Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1902 — A FRIEND’S TRIBUTE. [ARTICLE]

A FRIEND’S TRIBUTE.

With sadness and sorrow, we read the announcement of the death of Mordecai F. Chilcote. The writer first met hiUi in 1878, and in after years became intimately acquainted with him. To know him .thoroughly, was to honor and esteem him. Those who knew him best, loved him best. In every respect he was a good man. In early manhood his country required his services, and he remained at the front until the white-winged messenger of peace hovered over the land. He then prepared himself for law by a course in the Michigan University, and followed that profession for the remainder of his life. He was a safe and wise counselor, and those who intrusted their business in his hands never had any just cause of regret The young men of the profession could go to him for advice, and it was always faithfully and honestly given. He was faithful to his lodge and his church. If he had been free of all faults, he would not have been human; but where are those who have fewer? • While the writer differed from him politically, he can truthfully say that he rendered the party to which he belonged long, faithful and valuable services, and while it was in its power to reward him, that duty it neglected to perform. Our mental vision can not pierce the veil that bides from us the future. Shall the night of death be eternal, or shall the race of man awake in the morning of another world? We do not know. But we who knew him, know that if man exists in a future state, that the spirit of Mordecai F. Chilcote dwells with the good, the noble and the true. It can be said of him, “if every one for whom he did some loving service were to bring a blossom to his grave he would rest beneath a wilderness of flowers.” We pay this tribute to his name, while we shed a tear in his rememberance.

A FRIEND.

Ask any of our customers if we don’t treat them better than any firm they ever dealt with. G. M. Wilcox & Son.