Name/Title
The Funeral of President McKinleyEntry/Object ID
95.01.446nTags
1900sDescription
Colored stereoscopic view of a floral flag arrangement near the Wertz receiving Vault at West Lawn Cemetery in Canton, Ohio. The left side features the publisher's name, the right side features the publisher's locations, the lower right corner contains the caption. the back reads as follows:
"The Sermon
Our President is dead! "The silver cord is loosed, the golden bowl is broke, the pitcher is broken at the fountain, the wheel broken at the cistern. the mourners go about the streets." One voice is heard--a wail of sorrow from all the land: for, "The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places. How are the mighty fallen! I am distressed for thee my brother. Very pleasant hast thou been unto me."
Our President is dead! We can hardly believe it. We had hoped and prayed, and it seemed that our hopes were to realized and our prayers answered when the emotion of joy was changed to grave apprehension. Still we waited, for we said: "It may be that God will be gracious and merciful unto us." It seemed to us that it must be His will to spare the life of one so well beloved and so much needed. thus, alternating between hope and fear, the weary hours passed on. then came tidings of defeated science, and the failure of love and prayer to hold its object to the earth. We seemed to hear the faintly muttered words: "Goodbye all, goodbye. It is god's way. His will be done." And then "Nearer, my God, to Thee." So, nestling nearer to his God, he passed out to unconsciousness, skirted the dark shores of the sea of death for a time, and then passed on to be at rest. His great heart has ceased to beat.
Our hearts are heavy with sorrow
"A voice is heard on earth of kinfolk weeping
The loss of one they love:
But he has gone where the redeemed are keeping
A festival above."
"The mourners throng the ways
and from the steeple,
The funeral bell tolls slow:
But on the golden streets the holy people
Are passing to and fro."
"And saying as they meet, Rejoice, another
Long waited for is come
The savior's heart is glad, a younger brother
Hath reached the Father's home."
The cause of this universal mourning is to be found in the man himself. The people confided in him. It was said of Lincoln that probably no man since the days of Washington was ever so deeply imbedded and enshrined in the hearts of the people, but is true of McKinley in a larger sense.
Industrial and social conditions are such that he was, even more than his predecessors, the friend of the whole people.
Not only was our president brave, heroic and honest, he was as gallant a knight as ever rode the lists for his lady love in the days when knighthood was in flower. it is but a few weeks since the nation looked on with tear-dimmed eyes, as it saw with what tender conjugal devotion he sat at the bedside of his beloved wife, when all feared that a fatal illness was upon her. no public clamor that her might show himself to the populace, no demand of social function was sufficient to draw the lover from the bedside of his wife. He watched and waited, while we all prayed--and she lived. This sweet and tender story all the world knows, and all the world knows that this whole life had run in this one groove of love. It was a strong arm that she leaned upon, and it never failed her. Her smile was more to him than the plaudits of the multitude, and for her greeting his acknowledgements of them must wait. After receiving the fatal wound, his first thought was that the terrible news might be broken gently to her. May God in this deep hour of sorrow comfort her. May his grace be greater than her anguish. May the widow's God be her God."Collection
StoneAcquisition
Accession
95.01.446Source or Donor
Stone, GladysAcquisition Method
GiftCredit Line
STONE