The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1901-12-15

/ Gilbert A Pierce in Chicago Times
Herald)
The death of Senator ingalls, recalls a
speech made by him in the senate in
August, 1890. 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. specu-
lations, vagaries. if you will-whien
men seldom express, even # enter
I tanned. Senator ingalls, never INDUCED
in long prefaces, and ne plunged into
I this subject with almost startling alb
ruptn SIS. He said.
mir. President, rugged, robust and
/ indOmitable, the incarnation OF physl-
4 cal force and intellectual energy, Sen
/ atOr Beck seemed a part of nature, in
+ separable from life and exempt from
/ indrmity. I recall the emotion with
which I saw him stand painfully in his
place and announce with strange pa
thos that for the first time in twenty
years he found himself unable to par
/ ticipate in debate He fingered a
while, as the PROSTATE oak retains its
verdure for a brief interval after its
/ fall, or as the flame 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 lumi-
nous day as this is inconceivable. To
exist is exultatiOn. To live forever is
our sublimest hope.
] In 70 low 70
! triumph is rapture. and yet We are all
under sentence of death Without
/ trial or opportunity for defense, with
no knowledge of the aCcUseT or the
nature and cause of the accusation;
without being confronted with the wit
! nesses against US, we have been sum-
moned'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 clemency. The
/ craven feIOn sullenlv prays for a mo-
ment in which to be aneled, but there
/ is no reprieve. The soul helplessly
/ beats its wings against the bars, shud-
/ ders and disappears.
Humanity itself is destined to extinc-
/ ton. Sooner or later it is the instruc-
! ton Of ecience that the energy Of the
earth will be expended, and it will be
/ come incapable Of supporting life. A
/ group Of feeble and pailid survivors in
scme sheltered valley in the tropics
| viii behold the sun sink below the
. horizon, and the pitiless stars glitter
in the midnight sky. The last man will
perish, and the sun will rise upon an
earth without an inhabitant. It's at
mosphere, its seas, its life and heat
viii vanish, and the planet viii be an
idle cinder, uselessly spinning in its
orbit
eff the only object Of creation is de-
structiOn, if infnity is the theatre of
an uninterrupted series Of irrepara-
Bile calsmities, if the final cause of life
! is death then time is an inexpiicable
I tragedy. and eternity an illogical and
/ indefensible catastrophe.
] But no, Mr.. President, this eUlOgy
is for the quick and not for the dead.
It is not an inconsOlable lamentation.
It is a strain Of triumph. It is an a.
firmation to those who survive, that as
4 our departed associate, contemplate
at tn close of his life the monument
of good deeds he has erected. might
/ excIaim with the Roman poet, Nom
! onnis mortar So. turning to the ST.
lent and unknown future. he could rely
with just and reasonable confidence
upon that most impressible and mo-
mentOus assurance ever delivered to
the human race, He that believeth in
me, though he were dead, yet shall he