“Let us turn now to a brief consideration of some of the lessons that we are to learn from this sad event. The first one that will occur to us all is the old, old lesson that ‘in the midst of life we are in death.’ ‘Man goeth forth to his work and to his labor until the evening.’ ‘He fleeth as it were a shadow and never continueth in one stay.’
“Our President went forth in the fullness of his strength, in his manly beauty, and was suddenly smitten by the hand that brought death with it. None of us can tell what a day may bring forth. Let us therefore remember that ‘no man liveth to himself and none of us dieth to himself.’ ‘May each day’s close see each day’s duty done.’
“Another great lesson that we should heed is the vanity of mere earthly greatness. In the presence of the Dread Messenger how small are all the trappings of wealth and distinctions of rank and power. I beseech you, seek Him who said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.’ There is but one Savior for the sinsick and the weary. I entreat you, find Him, as our brother found Him.
“But our last words must be spoken. Little more than four years ago we bade him good-by as he went to assume the great responsibilities to which the nation had called him. His last words as he left us were:
“‘Nothing could give me greater pleasure than this farewell greeting—this evidence of your friendship and sympathy, your good will, and I am sure the prayers of all the people with whom I have lived so long and whose confidence and esteem are dearer to me than any other earthly honors.
“‘To all of us the future is as a sealed book, but if I can, by official act or administration or utterance, in any degree add to the prosperity and unity of our beloved country, and the advancement and well-being of our splendid citizenship, I will devote the best and most unselfish efforts of my life to that end. With this thought uppermost in my mind, I reluctantly take leave of my friends and neighbors, cherishing in my heart the sweetest memories and thoughts of my old home—my home now—and I trust my home hereafter so long as I shall live.’
“We hoped, with him, that when his work was done, freed from the burdens of his great office, crowned with the affections of a happy people, he might be permitted to close his earthly life in the home he loved. He has indeed returned to us, but how? Borne to the strains of ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee,’ and placed where he first began life’s struggle, that the people might look and weep over so sad a home-coming.
“But it was a triumphal march. How vast the procession. The nation rose, stood with uncovered head. The people of the land are chief mourners. The nations of the earth weep with them. But, oh, what a victory! I do not ask you in the heat of public address, but in the calm moments of mature reflection, what other man ever had such high honors bestowed upon him and by so many people? What pageant has equaled this that we look upon to-night?
“We gave him to the nation but a little more than four years ago. He went out with the light of the morning upon his brow, but with his task set, and the purpose to complete it. We take him back a mighty conqueror.
“‘The churchyard where his children rest,