He has gone the way of all the
living. He has found the level of the grave. Our words of eulogy can not
reach him there.
Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or flatt'ry soothe the dull, cold ear of death?
Solomon, summing up this question, said:
For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any
thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them
is forgotten.
Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished;
neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is
done under the sun.
To human reason the death of him we mourn was untimely. He was born May
31, 1837, and died October 15, 1891. He was therefore in the prime of
manhood, and apparently had many years of useful life before him. But
death sometimes strangely selects his victims. No season, no station, no
age is exempt from his fatal shafts. When death comes to the aged as the
end of a fully completed life we regard it as natural. But when death
comes to the young, the gifted, and the promising, we with our finite
vision look upon it as sad and mysterious. We are constantly reminded
that--
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour.
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