of sorrow and of appreciation of the good qualities of the man who had passed away, and all expressed the hope that the nation would be comforted in its grief. One of the most touching features of their publications was the tone of sympathy for Mrs. McKinley. There was a pathos about these words which keenly recalled the late bereavement of the nation of Victoria.

Funeral services were held in far-away Manila. All the government offices were closed, and the buildings were draped in black. There was a peculiar sadness in the crowds that passed up and down the streets. Most business houses were closed for half the day, some for the entire day. Among the expressions of sorrow sent from Manila was one from Emilio Aguinaldo. He declared President McKinley a noble enemy, and a valued friend, and for the good of all the people under the flag of the Republic he could not but look on the death of such a man, particularly in such a manner, as an unparalleled calamity. He gave utterance to the most vigorous condemnation of the dastardly act which cost the President his life.

And so, from the rising to the setting of the sun, "there was sorrow in the cities." It was not in the big cities alone. Wherever communities had been gathered, there was sorrow, and the effort to express the grief that was universal throughout the nation. Churches were filled with communicants and friends. Men and women who had not been in the habit of attending divine services made this the occasion when they paid their tribute of respect to the memory of a great man fallen. Pastors and orators employed their best talents in extolling the virtues of the dead, and holding out hope to the living.

And not even in the cities-large or small-was the grief monopolized. There was not a farm house, perhaps, in the land where grief was absent. In those hours when the service was being conducted over the bier of the martyred President in Canton, there was a bowing of heads throughout every part of the land. The beneficent results of the public labors of this man had reached to the farthest home, and the fame of his loyal manhood had penetrated all hearts. He was loved and honored and mourned. And the nation paused at the brink of his grave, in body or in spirit, whether they stood in the city he had called his home, and whether they held to their places at any other point in the broad land.

The sorrow of the cities bathed all the land in tears.

Of all the tributes paid to the memory of the dead President, none approached in majesty and impressiveness that utter abandonment of all

occupation for the moments when the burial was actually taking place. For five minutes, from 2:30 to 2:35, there was absolute rest throughout the nation. That was the time when the body of the murdered President was being lifted to its last final repose.

And from the Atlantic to the Pacific, not a wheel turned for those five minutes.

For the space of five minutes every train in the country was stopped, and held motionless. Engineers, firemen, conductors and crews paused for that period in their occupation, turned devoutly to the little town where the last sad rites were being performed, and sent their thoughts out to the hovering spirit of the man who had fallen.

Labor in shop, in store, on farm, in mill-everywhere—had ceased.

That stopping of America, that pause of the United States, that wait of every citizen while the body of one dead was lowered to the tomb, is a mightier miracle than that which marked the last victory of Judea's leader.

Five minutes taken out of life! Five minutes snatched from activity, lost to productive effort, subtracted from material struggle! It is an amazing thing in the most energetic, the most thrifty nation on the face of the earth.

And yet that five minutes, stricken from the total money value of the day, brought in return a sense of tenderness, of fraternity with all the other millions waiting, bowed and reverent, which nothing else could have produced. That five minutes was the best investment that busy lives could make. It brought them nearer to the ideal life that had been ended. It helped to impress upon them the value of his splendid example. It gave them a better confidence in the citizenship of America. It enacted anew the law of love, and blessed with its swift ministrations the purer patriotism for which this man of the people, this believer in God had stood as a representative.

Silence and tears for the noble victim of malignant hate; new resolves for the upholding of law and the extension of real liberty; unbounded faith in the stability of our republican institutions; an impressive warning to the foes of order-such was the day's meaning to every loyal American citizen.

Eighty millions of people gathered about six feet by two of hallowed earth! That is the spectacle bought at a price so matchless.

CHAPTER XLIII.

ASSASSINATIONS OF LINCOLN AND GARFIELD.

There had been a long and fratricidal war, the most pitiful that has ever occurred in the history of the world, or even that of heaven, described by Milton. For in the latter the rebellious ones were urged on by envy and utter wickedness, with no thought of right on their side, and their end was "outer darkness." In the Civil War between the States, both sides fought for what they deemed the right, and the patriotism of both was as pure as mother love.

Born of the one side and nurtured by the other, Abraham Lincoln loved both alike, but the logic of events and the uncontrollable influences of environment made him the President and partisan of the Union, the head and director of a stern, relentless, cruel and long-continued war, for the preservation of that Union's integrity on one side, for independence and the strong claim of "States rights" on the other.

There had been marches and battles, sufferings unspeakable, misery, sorrow, death, destruction, all the woes of war, on both sides, four long, dark years, and through it all steadfast in duty, earnest and honest, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, with a heart as great as God giveth, and an intelligence as high as heaven, had, with kindly face and even temper, borne through it his burden of responsibility and his soul sorrow in it all.

The end of the war had come, and the great, good man, who had thousands of times earned the satisfaction and sweet peace that should have come to him and been to him a living joy, was, at the moment of his worthy triumph of that which was to prove best for all, laid low in death, at the hands of a monomaniac, an irresponsible, unfortunate enemy to both causes and to himself.

The nation mourned; even Lincoln's enemies condemned the deed, and from that day to this there has been a deep regret in the heart of that generation, and the generation that has succeeded, that Lincoln did not live to see the great good that he had wrought. Yet in the finitude of human understanding we may not have fully felt that Jehovah's wisdom called him to the higher and broader sphere of heaven that he might in a more exalted and perfect manner enjoy the results of his great work.