Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1900-09-21
WHAT IS DEATH ?
A Remarkable EuIOgy by the Late Senator
Ingalls,.

The death of Senator ingalls, recalls
a speech made by him in the senate in
August $780, on the death of Senator
Beck of Kentucky. 1t was probably
the strangest eulogy ever delivered in
that body. Rich, almost faultless, in
rhetoric, as his speeches always were,
it also revealed some of the inner
workings of his mind-thoughts spec
ulations, vagaries, if you will-which
men seldom express, even if enter
tanned. Senator ingalls, never in
dulged in long prefaces, and he
plunged into this subject with almost
startling abruptness. He said:
Mr.. President: Rugged, robust and
indomitable, the incarnation of physi-
cal force and intellectual energy, Sem
ator Beck seemed a part Of nature. in
seperable from life and exempt from
infirmity. l recall the emotion with
which saw him stand painfully in his
place and announce with strange
pathos that for the first time in 20
years he found himself unable to parti-
cipate in debate. He fingered awhile,
as the PROSTATE oak retains its verdure
for brief interval after its fall, or as
the fame flickers when the candle is
burned out. but his work was done. 1t
was the end.
THE right to live is. in human esti-
nation. the most sacred. the most in
violable, the most inalienable. The
JOY of living in such a splendid and
luminous day as this is inconceivable.
To exist is eXultation. To live forever
is our sublimest hope. To know, to
love, to achieve, to triumph is rapture;
and yet we are all under sentence Of
death. Without trial or opportunity
for defense, with no knowledge of the
accuser or the nature and 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 no writ
of error or review There is neither
exculpation nor appeal. The tender
mother cries passionately for mercy
for her first born. but there is no Glenn
ency. The craven felon sullenly prays
for a moment in which to be aneled,
but there is no reprieve. The soul help
lessly beats its wings against the bars,
shudders and disappears.
Humanity itself is destined to ex-
tinction. Sooner or later it is the in
struction of science, that the energy of
the earth will be expended and it will
become 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 hor-
izon and the pitiless stars glitter in the
midnight sky. The last man will per-
ish and the sun will rise upon an earth
without an inhabitant. Its atmos-
phere, its seas, its life and heat will
vanish, and the planet will be an idle
! silHhOI' uScltoSiS spinning III It's OIDll'
If the only object of creation is de-
struction, if infnity is the theater CT
an uninterrupted series of irreparable
if the final cause of life is !
death, then time is an inexplicable |
tragedy, and eternity an illogical and |
indefensible catastrophe,
But, no, Mr.. President, this eulogy |
is for the quick and not for the dead. |
1t is not an nconsolable lamentation. |
1t is strain Of triumph. 1t is an aftir-
nation to those who survive, that as
our departed associate. contemplating
at the close of his life the monument |
of good deeds he has erected, might ex-
claim with the Roman poet, Non omnis |
mortar So, turning to the silent and |
unknown future, he could rely with |
just and reasonable confidence upon |
that most impressive and momentous |
assurance ever delivered to the human
race; He that believeth in Ne, though |
he were dead yet shall he live; and
whcsoyer liveth and believeth in Me
shall never die"