William McKinley’s Sublime Trust in God

     IN opening his inaugural address, William McKinley said: “Invoking the guidance of Almighty God, our faith teaches us that there is no safer reliance than upon the God of our fathers, who has so singularly favored the American people in every national trial and who will not forsake us [page break] so long as we obey His commandments and walk humbly in His footsteps.” And in closing, he added: “I will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. This is the obligation I have reverently taken before the Lord Most High. To keep it will be my single purpose, my constant prayer.”
     In his last public address, at Buffalo, he said: “God and man have linked the nations together.” Then, as he stood there extending the hand of friendship to his assassin and received two bullet wounds in return, the scene enacted more nearly approaches the spirit of the Crucifixion than any event in history with which I am familiar. When the crowd would rush to do violence to his destroyer, in the divine spirit of forgiveness he said: “Let no man hurt him.” And, forgetting self and remembering his invalid wife, he said: “Break the news gently to her.” [page break]
     Then, during the last days in the death chamber, he murmured: “Raise my pillow a little, so that I can look out at the green grass, the green trees and the flowers. How beautiful God has made them!” And at the last hour his words: “It is His way; His will, not ours, be done,” caused the nation to stand with uncovered heads and sing his favorite hymn: “Nearer, My God, To Thee.”
     And so, if space permitted, we might go on and cite many other evidences of God in American history, and other sentiments worthy of quotation.