Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham MenEdwards, Eliezer
History
Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men
Edwards, Eliezer
Birmingham (England)
His funeral at the General Cemetery was attended by most of the
leading Liberals of the town, and by great crowds of admirers. Charles
Vince, who was so soon to follow him, delivered a very eloquent
address over the open grave, in which he said, "For the firmness with
which he maintained his convictions, and for the zeal and ability with
which he advocated them, he will always have a name and a place in the
history of his native town, if not in the history of his country. To
the honour of his memory it will be said that he held his opinions
honestly; laboured for them diligently; devoted great gifts and rare
energy to their promotion; and amply proved his sincerity, and won the
crown of the conscientious, by the things that he suffered."
It is, in my opinion, not very creditable to the Liberal party in
the town that George Edmonds has no public memorial. The generation
passing away may remember his face and figure; but before it goes, it
has a duty to its successors to perform. That duty is to leave some
lasting memorial, in the shape of a statue, bust, or portrait, of the
man, who, sacrificing his own freedom, helped thereby to gain for his
countrymen liberty of thought, liberty of speech, and liberty to carry
on in the future the beneficent policy which he advocated with, so
much eloquence and perseverance.
THE EARLY DAYS OF CHARLES VINCE.
With reverent pen and loving spirit, I sit down to write of one whose
sunny smile brightened every circle upon which it shone; whose massive
intellect and clear mental vision discovered subtle truths and
deep symbolic meanings in common things; whose winning and graphic
eloquence made these truths and meanings clear to others, showing
them that not a blade of grass springs by the roadside, nor an insect
flutters for a day in the gladdening light of the spring-time, but
has its lesson, if men will but search for it, of tender mercy and
fatherly care. His broad and catholic spirit was wide enough to
embrace within his friendship men of widely divergent thought and
belief. His life was one long and eloquent lesson to us all. If ever
man deserved the blessing following the words, "Inasmuch as ye did it
unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye did it unto me," that
man was Charles Vince, for of him, more emphatically than can be said
of most of us, it may be recorded that "he went about doing good."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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