Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1893-11-30

into your study of imagination;
And every lovely feature of his life
Shall come appareled in more prec-
ious habit,
More moving delicate and full of life
into the eye and prospect Of your soul,
Than when he lived indeedr
All they that are about him bemoan
him and all they that know his name
say how is the strong staff broken and
the beautiful rod''-ThiS is the third
TIME that / have used this text at a
public funeral. The first time was near
half Il century ago in Vermont at the
obsequieS of Ransom, colonel of a New
England regiment. killed AT the storm
ing OF Chepultepec and brought home
for burial in the village where he and
were associated in a military academy.
The next time was in our own state
capital. over the remains of Theodore
Read. killed in Il desperate endeayor.
largely successful, in Grants opinion,
TO stop the escape of Gen. Lee For
years there was daily danger that Gen.
RuskS remains would have likewise
b cen brought home. But God saved
him then, having greater service for
him in peace than in war What that
service has been you know full well.
He has rounded the full circle; he has
won golden opinions from all sorts of
people in all walks of life; he has
been clean in his great office-in all
his offices. He had, as becometh old
age, honor, love, obedience, hosts of
frie nds.
I'VE love to trace great things to their
small beginnings. | have myself taken
no small pains to reach the very source
Of the Jordan. I love to trace the great
man who has fallen to his boyhood.
Early bereaved of his father and
thrown upon his own resources, his
energy and determination became man
ifest. He was determined to make his
way in the world. Horses seem
to have been the most efficient
instrument of his early culture. His
ability to manage wild horses was the
earliest talent he developed-his first
stepping-stOne to success. 1t is no
ticeable that this was also the expert
ence of Alexander the Great, of whom
the first thing we hear is his dexter
ity in training the wild Steed of the
plain.
The child is father of the man, and
in the subsequent career of RuSk we
behold many repetitiOns of his child
hood experience. 1t is vast removal
from the seat of stage driver to that
in Il cabinet, where his influence ex-
tends from ocean to ocean and from the
great gulf to the chiefeSt among ten
til" uSand unsalted seas. AS sheriff he
had wilder men to tame than any
horses. So he had through the war Of
the rebellion. And during the anarch-
istic riots in Milwaukee, riots he
quelled seven years ago so effectually
that they have known no resurrection.
From first to last he has shown him
self not only competent for every posi-
ton he has been called to fill, but equal
to every emergency.
Zone is inclined to say he should
have lived longer-he should have died
hereafter. Such men are few; we need
them lOnger-lOnger. He still lacked
seven years OF the psalmists 20. We
love to imagine what in another score
he might possibly have acheived-what
greater influence for good his long ex-
perience, his prestige and the hearts
of the people in his hand might have
enabled him to exert Death has blasted
our hopes, cast down our high imagi-
nations. We behold here the end of
earth. But is it the end? No-a thou
sand times no! / call it the beginning.
No feeling is more pervaSive among
men than that this life is the TIRES
hold of another. 1t has been my for
tune to circle the globe. travelling as
far as the sun travels and from the
equator where man casts no shadow at
noon to the land of the midnight sun,
where the night was ever as the day;
! found no people who do not by funer-
III ceremonies and monuments attest
their faith in life beyond life.
The preaching of Paul was Jesus
and the resurrection Christ raised the
dead and rose himself as a pledge and
Il proof that he shall raise our vile
bodies in the likeness of His glorious
body-not having spot, nor wrinkle,
nor any such thing. 1t is an anchor to
the soul when bereayed to feel that
what is sown in weakness shall be
raised in power; sOwn a natural body,
raised a spiritual body; sOwn in dis
honor, raised in honor. Strong is the
consolation to feel that the friend we
bury has gone where he can know God
better and serve Him more effectually
than belongs to the lot of earth.
Time would fail me to speak of the
manifold excellencies in the departed;
of the popularity that ran after him
but after which he did not run; of his
honesty-public and private; Of his
temperance should rather say absti-
nence-from his youth up. His as
sociates felt that he was so good that
they would gladly believe him great
even greater than he was. He has left
this life; let us not lose the lesson Of
his death. Let it cause the spiritual,
hea evenly, eternal and divine to FREEDOM
mate in our souls. When we lay down
this garment of clay in which we have
ministered here, may it be ours to
stand in the host on Mount Zion, who
ascribe unto Him that stitch on the
throne and unto the Lamb, power and
riches and wisdom and strength and
glory and nonor and blessing-world
without end. Amen!
The moTners withdrew and for It
few moments the relatives were left
alone with the dead. Tlen the casket