[untitled]

IT IS A COMMON SAYING OF WRITERS THAT the death of a distinguished public man afflicts a people with a sense of personal loss, but in this case it is no exaggeration. Mr. McKinley had a larger political following than any statesman of our generation and more personal friends than any President who had ever held the office. He possessed the rare qualities that make friends and the rarer qualities that keep them friends in success. But there was no division of politics or friendship in the mourning of the American public last week. The extraordinary pathos of the President’s dying hours, saddened every heart beyond the power of words to express its sadness, and the patience, the magnanimous courage, the Christian faith of the brave gentleman were like a last blessing to the people. It might be said of him in the well-known lines on Addison, that he

“Taught us how to live, and (oh, too high
“The price of knowledge!) taught us how to die.”

     “It is God’s way, not ours; His will be done,” he said when he was told that death was approaching and then murmured: “Nearer my God to thee, e’en though it be a cross, is my constant prayer.” It will be a long time before the example of this Christian death fades from the minds of the people.