Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-04-23
Il Touching E.elo0y,


The funeral of John Mills. former
journalist, and for several years the pri
vate secretary of Representative Murch, of
Maine, took place April 10 at Washington
Col. r. G. Ingersoll delivered the follow
ing Grafton:
Again we are face to face with this grea.
mystery that shrouds this world. We cues
ton but there is no answer. Out on the
wild waste of seas there drifts no spar
Over the desert of death the sphinx gazes
forever, but never speaks. In the very
May of life another heart has ceased to
| beat. Night has fallen upon noon, but he
| lived, he loved, and was loved. Wife and
| children pressed their kisses on his lips.
| This is enough. The longest life contains
no more. This fills the vase of Joy. He
who lies here, clothed with the perfect
peace of death, was kind and
loving husband, and good
| father,a generous neighbor, an honest
| man, and these words build a monument
of glory over the humblest grave. He was
always a child, sincere and frank; as full
of hope as spring. He divided all time in
to to-day and tomorrow. Tomorrow was
without cloud, and of tomorrow he Dor
rowed sunshine for to-day. He was my
friend. He will remain SO. That the liv-
ing often become estranged from the
dead is true. He was not Christian. In
the Eden of his hope there did not crawl
and coil the serpent of eternal pain. In
many languages he sought the thoughts of
men, and for himself he sought the prob
lens of the world. He accepted the phil
osophy of Auguste Comte. Humanity was
his God; the human race the Supreme
Being. In that Supreme Being he
rested. He believed that we are indebted
for what we enjoy to the labor, the self-de-
NAL, the heroism of the human race, and
that as we have plucked the fruit OF what
others planted, we, in thankfulness. should
plant for others yet to DE. With him i'm
mortality was the eternal consequences of
his own good acts. He believed that every
good thought, every disinterested deed
hastens the harvest of universal good.
This is religion that enriches poverty
that enables us to bear the SORROWS of the
saddest life; that peoples even solitude
| with the happy millions yet to be; a reli-
glon yet to be, not of selishness and fear.
but of love and hope that gladly bears the
burdens of the unborn.
In the presence of death how beliefs and
dogmas wither and decay; how loving
words and deeds burst and bloom. Pluck
from the tree of any life these flowers and
| there remain but the barren thorns of
bigotry and creed. All wish for happi-
ness beyond this life. All hope to meet
again the loved and lost. In every heart
grows this sacred flower of eternal hope.
Immortality is a word that hope through
all ages has been whispering to love. The
miracle of thought we cannot understand.
The mystery of death and hope we can
not comprehend. This chaos of the world
has never been explained. The golden
bridge of life from gloom energies, and
our shadow rests. Beyond this we do not
know. Fate is speeches., destiny is dumb,
| and the secret of the future has never vet
been told. We love; we wait; we hope.
The more we love the more we fear; upon
| the tenderest heart the deepest shadows
fall. All paths, whether filed with
thorns Or flowers, end here. Here success
| and failure are the same. The rag of
wretchedness and the purple robe of power
lose difference and distinction in this de-
mocracy of death; character alone sur
wives, goodness alone survives; love alone
is immortal. But to these comes a time
when the favored lips of life, long for the
cool, delicious kiss of death. Tired of
the dust and glare of the Gay, they hear
with joy the rustling garments of the
| night. What can we say of death? What
can we say of the dead? Where they
have gone reason cannot 90, and from
| therce revelation has not come; but
| let us believe that over the cradle nature
bends and smiles, and lovingly above the
dead in benediction holds her outstretc he'd
hands