he was surpassingly great in death. For no cause, in the
very frenzy of wantonness and wickedness, by the red hand of murder, he
was thrust from the full tide of this world's interests, from its hopes,
its aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of death--and
he did not quail. Not alone for the one short moment in which, stunned
and dazed, he could give up life, hardly aware of its relinquishment,
but through days of deadly languor, through weeks of agony, that was not
less agony because silently borne, with clear sight and calm courage, he
looked into his open grave. What blight and ruin met his anguished eyes,
whose lips may tell--what brilliant, broken plans, what baffled, high
ambitions, what sundering of strong, warm, manhood's friendships, what
bitter rending of sweet household ties! Behind him a proud expectant
nation, a great host of sustaining friends, a cherished and happy
mother, wearing the full, rich honors of her early toil and tears; the
wife of his youth, whose whole life lay in his; the little boys not yet
emerged from childhood's day of frolic; the fair young daughter; the
sturdy sons just springing into closest companionship, claiming every
day, and every day rewarding a father's love and care; and in his heart
the eager, rejoicing power to meet all demand. Before him, desolation
and great darkness! And his soul was not shaken. His countrymen were
thrilled with instant, profound and universal sympathy. Masterful in his
mortal weakness, he became the center of a nation's love, enshrined in
the prayers of a world. But all the love and all the sympathy could not
share with him his suffering. He trod the wine-press alone. With
unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailing tenderness he took
leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin's bullet he heard
the voice of God. With simple resignation he bowed to the Divine decree.

"As the end drew near, his early cravings for the sea returned. The
stately mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of pain,
and he begged to be taken from its prison walls, from its oppressive,
stifling air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness. Gently,
silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the
longed-for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God should will,
within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold
voices. With wan, fevered face, tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze,
he looked out