| Publication information |
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Source: Evangelist Source type: newspaper Document type: article Document title: “Tributes to President M’Kinley” Author(s): anonymous City of publication: New York, New York Date of publication: 19 September 1901 Volume number: 72 Issue number: 38 Pagination: 21-22 (excerpt below includes only page 22) |
| Citation |
| “Tributes to President M’Kinley.” Evangelist 19 Sept. 1901 v72n38: pp. 21-22. |
| Transcription |
| excerpt |
| Keywords |
| George B. Spalding (sermons); McKinley assassination (sermons); McKinley assassination (religious response). |
| Named persons |
| Amasa; Joab; George B. Spalding. |
| Notes |
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The item below is the second of two excerpts taken from this two-page
item. The item is split into two parts specifically because of its unusual
nature. The first part is credited to R. A. S. and reads like a standard
editorial; however, the second part, excerpted below, omits an author
credit and reads like a news article.
Click here to view the first excerpt. |
| Document |
Tributes to President M’Kinley
Dr. George B. Spalding, pastor of the First Church,
Syracuse, preached a timely and powerful sermon on Sabbath, 8th instant, in
view of the shooting of the President, taking for his text 2 Sam. XX.
9, 10—the assassination of Amasa by the treacherous Joab. The death of the President
may be said to have added emphasis to the discourse. The following are among
the well chosen points:
“Were these Presidents of ours like the Old World’s
despots, we could perhaps join hands against oppressors. But our rulers have
been, one and all, heads of ‘a government by the people and for the people,’
and men themselves of noblest patriotism and true lovers of freedom. Had our
government been one of class distinctions and in the interest of one against
the many, I could understand how one, infuriated by legal injustices, should
strike even for rebellion. But the government shields all her citizens alike
and affords remedies for every one in any wrongs he may suffer.
“Had our social order erected barriers against
which birth and poverty in vain cast themselves, I could understand how a man
aspiring to a better position for himself, and more, his children after him,
should in his hour of frenzy lift his hand in destroying wrath against the environments
of the social order about him. But look at it. Look at these Presidents who
have fallen under the blows of these madmen; each one mounting up from misfortunes
of birth and poverties of home and oppression of social caste, to professional
and social positions and material competency and to the chief place of civil
power, more exalted that any throne of kingdoms and empires. The gates of schools
and libraries and of churches and every needed institution for individual advancement
stand wide open, and yet there are men—what shall I call them?—haters of humanity,
assassins of society, plotters against church and state and society, who would
undermine the structure of everything, hoping that in the universal chaos something
may turn up which they may clutch and so better themselves.”