Time and again through the service, when the speaker’s words touched upon the beauties of President McKinley’s life, the Archbishop was seen to bow his head in tears, while great sobs choked his frame.
One of the notable incidents of the day was Rev. F. D. Powers’ sermon at the Vermont Avenue Christian church in Washington. He it was who conducted the funeral services over the body of President Garfield, in the rotunda of the capitol, twenty years ago. He chose as his text the words of Christ to Peter in the garden of Gethsemane: “The cup which my Father gave me, shall I not drink it?” He said in part:
“Our beloved Christian President, in the terrible moment when the blow was struck, said: ‘Do him no harm; he does not know what he is doing.’ How true and wise and just and Christlike! And when he resigned himself to the faithful surgeons with that faith and majestic courage and magnificent simplicity that marked his character of life throughout, he said: ‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done,’ and passed into unconsciousness with those last words on his lips. Hear him, as all the glory of this world fades above his vision and the gates of the unseen are swinging wide, when he breathed the hymn, ‘Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee.’ Hear him as the last farewell is taken: ‘It is God’s way. His will be done.’ How he speaks to the nation! How he speaks to the ages! God holds the cup, and the draught is wholesome and needful. God help us to be ready, as he was! Death is a friend of ours, and we must be ever ready to entertain him. God make us strong in Him who said: ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’”
Historic Trinity church, in New York, was crowded with worshippers. Rev. Morgan Dix, the pastor, is a son of that stern old Governor John A. Dix, who in an earlier day sounded the note of a vigorous policy: “If any man hauls down the American flag, shoot him on the spot.”
Dr. Dix, before a congregation that filled every available seat and overflowed in the aisles, delivered a sermon that was a eulogy of the virtues and statesmanship of the late President, William McKinley. After denouncing the crime Dr. Dix severely arraigned anarchy as a danger which would destroy modern civilization, and recommended that action be taken to suppress it. In the liturgical part of the service which preceded the sermon the President’s favorite hymn, “Lead, Kindly Light,” was sung. Dr. Dix spoke in part as follows:
“Men and brethren, eye to eye, hand to hand, heart to heart, we face each other now crying, ‘Woe is me!’ Woe for the common grief, woe worth the day and the tidings which it brings of destruction, desolation, death and violence lording it over us all! We are one in our distress at the last calamity and national affliction, in horror at an unspeakable crime. And so suddenly has the blow been dealt that there has been no time to search for the words which one might wish to speak. Two things surely are filling our thoughts today. We are looking at the man; we are looking at the crime. As for the man, his warmest friends, his greatest admirers, could have asked for him no more brilliant apotheosis. Estimates have varied of him, his ability, his work. But millions have been praying as men seldom pray that his life might be precious in the sight of God; and far beyond our borders, and widely through foreign lands, others innumerable, our brethren in a common humanity, have been on their knees pleading for his life. This tells the story of his character, his acts, his greatness; the general consent of the wide world, from which there can be no appeal.
“Our President was a great man in the highest sense in which that adjective can be applied. I am not speaking as a publicist, nor analyzing a political career; there is room for difference of judgment there; but there are other matters upon which we are all agreed. What is it to find in the highest place among us a man devout and faithful in his Christian profession, modest, calm, capable; a pattern of the domestic virtues, an example of right living? Has not the public, the great American nation, taken in the beauty first of that good, honest, loyal life? Is it not for this that the man has been beloved and mourned throughout our families and our homes?
“What makes the Christian gentleman to begin with but simplicity and sincerity of life, courteous manners, dislike of pride and ostentation, abhorrence of display and vulgar show? So have we thought first of this man, and then we have followed his life through its varied phases. We have seen the quiet student, the soldier, the legislator, the executive officer; and, looking on, our admiration has grown more and more. We have seen him chosen by a vast popular movement to be the chief magistrate of the nation; we have scanned his conduct and acts during four years, among the most critical in the nation’s history, and as the result of such scrutiny in the broadest light that could be thrown upon his path, and under the severest criticism to which a public man can be subjected, we have seen him re-elected to his great office by a larger vote than ever amid the acclamation of the people and to the confusion of his adversaries.
“All this we have seen. And then we have said: ‘In this system of ours we do not ask for a man who shall make and control, but for a man who shall wisely guide, oversee, direct; a man who catches the spirit of the age, who knows the signs of the times, who interprets movements, and in his sound judgment shapes their course.’ Looking at the last four years, more full of vital issues to the nation than any since the days of Abraham Lincoln, we have seen wonderful things. A nation passing on from small to great, from narrow places to broad, the horizon enlarging all the while, the nation attaining its majority, the world looking on with amazement, great questions put and answered well, great principles settled, great deeds done for freedom and clarifying of evil, and instruction in sound views of government; one great, grand, forward, upward movement, dazzling the eyes and charming the senses and kindling hope. And at the head of all this a man—not as if he were the author of these things, but certainly the wise, prudent, earnest leader; such a leader as Providence, we believe, must have raised for that particular work and inclined us to put in that position. That was the man.
“And up to Friday, September 6, that was the scene presented by our happy and highly favored land—a land blessed and contented, at peace and secure; never before so prosperous, never yet so honored abroad, never yet so hopeful, so confident; marching on its splendid path to greater things. And always at the head that good citizen, that earnest patriot, that wise head, that warm, affectionate heart, that friendly, fearless instance of the best that our American civilization has yet brought forth to help and cheer; trusted by a great people; strong, able, healthful, with his friends about him and the light of coming years in front. That was the fate of the people, and that was their will, and according to all ideas the will of the people is the law of the land, and he who gainsays is the enemy of the sovereign people. So stood matters a week ago last Friday.