Wuart constitutes the best memorial of a dead benefactor of his fellow creatures?
This is a question which is always recurring, and which generally receives an ascertain reply. There are two views of the subject, and for convenience sake we may call these two views the sentimental and the utilitarian view:
Tt must be understood, however, that both terms are employed in a good sense and that we do not desire any idea of mawkishness to tinge the word "sentiment" nor any coarse or degrading associations to gather round the word "utilitarian." The utilitarian view of a monument is something usefal. If a great physician dies, let a ward be opened in a hospital and let it be called after his name. If a great scholar dies, let a professorship of the language or science in which be excelled be endowed at his university, If a great soldier dies, let a military college commemorate the illustrious name, and assist in the training of soldiers like unto him who is gone, If a renowned sailor is taken from amongst us, let decrepit mariners be housed and fed in their old age ina structure which bears on its pediment the name of the sea-captain under whom the first generation of pensioners fought. T is all very reasonable, and appeals to the plain common sense of the mass of mankind. There is a time when people desire to be recalled to practical duties and practical claims and when it is wise to check the lavish expenditure of money in piled-up marble and carved stone. The best monnment to ® good man or a good woman is another good man or good woman who imitates their virtues, and institution, in which a number of persons are taught to copy the deceased is an excellent memorial of great and useful qualities. Still, though we admit the merits of the utilitarian view, we think there is something to be suid on the other side. A telling point was made recently by a speaker of conspicuous ability on this subject when he alleged the case of the great Hebrew law-giver. The burial-place of Moses appears to have been mysteriously concealed, and no opportunity was given for the erection of a material monument to him whose memorials were to be an enfranchised and organized nation, a religion, and polity, It must not be assumed, however, that the Hebrew seriptures discountenance monuments. The Sbemitie race has always been nerve ously apprehensive of the perils latent in wsthetic culture. Though individuals of that race have excelled in nearly every department of art, still the, wisdom of putting up a tangible monument was acknowledged on a memorable occasion by the successor of Moses. The large stone set up by Joshua was a memorial of a man and a transaction. We have been struck by a very pregnant criticism on this monument by Dr. Radcliff, in the February number of the The Contemporary Review. After quoting the passage which relates how Joshua ordered the stone to be set up, he says: "Explain it as you muy, inanimate objects and subjects are connected with animate objects and subjects in an act of memory by the indissoluble association of ideas." If we desire the memory of decented person to be preserved, we must do it by the medium of some inanimate thing. Rightly or wrongly, the dead person is best remembered when the survivor looks at an inanimate object presenting their likeness or bouring their name. The use of lockets, memorial rings, cameos, miniatures, and such things are evidences of this fact, It is true that a atone monument or a stone edifice may cram. ble and decay. Europe and Asia are full of battered and smouldering fragments of what were once stately structures commemorating men and women long dead. And we maintain that they do commemorate them, and that they commemorate them better in a certain sense than public institutions, No one over passes an Eleanor Cross without thinking of the Queen of Edward I, but thousnuds pass Green wich Hospital without. recalling Queen Mary and the battle of La Hague.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.