Professor Blackie concludes with the gospel text, “What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” which the Professor applies in the plain practical question: “What will it profit England to spin more cotton, to pile more money-bags, to set more steam-coaches a-going, if Mammon is to be worshiped every where, rather than virtue and wisdom?” &c.
SPEAKING THE TRUTH.
One of the sublimest things in the world is plain Truth. Indeed it is so sublime as to be entirely out of the reach of many people.
The ancients said many fine things of Truth; but nothing to exceed in practical worth the love of Truth shown by the great Duke of Wellington in every phase of his wonderful career, of which the majority of us have been, more or less, contemporary witnesses.
“The foundation of all justice,” said this truly great man, “is Truth; and the mode of discovering truth has always been to administer an oath, in order that the witness may give his depositions under a high sanction.”
Elsewhere he said, when advocating the cause of the Church of England, “I am resolved to tell plainly and honestly what I think, quite regardless of the odium I may incur from those whose prejudices my candour and sincerity may offend. I am here to speak the truth, and not to flatter the prejudices of any man. In speaking the truth, I shall utter it in the language that truth itself most naturally suggests. It is upon her native strength—upon her own truth—it is upon her spiritual character, and upon the purity of her doctrines, that the Church of England rests.”
When, upon the death of Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Wellington sought to express what seemed to him most admirable in the character of his friend, he said that he was the truest man he had ever known; adding: “I was long connected with him in public life. We were both in the councils of our sovereign together, and I had long the honour to enjoy his private friendship. In all the course of my acquaintance with Sir Robert Peel, I never knew a man in whose truth and justice I had a more lively confidence, or in whom I saw a more invariable desire to promote the public service. In the whole course of my communication with him I never knew an instance in which he did not show the strongest attachment to truth; and I never saw, in the whole course of my life, the smallest reason for suspecting that he stated any thing which he did not firmly believe to be the fact.”
It was the instinct of a man, himself as true as he was great, thus to place the regard for truth in the front rank of human qualities. On that simple and noble basis his own nature rested. Wellington could not vapour, or even utter a lie in a bulletin. Every thing with him was simple, direct, straightforward, and went to the heart of its purpose, if any thing could. In all that has singled out England from the nations, and given her the front place in the history of the world, the Duke of Wellington was emphatically an Englishman. His patience, his probity, his punctuality in the smallest things, in every thing the practical fidelity and reliability of his character, we rejoice to regard as the type of that which has made us the great people that we are. It has indeed been well said that the Duke’s whole existence was a practical refutation of all falsehood.