The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1906-10-10

thirty years. for the last fifteen with
an intimacy that few others enjoyed.
Years ago political affiliations drew US
into friendship which later developed
into a closer communion than was
often given by him to others.
Together we bottomed our political
philosophy upon a certain concept OF
social brotherhood. Whether right or
wr0ng-it matters not noW-that con-
cept OF brotherhood was his viewpoint
Of all life. From it he looked out on
everybody and everything not merely
on mankind but on all animate crea-
ton.
opoly of knowledge of the tenderness
and sympathy of his nature, because
communities always, and soon, find out
the great loving hearts that dwell
among them but I yet may claim to
know more of the heart of C. c. Glenn
ems than was given to most others to
learn
"He was the kindest man I ever
knew. For every error or fault Of his
fellows he had forgiveness for every
sin of mankind he had mercy, and for
every wrong doing of others. had it
been possible, he would have furnished
atOnement.
Il doubt whether the tenderness of
his soul ever permitted him to give
even reproof to the erring. Nor did
the sympathy of his heart take in the
creatures of his own kind only. It
went out to the dumb things of the
animal world as well.
He was the friend, the lover, the
champion of the helpless beasts and
birds, and If every overburdened horse,
every homeless cat, every outcaSt dog
his plying heart took in could know
the compassion that had been theirs
and could voice their grief at his loss.
the dark river he has now crossed
would be swollen with their tears.
TT was impossible for a man like G.
c. Clemens to be without faults A
nature like his that compasses every
BODY and all things within its affections
must needs make common flesh with
the erring and the weak. Thank God,
he had no austere virtues to set him
apart from the balance Of mankind
He had frailties but they were frafl
ties that turned the edge Of transgres-
sion only on himself; frailties that pro-
voked in others his own great quality
of mercy and gave the touch of his
own Astounding pity to the heart.
But few more words: have quer-
led with him the insoluble question OF
Job: If man die, shall he live aagin
He had no dOgmatic creed, nor meta
physical formula by which to return
answer to this, the question of all ages,
but he had an abiding trust life be-
I know why he had. Processing no
faith of church, but rejecting most of
them, he yet said that God was TOO
good to set before US the vision of
heresfte not to make the splendid
dream come true. He thought that as
he himself would not tantalize the rapt
desires of men with vain Elusive hopes,
God would surely be as kind as he He
hence reduced all the reasoning of the
case to that final summing up beyond
which the great argument has never
yet been carried and which the Roman,
Cato, contemplating death, took from
81 rhi1oeoTlf7pr--
4" It must be so, Plato, thou reason
est we'll
O. Else whence this pleasing hope.
this fond desire, this longing after Inn
mortality?
" or. whence this secret dread and
inward horror of falling into naught2
'f Why sinks the soul back on her
self and startles at destruction
u" 'Tis the divinity that stirs within;
tits Heaven itself,
=" That points out a hereafter, and in
Inmates immortality to man.
In the faith of that the profoundest
logic of the subject, @. c. Clemens no
doubt died. Belief, however, on any
subject is of small merit. It is heart
and deed that make merit. If this man
were not mistaken in his belief; if his
disengaged spirit has not merged it
self back into elemental nature-into
the universal soul, as some believe will
be- but in its separate Identity be now
testing the benignancy of eternal love,
it can not challenge a more gracious
mercy than it had always given to the
sinful and the fran.'
Tudoe Foote'S Address