Lawyers -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918 -- Fiction
Luke flushed. He felt Betty looking at him, but he would not return her
gaze. He felt other people in the congregation turned toward him. He
could not guess what had changed Nicholson.
The sermon was proceeding with praises of the dead man’s benefactions.
One by one they were described and extolled.
"His greatness," said Nicholson, "would have availed him nothing at this
one event for the righteous and the wicked if he had not had charity,
for we are told that though we speak with the tongues of men and of
angels and have not charity, we are become as sounding brass and
tinkling cymbal. Charity, however, this man had. The institutions that
he supported and has endowed have given and now forever will give
learning to thousands who, but for them, would have lived in
ignorance—healing to thousands who, but for them, would have died in
agony.
"Charity: but charity alone will not suffice. Sounding brass itself,
unless it is informed by faith! And this man’s sublime faith even his
worst enemy cannot deny. For his counsel and advice, for his
painstaking and sagacious investment of its funds the Church is indebted
to this man as it is to no other. Many a denomination outside our own
fold can truly say the same of him and should say and does say how much
we owe him, also, for the unceasing flow of his money into our
treasuries. He did not speak of these things. He did not let his right
hand know what his left hand did; but we of the Church remember that he
gave millions of dollars to the faith.
"The faith of men of money is tested by their money; yet this man’s
faith had many another test and rose triumphant from them all. His
attendance at the Church’s services—not only on Sundays, but on
fast-days and holidays, on saints’-days and work-days—never failed. His
wisdom was free to our councils, and I have been told on reliable
authority that he never rose in the morning, went to bed at night, or
embarked on any business enterprise, however small, without first humbly
and privately asking direction of the Most High. He knew in his every
act that the greatest man is as nothing before God; and when he came to
die, he died like a Christian, a priest of God by his side and the words
of God’s mercy sounding in his dulling ears. From first to last, his
works and his faith were one: ’Seest thou how faith wrought with his
works, and by works was faith made perfect?’ For us who are Christians,
that is enough. It is enough to make us each pray to meet his end, each
at his own station in life, as this great man met his. _De mortuis nil
nisi bonum_."
Only amazement had held Luke in his chair. At this phrase, he half
rose.
Nicholson, however, was concluding:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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