Morning journal and courier., 1885-08-10
AulcElCd
 Choir and audience joining.
Choir and audience joining. l3 Benediction on...............R Rev. E. D. Bassett We give the greater part of Speaker Si- |,

Choir and audience joining.
 1S. Benedictlon Rev. E. U. basset1 We give the greater part Of Speaker Sl- monds' oration as follows:
 My Friends-General Grant is dead. The boom of cannon rolling and reyerberatingfrom sea to sea utters this message in tones of thunder. One of the great nations Of the earth is met in it's entirety to hold reverent service while his mortal part IS put away All the peoples of the world are meanwhile silent with respect and sympathy: No ldol- atry is here, no worship of anything save the ever-living God, but profoundest respect and we'll nigh boundless admiration for human life, which adds proof to proof that man IS made in Gods own image and is the casket of spark divine which he may, if he will, develop into Godlike splendor.
 I speak not of Grant merely great sot- dier, for great soldier is not necessarily the highest type of man. Picture Napoleon draining all France of the flower of it's youth, strewing his path from Moscow to Paris with their blood and bodies, carrying desolation and death into half the homes of Europe and leaving behind him a generation of widows and orphans and cripples, all for the qualification of selfish ambition to be one of the worlds great conquerors; and the truth that great soldier need not be great man lives and glows in lurid light. How ever large our intellectual appreciation of Napoleon's military genius may be, we are always sure that in moral sense he was possessed of legion of devils. That courage which is the refinement of physical courage, sutfused through and through with moral courage, this dead hero possessed in its purity. He united thereto quality of mind which enabled him to wield the iron fail of war as the myth-made love does the Olympian thunderbolts. Of his ] princely gifts as soldier need not speak; ! the great captains of the world have agreed as to that. Well it vas for the cause of ib- erty that this man became it's servant. It was clearly the providence of God which | created this man for this crisis.
 That Grant possessed this moral and phys | ical courage was proven by his whole public l life, not only as a soldier, but as President, and more lately as dying man. The stead fast heroism of the last year of his life is be- ! yond words to describe. A year ago, more l or less, he was to earthly vision at the pin l nacie of human ambition. He had led the | armies of his native land to permanent victo- | ry; he had twice been the honored President of this republic; he had visited the major | part of foreign lands and been the recipient l of more and greater honors than were ever l before accorded to mortal man; his fortune 1 seemed ample and his fame secure; his wife | and children were we'll and happy; length of years seemed in store for him. What more l could the heart of man desire2 What could more contribute to make the pomps and | vanities of this world seem all-suficient for the soul of man?
 ! With rapidity that seems inconceivable in the retrospect this gilded and glowing horizon changed His fortune melted away | like the snows of spring and this under cir | cumstances calculated to throw the breath of | suspicion upon his stainless honor No keener trial than this could have been de- vised for his knightly soul. Quick treading behind these misfortunes came racklng dis ! ease and with no uncertain sound announced ! his approaching death. Could mortal man have been plunged more suddenly from the heights of human felicity into trials calculated to rend both soul and body3
 But no sound of impatience escaped this | hero With recommendation that seems al | most impossible he took his vision from off l the ioys of life and turned it unfalteringly \ into the unknown future. His bodily pain he bore without complaint In distress and sorrow he bent resolutely to daily task for ! the double benefit of the world and his fami- ! ly; thanks be to the sublime potency of the | human will, he lived to complete that task. Meanwhile, in this bodily pain and under the | burden of this daily task he solved the prob lem of the future sufficiently at least to ena- | ble him to go forward into it with confidence | and courage. The letters he left behind him show clearly that he was under no deception as to his approaching death and that he went | to it with the same calm courage with which
 he faced the battles in the Wilderness.
 |
 philosophic and courageous soul faced the \ unknown future as materialist or as stoic, I or in any such mental attitude as that with I which a stubborn bull might face 8
 rushing railway train The proofs to the
 contrary are many; the letter which he Jeff
 for his wife is of itself and alone quite | enough; it's contents are not known to the
 world, but the wife's reply sufficiently in
 dicates it's tenor. No, there entered into his
 soul that positive knowledge of immortality
 which Christians call faith. This positive
 knowledge, transcending all reason and al
 evidence, we all may have. The gate to it is
 oftenest, perhaps always, through suffering
 and sorrow; if there be any other gate let
 him who has entered by it say; he who has
 come to this knowledge knows that he is
 immortal as he knows that all the depths ot
 the starry heavens, in all directions, are
 without end; he can prove neither one nol
 the other but he knows that both are true | Apropos of the disappearance of this
 transcendent life from our midst let me put
 a useful query. My rare materialist brother
 and my less rare brother devoid of all crys
 tallized belief as to your future state, alter
 hating between hope and doubt, what kind
 of sane theory of cause and effect is that
 which brings a human life into being from
 nothing and without cause, loads it with
 joy and sorrow, loves and aspirations fol l possibly threescore years and ten, and then
 sends it back to nothing; which brings all | life vegetable and animal, into being with | out a cause; which from nothing fills all or
 ganic life from the tiny blade of grass to the l human body with mechanism so marvellous
 that man cannot copy it, and often so deli I cate that the most powerful microscope can I not detect it's ultimate ramifcation; which from nothing and by nothing creates the sur | to warm and light the earth; suspends that
 world in mid ether, gives it diurnal rotation to produce day wherein man can work and
 night wherein he can rest; gives it rotation
 around the sun and inclination of it's pole te
 the ecliptic to produce the seasons, all fol l the comfort of that man who has dominion l over every fowl of the air, every fish of the l sea and every beast of the field which fills
 all space forever and forever with other suns
 and other worlds beyond the comprehension l of our finite minds?
 What rare and precious scientific theory l ia that which refuses to see the name of the
 creator written over all his works, which practically assumes to explain all life, and does it by analysis back to the protoplasmie
 cell. where. perforce, it stops, and wher
 asked whence comes and what is the princi l ple which leads the protoplasm to the build
 inp up of blood and bone and tissue, stands
 mute and silent as the sphinx
 You may be very sure that in these l last months of General Grants life these and
 coonate questions filled his mind to over.
 flowing: that he answered them to his eter. | nal satisfaction; that he knew in his inmost
 sonl that the dissolution of his body must set l his inner and real self free for better things l and you may be equally sure that he now l lives in a world that is not a cloud land, but
 more vivid and intense reality than this
 present world.