Build your pyramid skyward, and stand,
Gazed at by millions, cultured they say-
All you can hold in your cold, dead hand
Is what you have given away.

Count your wide conquests of sea and land,
Heap up the gold, and hoard as you may-
All you can hold in your cold, dead hand
Is what you have given away.

The loss of these, our beloved colleagues, causes a wide gap in our public councils, of which we are deeply sensible. To the States which they represented and to the people of the sections of the country with which they were identified, no tongue of a stranger may venture to attempt words of adequate consolation. But let us heed the voice which comes to us all, both as individuals and as public officials, and in the solemn and signal province of God let us remember that our duty to the Republic next to our duty to God is our greatest obligation. Let us reflect how vain are the personal strifes and partisan contests in which we daily engage, in view of the great account which we soon may be called to render. Our opportunity to serve humanity is great and our responsibility to assume it humbly and discharge it nobly is commensurately great.

Our association with these our distinguished dead was a rare privilege. All of them, no doubt, came from wholesome environment. Their courage and ambition carried them through the public schools, the academies, colleges or universities as their funds would warrant. They boldly breasted the currents of life strengthening themselves by daring to swim against all currents that threatened to carry them into easy or useless activities. One must have a fair measure of courage and have confidence in his own worth and ability, when he asks an intelligent American constituency to elect him as their representative to the greatest legislative body in the world. When once honored with membership in this great body; once having sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,

theirs was the duty to see to it that constitutional Government should be maintained and that the torch of equal justice should always be kept burning bright so as to lead those in authority to do justly and walk uprightly, to their own honor and to the welfare of the people and to the glory of the Republic. So nobly did they discharge their duties that they left no stain upon the escutcheon of the Republic. Alongside their irreproachable conduct, we lay the full measure of our love, our confidence, and our respect. While we held our departed brethren in the highest esteem as we served with them, our measurement of their stature might be dwarfed somewhat by the nearness of the perspective. Now that they are gone our appraisal could probably be better expressed in these words:

A prince once said of a king struck down:
"Taller he seems in death."

And the word holds good, for now, as then,
It is after death that we measure men.

The greatest measure of devotion that any man can show for his country is to die for it on the field of battle. I am sure that our departed brethren whom we strive to honor today would approve a reference by me at this time to the fact that this day is our national holiday known as Memorial Day. Today, from shore to shore, in every city, village, and hamlet, and at every countryside the people are gathered in tribute to their beloved dead. Soon after the close of the great conflict that threatened the existence of the Union there was published a poem inspired by the magnanimity of a group of women who strewed flowers alike on the graves of the Union dead as on the graves of their own Confederate dead. This little poem, the Blue and the Gray, with other contributing features, so moved the sympathy of the Nation that Decoration Day or Memorial Day came to be a national holiday. At first Decoration Day was largely a day for paying tribute to those who had died on the field of battle by decorating their graves, but it has now grown to universal

observance.

The people, encouraged by the churches, the schools, the civic, fraternal, and patriotic organizations consider this as a day when they can proudly demonstrate their patriotism and when they can reverently show their love and devotion to those who have moved to that mysterious realm we call eternity.

Besides carrying his theme to a beautiful conclusion, the poet who wrote the Blue and the Gray expressed a beautiful and timely prophecy which we hope has been fully and enternally realized in our country. He writes:

No more shall the war cry sever

Or the winding river be red;

They banish our anger forever

When they laurel the graves of our dead.

Oh, speed the day everywhere when the peoples of the world can rest safely in the assurance that war shall be no more. May God hasten the fulfillment of the prophecy of His prophet, Isaiah, who said:

And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall there be war any more.

When primitive man advanced far enough to reason and rationalize he wondered whether death ended all. From that time forward one solemn thought has been with mankind always. As the primitive man saw his friends and his own offspring pass away he pondered over it and wondered whether he would ever see them again. When he saw their flesh mix with the insensible clod and their bleached bones blow away with the passing winds, he was dismayed. His mind was confused, and he followed his natural instinct and continued to ponder, little thinking that his plight was and would be for ages the common plight of mankind. Long before Revelation strengthened our faith and Resurrection assured our hope the people of the world were reverently and worshipfully seeking what they thought was the source of good, knowing that if there was a supreme being it must

be good. With advancing civilization the matter remained insolvable except for the rather indefinite prophecy of a few bold prophets. It was left to Job, the man of trouble and the great philosopher to give cogent expression to his feelings on this subject. He said:

O that Thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that Thou wouldest keep me secret, until Thy wrath be past, that Thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me.

If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer Thee; Thou wilt have a desire to the work of Thine hands.

Every rational man has with him always the question: If a man die shall he live again? He is baffled with his inability to prove the immortality of the soul but takes comfort in the thought that nobody has disproved it. Somehow a belief in the immortality of the soul binds the world in a close comradeship.

So through the generations the question has remained inexplicable by the intellect. Many questions are unexplainable by the intellect that are understood and solvable by the sensibilities. The finest activities of the soul spring from the sensibilities rather than from the intellect. When Job spoke, he consulted his feelings.

We need not worry too much about the mystery of death until we understand the miracle of birth. All men come into the world through birth and all are equal then. All men leave this world through death and all are again equal. But at no other time from birth to death are they equal. We of the Christian faith through our belief in Christ and His divinity are irresistibly led to a belief in the authenticity of the greatest event in all history-the resurrection of Christ. If Christ rose from the dead, this eternal question that has worried humanity has been answered. If we believe in Christ, let us hear Him say:

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And

observance.

The people, encouraged by the churches, the schools, the civic, fraternal, and patriotic organizations consider this as a day when they can proudly demonstrate their patriotism and when they can reverently show their love and devotion to those who have moved to that mysterious realm we call eternity.

Besides carrying his theme to a beautiful conclusion, the poet who wrote the Blue and the Gray expressed a beautiful and timely prophecy which we hope has been fully and enternally realized in our country. He writes:

No more shall the war cry sever

Or the winding river be red;

They banish our anger forever

When they laurel the graves of our dead.

Oh, speed the day everywhere when the peoples of the world can rest safely in the assurance that war shall be no more. May God hasten the fulfillment of the prophecy of His prophet, Isaiah, who said:

And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall there be war any more.

When primitive man advanced far enough to reason and rationalize he wondered whether death ended all. From that time forward one solemn thought has been with mankind always. As the primitive man saw his friends and his own offspring pass away he pondered over it and wondered whether he would ever see them again. When he saw their flesh mix with the insensible clod and their bleached bones blow away with the passing winds, he was dismayed. His mind was confused, and he followed his natural instinct and continued to ponder, little thinking that his plight was and would be for ages the common plight of mankind. Long before Revelation strengthened our faith and Resurrection assured our hope the people of the world were reverently and worshipfully seeking what they thought was the source of good, knowing that if there was a supreme being it must