Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 September 1901 — Dr MANGHESTER'S SERMON [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Dr MANGHESTER'S SERMON

Delivered at the McKinley Funeral in Canton. A SWEET AND TENDER -STORY, 1 McKinley’s Devotion to Ills Invalid Wife —How the Dead Statesman Became a Christian —The World’s Grief Over Oar-’Nation's Loss. The following is the full text of the sermon of Dr. C. E. Manchester at the McKinley funeral in Canton Thursday: Our President is dead. “The silver cord Is loosed, the golden bowl is broken, the pitcher is broken at the fountain, the wheel broken at the cistern, the mourners go about the streets." “One voice is heard—a wail of sorrow from all the land, for the beauty of Israel is slain upon the high places. How are the mighty fallen! I am distressed for thee, my brother. Very pleasant hast thou been unto me.” Our President is dead. We can hardly believe - it. We had hoped and prayed, and it seemed that our hopes were to be realised and our prayers answered, when the emotion of joy was changed to one of grave apprehension. Still we waited, for. we said, "It may be that God will be gracious and merciful unto us.” It seemed to us that it must be his will to. s>are the life of one so well beloved and so much needed. Thus, alternating between hope and fear, the weary hours passed on Then came the tidings of a defeated Science, of the. failure of love and prayer to hold its object to the earth. We seemed to hear the faintly ” muttered words: "Good-bye all, good-bye.

It’s God's way. His will be done.” And then. “Nearer, my God. to thee.” Passes On to He at Kest. So, nestling nearer to his God, he passed out into unconsciousness, skirted the dark shores of the sea of death for a time, and then passed on to be at rest. His great heart had ceased to beat. Our hearts are heavy with sorrow. “A voice Is beard on earth of kinfolk weeping The loss of one they love; But he has gone where the redeemed are keeping A festival above. “The mourners throng the ways and from the steeple The funeral hells toll slow; But on the golden streets the holy people ' Are passing to and fro. “And saying as they meet, ‘Rejoice, another Long waited for is come. The Savior’s heart is glad, * a younger brother Has reached the Father’s home." The cause of this universal mourning is to be found in the man himself. The inspired penman's picture of Jonathan, likening him unto the "Beauty of Israel,” could not be more appropriately employed than in chanting the lament of our fallen chieftain. It does no violence to human speech, nor Is It fulsome eulogy to speak thus of him, for who that has seen his stately bearing, his grace and manliness of demeanor, his kindliness of aspect but gives assent to this description of him? Loved by All Who Knew Him. It was characteristic of our beloved President that men met him only to love him. They might, Indeed, differ with him, but in the presence of such dignity of character and grace of manner none could fail to love the man. The people confided in him, believed In him. It was said of Lincoln that probably no man since the days of Washington was ever so deeply embedded and enshrined In the hearts of the people, but it is true of McKinley in a larger sense. Industrial and social conditions are such that he was, even more than his predecessors, the friend of the whole people. A touching scene was enacted In this church last Sunday night. The services had closed. The worshipers were gone to their homes. Only a few lingered to discuss the sad event that brings us together today. Three men of a foreign race and unfamiliar tongue, and clad In working garb, entered the room. They approached the altar, kneeling before It and before the dead man's picture. Their lips moved as If In prayer, while tears furrowed their cheeks. They may have been thinking of their own King Humbert and of his untimely death. Their emotion was eloquent, eloquent beyond speech, and it bore testimony to their appreciation of manly friendship and of honest worth. Soul Clean and Hands Unsullied. It Is a glorious thing to be able to say In this presence, with our illustrious dead before us 1 , that he never betrayed the confidence of his countrymen. Not for personal gain or pre-eminence would he’ mar the beauty of his squl. He kept it clean and white before God and man, and his hands were unsullied by bribes] “His eyes looked right on, and his eyelids looked straight before him.” He was sincere, plain and honest, just, benevolent and kind. He never disappointed those who believed in him, but measured up to every duty and met every responsibility In life grandly and unflinchingly. Not only was our President brave, heroic and honest: he was as gallant a knight as ever rode the lists for his lady love In the days when knighthood was in flower. It is but a few weeks since the nation looked on with tear-dimmed eyes

