Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1902-11-13
A MODEL MEMORIAL.
7. 3. Dswsys Address Concerning
Judge Ellis.


this court, a vacancy was caused by
the hand of Death, September % last,
in the removal OF Mr.. Justice Ellis,
and that your reporter should notice
the event, by way of personal tribute,
seems a fitting thing. 1t is a melan-
choly duty to pay tribute to the men,
DRY Of a dead friend, but it is a duty
which the living have ever esteemed
it privilege to perform, not accord
ing it as a right, for the dead demand
nothing, but bestowing it in simple
reverence, and sincere homage, as the
least that one can do.
In the immediate shadow Of death
speech is made hating by the trem'
bling hand, the weeping eye, and the
full hesrt, but when the clouds which
return into ones imagiuation'
Unto the eye and prospect Of biz
SOUL" an idea Of the absent ooe, and
to give expression to that idea is the
deep desire Of every heart. This de-
sire is that craving for human sym.
pathy-that desire to have Others see
and feel as do we-which is the basis
Of oil genuine art and the foundation
OF all true life.
The least Of my relations with Jus
hce Ellis was that Of jadge and re-
porter. In the home, at the bar, in
4raternal halls, and other ways We
had been intimate for years, and the
result is present picture Of him that
is very satisfying, and worth the ten
derest chertshing. 1t was a friend
ship slow in coming IN. He was
man who never burdened his mind
with the remembrance Of chance &C.
quaintanoes, and thereby some polit
ical disasters beiell him, but, Of the
ones he desired to know he never wal
iorgetiul. He could not be "al
things to all men" even when be tried
so to be, for it was foreign to has ma
ture to assume so mach as the sem
blance OF virtue which be had not.
Any tribute to Mr.. Ellis would be
Incomplete without mention of his
delightful home life. Little credit
does man deserve for being good tc
his wife and kind to his children, but
in this instance there was conrad
cry between the husband and wife,
the father and sons, that was more
than common. An old disciple Of
Confucius said that sc great man ia
he who does not lose bis child heart, y
and Mr.. Ellis never lost his child
heart
The record OF that last year Of his
life is a sorrowful story. The long
illness, the slow recovery, which was
only seeming, left in his face as s1re
an omen Of early death as ever came
to the prophets Of old, but he saw it
not or seemed not to see it. Yet he
put his house in order, preparing for
the worst, as be had been wont to do
in other ways all the days Of the years
Of bis life. One cannot help wonder.
ing whether he really believed what
be reiterated 80 often about his re-
turning strength, but at the same
time it seemed that be did. A few
days before that last trip to Topeka
he wrote to me:
II have got my liver out Of my
face, my stomach is right and am
strong. When it is damp | have
some twinges Of muscular rheuma.
tism occasionally, but they are grow
ing feebIer as | grow stronger and !
really think will be as well as ever
in a short time. | am well able to
work now and shall return when the
others do"
1t was pitiiul the way he went up
and down these halls telling Of better
health and pitiiul was his evident
longing to have others assure him Of
the appearance Of it. His was a dis
ease beyond the power Of mind over
matter, else he had recovered, for
never did man try harder to persuade
himself that what ought not to be
could not be. That ones life should
be cut off just at a time when he was
coming into the rewards for which be
had labored all the years was incom.
prehensible to him as it is to US who