brooks made upon him in the Senate Chamber. He was a tall, handsome, strongly built man; but the injuries he then received laid him on a bed of sickness for years, causing him intense suffering, ultimately sending him to his grave at an age when a period of usefulness might still be looked for. But Charles Sumner was too earnest to witness unmoved the Administration sinking into corruption; and he worked so assiduously to stem the current that