The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-09-05

and generous nature, PATRIOTISM was
| passion and allegiance a sacred and I'M
| alterable obligation. \ partisan by in
stinct and conviction, there was nothing
] ignoble in his partisanship. He trans
! crossed the boundaries of party in his
1 friendships, and no appeal to has SYM
/ pathy or compassion was ever made in
vain.
He has departed His term had
not expired, but his name has been
stricken from the rolls of the senate. His
| credentials remain in its achieves, but
an honored successor sits unchallenged
| in his place. He has no vote nor voice,
but the consideration of great measures
/ affecting the interests of every citizen of
the republic is interrupted, with the
concurrence and approval of all, that
! the representatives of forty-two COM
monwealths NAV Tehearse the virtues
and commemorate the career of an as
sociate. who is beyond the reach of praise
or censure in the kingdom of the dead.
The right to live is, in the human es-
timation, the most sacred, the most in
violable, the most inalienable. The JOY
of living, in such splendid and lumi-
nous day as this. is iuconceivable. To
our sublimest hope. Annihilation. ex-
tinction and eternal death are the fore
bodlngs of dispair. To know, To love
and to achieve. to triumph, 10 confer
happiness, to alleviate misery. Is rapture.
The greatest crime and the severest pen
atty known to human law is the sacrifice
and forfeiture of life And yet we are
all under sentence of death. Other events
~
may or NAV not exist We may be rich
we may be happy or wretched;
but we all must die. The YER
dict has been pronounced by
the memorable decree of an
omnipotent tribunal. without trial or
opportunity for defense; with no knOwl-
edge of the accuSer or the nature of the
cause of the accusation; without being
confronted with the witnesses against US
we have been summoned to the bar of
life and condemned to death. There is
not writ of error, nor review. There is
neither exculpation nor repeal. All must
be relinq uished. Beauty and deformity,
good and evil, virtue and vice, share the
same relentless fate. The tender mother
cries passionately for her first born, but
'
sullenly prays for a moment in which to
be aneled, but there is no reprieve. The
soul helplessly beats its wings against the
bars, shudders, and disappears. The
prescription extends alike 10 the individ-
ual and the type. Nations die and races
expire. Humanity itself is destined to
extinction, sooner or later. Ii is the in
struction of science that the energy Of
the earth will be expended and it will
be incapable of supporting life
A group of feeble and pallid
survivors in some sheltered valley in the
tropics will behold the sun sink below
the horizon and the pltiless stars glitter
in the midnight sky. The last man viii
perish and the sun will rise upon an
earth without an inhabitant Its atmos-
phere, its seas, its life and heat will van
ish, and the planet will be an idle cinder |
uselessly spinning in its orbit.
Every hour some world dies unnoticed /
in the armament; some sun moulders 10 /
embers and ashes on the hearthstone Of /
infinite space, and the mighty maze Of /
systems sweeps ceaselessly onward in its 4
voyage of doom TO remorselcss and I'M /
spaTing destruction. With the disap- /
pearance Of man from the earth all /
traces of his existence Will be lost. The |
palaces, powers and temples he has 4
reared, the institutions he has established,
the cities he has built, the books he has i
written. the creeds he has constructed,
the philosophers he has formulated. All .
science. art, literature and knowledge 4
will be obliterated and engulled IN
empty and vacant Oblivion. The great
globe itself, yea, all which IL Inherits.
shall dissolve and, ike this unsubstantial
pageant. fade; leave not rank behind.
There Is an intelligence 20 vast and en-
during that the flaming interval between
the birth and death Of universes is no
more than the flash Of fire-die5 above the
meadows OF SUMNER colossal power
by which these stupendDus Orbs arc
into the abyss, like bubbles
blown by a child IN the morning sun,
and whose sense Of justice and reason
cannot be les potential than those inn
statutes that are the law 81 be-
ny 10 the creatures Hs mas made. and
which compel them % declare that IL the
Jnlv object Of creation is destruction. II
nfinity Is the theatrr Of an uuinterrupt-
u series of Irreparabie calamitses. II the
inal cause Of life Is death. then time j.
IN inexplicab!e tragedy. and eternity Is
N illogical and indefensible catastrophe.
No. Mr President. the obsequy is Tor
he quick and not for the dead It is not
N inc0nsOlabie lausntatIOn- il j. a
train Of triumph. u u an affirmation I
o those who survive that as our deuart-
q associate contemplating ~ the Close 4
4 ms life the monument u good deesis
% had erected. more enduring than
rass and loftler than the pyramids II
ings, iZht eKclaim with the Roman /
oct. "Kon omnis mortar 80. turning
. the silent and unknown future. hs
ould rely with Just and reasonable
Onfdencs upon that most impressive
nd momentous assurance ever de-
vered % the human race. lie thai
elieveth N Ne. though he were dead,
- shall be live and "WhdsOever
veth and believeth IN Ne SHALL never
ie~ I
EYf-rz r-rz- erFC-u