urdered body left alone on the ground; her daughter snatched
from her arms; her home in smoking ruins behind her,--so remarkable is
her character in its religious exaltation, that even in this hour of
supreme agony she could say, "_Though He slay me_, yet will I trust in
Him!"

A little mountain town of some five hundred inhabitants, named Meeker,
for the heroic man who there met his tragic death, now marks the site of
the massacre. Even at this day it is forty-five miles from the nearest
railroad station, Rifle, on the Denver and Rio Grand scenic route. The
little town reminds one of Florence, Italy, in the way it is surrounded
by amethyst mountains, and the White River on which it is located is far
more beautiful than the turbid Arno. The name of Nathan Cook Meeker is
held in the greatest reverence by the people of the entire region.

On an August afternoon more than twenty years after this tragedy a
visitor to Colorado stood on the site of the massacre under a sky whose
intense blue rivalled that of Italy. With the peaceful flow of the river
murmuring in the air and the hum of insects in the purple-flowered
alfalfa, the tragic scene seemed to rise again and impressed its
lesson,--the ethical lesson of apparent defeat, disaster, and death in
the outer and temporal world, while, on the spiritual side, it was
triumph and glory and the entrance to the life more abundant. The man
might be massacred,--the idea for which he stood cannot die. It rises
from the apparent death and is resurrected in the form of new and nobler
and more widely pervading ideals which communicate their inspiration to
all humanity.

In the cemetery of Greeley lie buried the body of Mr. Meeker and of his
daughter Josephine, whose early death followed close upon the tragedy.
The aged widow, now in her eighty-ninth year, still survives, occupying
her home in this Colorado town. Mrs. Meeker retains all her clearness of
intellect; all her keen interest in the affairs of the day. She reads
her daily newspapers, writes letters that are models of beautiful
thought and exquisite feeling, and still continues to write the verse
which through life has been the natural expression of her poetic nature.
Mrs. Meeker writes verses as a bird sings--with a natural gift full of
spontaneous music.

The work of Nathan Cook Meeker in all that makes for industrial and
social progress and moral ideals contributed incalculable aid to
Colorado. All over the state the tour