tributed to the surprising growth and development of
journalism in our time, chiefly by his successful efforts to make it a
guide of public opinion, as well as a chronicle of important news. In
his hands, it was not merely a mirror which indifferently reflects back
the images of all objects on which it is turned, but a creative force; a
means of calling into existence a public opinion powerful enough to
introduce great reforms and sweep down abuses. He had no faith in
purposeless journalism, in journalism which has so little insight into
the tendencies of the time that it shifts its view from day to day in
accommodation to transient popular caprices. No great object is
accomplished without constancy of purpose, and a guide of public opinion
can not be constant unless he has a deep and abiding conviction of the
importance of what he advocates. Mr. Greeley's remarkable power, when
traced back to its main source, will be found to have consisted chiefly
in that vigorous earnestness of belief which held him to the strenuous
advocacy of measures which he thought conducive to the public welfare,
whether they were temporarily popular or not. Journalism may perhaps
gain more success as a mercantile speculation by other methods; but it
can be respected as a great moral and political force only in the hands
of men who have the talents, foresight, and moral earnestness which fit
them to guide public opinion. It is in this sense that Mr. Greeley was
our first journalist, and nobody can successfully dispute his rank, any
more than Mr. Bennett's could be contested in the kind that seeks to
float on the current instead of directing its course. The one did most
to render our American journals great vehicles of news, the other to
make them controlling organs of opinion. Their survivors in the
profession have much to learn from both.--_New York World_.

Knight of the ready pen,
Soldier without a sword,
Such eyes hadst thou for other men,
So true and grand a word!

As Caesar led his legions
Triumphant over Gaul,
And through still wilder, darker regions,
So thou didst lead us all!

Until we saw the chains
Which bound our brothers' lives,
And heard the groans and felt the pains,
Which come from wearing gyves.

To brave heroic men
The false no more was true;
And what the Nation needed then
Could any soldier do.

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