The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1882-07-27
THE NEWS.
DUST TO DUST.
Funeral of Mrs. Lincoln at Springfield
Illinois.

Funeral of Mrs. Lincoln at Springfield
Illinois.
SPRINGFIELD, H., July 19-Rev. DIR.
j. A. Reed, pastor of the First Presby-
terrain church of Springfield, of which
Mrs. Lincoln has been a member since
1852, pronounced the funeral discourse
this morning in the presence OF u vast
audience, including all the officials of
the state and municipal government.
The services were distinguished for their
dignity and sOlennity and the sermon
fifty expressed the sentiments and
symapihies of the community of which
Mrs. Lincoln had been member.
DIR. Reeds text was from the second
book of Samuel, 18th chapter and 18th
verse: For we must needs die, and
are as water split on the ground which
cannot be gathered up again, neither
doth God respect any person, yet doth
He devise means that His banished be
not expelled from Him." The reverend
gentleman spoke substantially as fol-
lows: These admonitory words fall
from the lips of 4 princely woman, plead
ing the common mortality to gain a
merciful end with n princely man.
They have their fitting repetition now
in the solemnities of this hour, when all
that remains of the wife of princely
uldH ll6S DGlOT6 US. n pOOE QtSOtaLG
HEART BROKEN WOMAN,
whose SORROWS have been too great for
utterance even, has ut last yielded to the
Withdrawing hand. of death, and enter
ed upon the silvery bourne whence no
traveller returns. This is only the
climax of the shock of years ago.
Deaths dOings have now only ripened
into maturity. When among the Allie
ghany mountains | saw two tall stately
pines standing on a rocky ledge where
they had grown closely together SO as to
be virtually united at the base, their in
terlocking roots entering the same rock
cavities and penetrating the same soil.
There they had stood for years with in
terwining branches and interlocking
roots, Drawing in noble fellowship the
mountain storms, but the taller of the
two had years before been struck by
flash OF lightning that had gone 10 its
very roots, SCATTERING il from top to
bottom, leaving it Scared. The other,
apparently uniDjured, had survived
some summers, but il was evident from
the appearance of its leaves that it, too,
was now quite dead. It had fingered
in fellowship with it's dead companion,
but the shock was too much for it. In
their sympathetic fellowship and union
both trees had suffered from the same
calamity. They had virtually both been
killed at the same time. With the one
that fingered it was only slow death
from the same cause.
$50 il seemed to me To-day that We are
only looking at death placing his seal
upon the lingering victim of u past Ca
lamity."
THE MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIFE.
DIR. Reed then spoke of the marriage
and family life of the deceased TO the
time when the violent death of the pres
ident shocked and stunned the sensibili-
ties of the nation, and said: "When the
nation so felt the shock what must II
have been 10 the poor woman who stood
by his side, who was the sharer of his
joys, the partner of his sorrows; whose
heart strings were wound about his great
heart that seal of eternal Lowell What
wonder is it that The shock of that sad
hour that made nation weep should
leave q tender woman shattered in body
and in mind to walk sadly all her days.
It is no reflection upon either the
strength of her mind or the tenderness
of her heart to say that when Abraham
Lincoln died she died. The lightning
that struck down the strong man un-
nerved the woman. The sharp iron of
this pungent grief went to her soul.
The terrible shock, with its quick fol-
lowing grief in the death of her children,
left her physically and mentally Il
wreck, as it would have left any of US in
the circumstances. ! can only think of
Mrs Lincoln as
DYING WOMAN,
through these long years of painful sOr-
row through which she has fingered
since the death of her husband. 1t is
not only charitable but just 10 her native
mental qualities and her noble Womanly
nature that we think of her and speak
of her as she was before she became the
victim of these great sorrows, drawing
the veil over all these years of failing
health of body and mind which have
been spent in seeking rest from sorrow
in quiet seciusiOn from the world.
81 shall speak of her only as the
woman she was before her noble hus-
| band fell a martyr by her side.n
The speaker then sketched the we'll
known history of the family and closed
with tribute to the religious life of the
| deceased.
THE CLOSING SCENES.
A long procession moved from the
church to the tomb through streets
thronged on'both sides with multitudes,
| and the street cars and other public con-
veyances leading TO the cemetery were
crowded with people eager to share in
the solemnities of the occasion. While
| the business of the city was by official
proclamation suspended, and all bells
were tolling, a simple prayer in the
crypt Of the tomb completed the cere-
mony by which the last remains of Mrs.
Lincoln were placed beside those Of her
husband.