as It saw with what tender conjugal devotion he sat at the bedside of his beloved, wife, when all feared that a fatal Illness was upon her. No public clamor that he might show himself to the populace, no demand of a social function was sufficient to draw the lover from the bedside of Ills wife. He watched and waited while we all prayed—and she lived. Tender Story of Ills Love. This sweet and tender story all the world knows, and the world knows that his whole life had run in this one groove of love. It was a strong arm that she leaned upon and It never failed her. Her smile was more to him than the plaudits of the multitude and for her greeting his acknowledgments of them must wait. After receiving the fatal wound his first thought was that the terrible news might be broken gently to her. May God in this deep hour of sorrow comfort her. May his 1 grace be greater than her anguish. May - the widow's God be her God. Another beauty* in the character of our President, that was a chaplet of grace about his neck, was that he was a Christian. In the broadest, noblest sense of the word that was true. His confidence in God was strong and unwavering. It held him steady in many a storm where others were driven before the wind and tossed. He believed in the fatherhood of God and in his sovereignty. His faith in the gospel of Christ was deep and abiding. He had no patience with any other theme of pulpit discourse. "Christ and him crucified” was to his mind the only panacea for the world's disorders. He believed it to be the supreme duty of the Christian minister to preach the word. He said: "We do not look for great business-men in the pulpit, but for great preachers.” Ever a True Christian. It Is well known that his godly mother had hoped for him that he would become a minister of the gospel, and that she believed it to be the highest vocation in life. It was not. however, hts mother's faith that made him a Christian. He had gained In early- life a personal knowledge of Jesus which guidded him in the performance of greater dutTes and vaster titan have been the lot of any other American President. He said at one time, while bearing heavy burdens, that he could not .discharge the daily duties of his life but for the fact that he had faith in God. William McKinley - believed in prayer, in the beauty of it, in th» potency of it. Its language was not unfamiliar to him, and his public addresses not infrequently evince the fact. It was perfectly consistent with his life-long convictions and his personal experiences that he should say as the first critical moment after the assassination approached. "Thy Kingdom come: thy will be done,” and that he should declare at the last, "It Is God's way; his will be done.” He lived grandly: it was fitting that he should die grandly. And now that the majesty of death has touched and calmed him we find that in his supreme moment he was still a conqueror." Lessons from the Sad Event.

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 w - ill occur to us all is the old, °'d lesson that “in the midst of life we are in death." "Man goeth forth to his workjind to his labor until the evening.” "He fteeth as It were a shadow and never contlnufth. 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 da/ may bring forth. I.et us, therefore, remember that "No man liveth to himself and none of us dleth 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 distinction of rank and powff. I beseech you, seek him yvho said: "I am the resurrection ami 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 sick and the weary - . I entreat you, find him, as our brother found him. But our last yvords must Be spoken. Little more than four years ago we bade him good-bye 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 efTorts of my life to that end. With tills 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 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 had loved.

Badness of the Hdme-Comlng. 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 homecopilng. But It was a triumphal march. How vast the procession. The nation rose and stood with uncovered head. The people of the land are chief mourners. The nations of the earth weep with them. But, O, 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 tonight? We gave him to tho nation only 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 church yard where his children rest The quiet spot that suits him best; ’ There shall his grave be made, And there his bones be laid. there his countrymeh shall coma. With memory proud, with pity dumb. And strangers far and near, For many and many a year; For many a year and many an age, While history on her simple page The virtues shall enroll Of that paternal soul." The bloom on fruit is said to be nature’s waterproofing. Where it is rubbed oft damp accumulates an decay soon follows.

REV. DR. C. E. MANCHESTER.