Elmwood, Ills.
1895.
LADIES and Gentlemen, Fellow-citizens, Old Friends and Comrades:
It gives me the greatest pleasure to meet again those with whom I became acquainted in the morning of my life. It is now afternoon. The sun of life is slowly sinking in the west, and, as the evening comes, nothing can be more delightful than to see again the faces that I knew in youth.
When first I knew you the hair was brown; it is now white. The lines were not quite so deep, and the eyes were not quite so dim. Mingled with this pleasure is sadness,—sadness for those who have passed away—for the dead.
And yet I am not sure that we ought to mourn for the dead. I do not know which is better—life or death. It may be that death is the greatest gift that ever came from nature's open hands. We do not know.
There is one thing of which I am certain, and that is, that if we could live forever here, we would care nothing for each other. The fact that we must die, the fact that the feast must end, brings our souls together, and treads the weeds from out the paths between our hearts.
And so it may be, after all, that love is a little flower that grows on the crumbling edge of the grave. So it may be, that were it not for death there would be no love, and without love all life would be a curse.
I say it gives me great pleasure to meet you once again; great pleasure to congratulate you on your good fortune—the good fortune of being a citizen of the first and grandest republic ever established upon the face of the earth.
That is a royal fortune. To be an heir of all the great and brave men of this land, of all the good, loving and patient women; to be in possession of the blessings that they have given, should make every healthy citizen of the United States feel like a millionaire.