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Show IRVING AND BARNAD0. Denver was interested in a controversy last week which had its beginning in an article Dean Hart contributed to the Daily Republican. It was a contrast of the lives of Dr. Barnado and Sir Henry Irving. Not so much a contrast, either, as a reflection on what the world thought of these two men as intimated in tho treatment of their dead bodies. Sir Henry Irving, the actor, was buried in Westminster Abbey, -with all the ostentation, osten-tation, church and civic, bestowed on historic persons per-sons whom the people of England delight to honor. To an Englishman, a crypt in Westminster Abbey is lower only to the position of the angels before the throneof God. Dr. Barnado, the philanthropist philanthro-pist of the slums, was buried in the little village where he had homed thousands and thousands of the homeless. The naked presentation of these two localities of burial for persons whose lives were on the tongues of all England, needed not another word. Such things are best left for meditation and language lan-guage seems only to weaken the sublimity of silence. si-lence. But Dean Hart did not think so. In his zeal for Barnado he unnecessarily assailed the drama and thereby could not help criticising its loftiest representative. Hence the controversy through the Republican, lasting three or four days, and drawing out opinions from the literary cult of Denver. Men cannot be perfect in all things. Intellect and heart disposes him for the parts that seemed to be created especially for him alone, and as he fits into those parts so may be reckon his achievements. achieve-ments. Sir Henry. Irving was a different man from Dr. Barnado. Neither could ever fit into the life of the other. -Dr. Barnado was not a St. Vincent de Paul,- neither was Sir Henry Irving a David Garrick. But in their own times none others so closely resembled the saint and the actor of the, past. The man who aims to elevate the drama and, rescue it from the impurities into which modern taste has plunged it, is no less an apostle than tho one whom God has given talents for another sphere of labor. It is for Him who sits in judgment on the Last Day to reward the one who made the best use of those talents. As one looks into this matter more seriously, he is not surprised at the conduct of the English people over the burials of both distinguished persons. per-sons. It is but natural. No barefooted saint ever started out to beg for hungry children and expected ex-pected to be rewarded by a crypt in Westminster or anywhere else. We do not think the honor which was Irving's ever vexed the mind of the humble Barnado. To be buried in sight of the thousands he rescued was to him what the choice of crucifixion cruci-fixion was to Peter nailed to the cross with his head downward. Let Irving and Barnado rest in peace. " x . |