New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-09-26
DUST TO DUST.

To-day a funeral passes such rs the world
never saw before. Fifty millions of people
stop short in all their concerns and reverently
uncover while the Nation buries its Dead.
Were it not for the punctuation of the solemn
sminute-guns, and the grievous clang of tolling
bells, it might be safely said that the continent
stands at such hush as when its forests were un
touched of axe, its soil unvexed by plough.
1t happens partly because science and the
restless energies of the time have so brought
together wide-apart communities that the lifted
hand adjuring silence is at the moment Wis
ibe over continental spaces and from sea to
sea; but it more largely happens because he
who is taken back to earth to-day not only
represented i'll his high Office the power
land dignity of the Nation, but for
1 eleven long weeks OF patient suffering was the
centre of the Nations interest and the ,tion's
1 hope. SO the pause and the hush and the rev.
erent silence OF fifty million people who do not
merely magnify themselves in paying these fune-
real honors to their dead Chief but who arc
thus exhibiting, in the grandeur of this great
Stiffness the deeper feeling that comes of
personal bereavement and loss. The world has
witnessed no such scene as this one passing be-
fore our eyes to-day. Chiefs and heroes have
passed away before, and been inurned with
solemn pomp and ceremonial. But here is
something more something far more some
/ thing so indescribably tender and touching
4 that words can only weaken its expression.
and falling back upon simple infection, we
& say " We are burying our deadiv
b But tho world does not linger long with ia
\ grieis; and it Is well that it does not. Soon
B OF late death comes to all. 1t has done for us
It's greatest service if in the solemn pause il
! has gwen us 1t has disentangled us from self
i land selfish ends and set us upon a somewhat
4 wider and higher view. The Nation will SLOWLY
I turn away from the grave of its dead, but if
will turn away. 1t will be long, very long.
before the story of his cruel striking
down, OF his long and painful illness.
his patience, his meekness, his fortitude, and
above all of the tenderness and sweetness of his
domestic relations as brought out under the
glare of a publicity which it was not possible
to avoid. will fail to draw tears to human eyes.
For his afflicted family the healing force of
time will work even more slowly. The fam
lily and the Nation can hardly have but one
thought to-day, and that is of the cruelty of
\ the blow, and of the immitigable loss
both have sustained. In tho immediate
view OF our own personal griefs we lose sight
of the two essential facts of existence that it
is only through agony and pain that any great
thing comes about, and that after all death
lends all. We cannot escape either Painless
3existence would give us no lessons, no educa-
3hon. no progress The whole world groans
land travails; we wonder at it. and
see not why, until new life comes across the
Threshold, Nation bares its forehead to the
dawn, a race is disenthralled, or to the agony
1 of Calvary succeeds the redemption of man
kind. Only through pain do we have any
revelation the revelation of freedom through
|cruel wars; the revelation of truth through
sorrowful martyrdoms the revelation of God
Himself through the cross-b bearing Christ.
And out of all pain and all death come con-
solutions. They may not be Immediately pres
ent and visible, but some time they come.
What recognition there was of this, and of
the dead Presidents faith in it, when the vast
crowd at Washington the other day responded
with visible thrill of emotion as the band
sent out the strains of "Nearer my God to
Thee" No words were sung or said, but the
line
"E'en though 1 I be q cross that raiscth mo"
sprang into the thought of thousands, bringing
with it the ultimate consolation that PrOyi
dence has bestowed upon faith as the mitiga
ton of all pain. And there are larger consola-
tons than this one-which may be held MS
hidden in the mystery of faith--in the life.
even in the last few weeks of the life of him
whom we bury to-day. There is consolation for
the bereaved family in the circumstance, cruel
as it was, that took him out of their presence and
their life into the love and affection of o great
people, the reverent regard of tho whole
world. and one Of the highest places in
human history. There was an aspiration In his
question. low days before his death: "Do