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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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 Hollinger 
 
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OBSEQUIES 
 
 JOHN S. BARBOUR, 
 
 Late a Senator from the State of Virginia. 
 
 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Monday, May 16, 1892. 
 
 WASHINGTON, 
 1892. 
 
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 475 
 
to do with all our might faithfully and well, not knowing- the 
 day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh. so that when- 
 ever Thou shalt come we may be prepared to give account to 
 Thee, the judge of quick and dead. 
 
 Hallow to us the day of God with all the blessed privileges 
 that center in the holy Sabbath. Sanctify all the order ings of 
 Thy providence unto us Thy servants this day. Have us in Thy 
 holy keeping, O Thou, in whom we live and move and have 
 our being. If it please Thee, spare and prolong life, and teach us 
 80 to use life's blessed opportunity that when we shall come to the 
 end we may enter into rest. Blot out our transgressions, and 
 grant us grace and peace, in the name of Christ our Saviour. 
 Amen. 
 
 The Journal of the proceedings of Friday last was read and ap- 
 proved. 
 
 Mr. KENNA. Mr. President, in the absence, on account of 
 sickness, of the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Daniel], it becomes 
 my painful duty to announce to the Senate the death of Hon. 
 John S. Barbour, late a member of this body from that State. 
 
 Apparently in the full and healthful possession of every nor- 
 mal faculty, Mr. Barbour was among us on Friday in the active 
 and zealous discharge of public duty. Even beyond the allotted 
 time of threescore years and ten he crossed this threshold on Fri- 
 day afternoon, seemingly in vigorous health, his last day's labor 
 unconsciously performed. At 10 o'clock in the closing hours of 
 that day he retired to his bedroom the embodiment and type 
 and perfection, as far as human eye could see, of physical man- 
 hood. On Saturday morning, at the age of seventy-one years and 
 five months, at the hour of five and a half o'clock, with only a 
 word of admonition to those who affectionately surrounded him 
 at his house in this city, John S. Barbour passed away. 
 
 Mr. President, in this second sudden visitation of Providence 
 in the present session of the Senate we recognize a power in 
 whose inscrutable wisdom we were born to live, and in the pres- 
 ence of whose unchallengeable majesty we are born todie. The 
 death of Mr. Barbour is a great grief to his household, a calam- 
 
 475 
 
ity to his friends. It has come as a personal affliction to his late 
 associates in the public service here. His State will exhibit in 
 the bereavement of ner people a realization of the full measure 
 of her loss, and his country, by the observances in which the 
 nations, by their accredited representatives, are soon, by your 
 invitation, to take part, will acknowledge her sense and appreci- 
 ation of this melancholy event. 
 
 And yet, Mr. President, speaking for myself and making frank 
 expression of the inspiration of which this solemn occasion pos- 
 sesses me, I have felt, as the associate and neighbor and friend 
 of Mr. Barbour, that memories of his private virtues and public 
 career, elevated and clean and noble as they were, give back, at 
 least in some degree, a compensation from the grave. They 
 soften by the sweet influences which radiate from the conscious- 
 ness of a life well spent the asperities of grief whi<£i nature is 
 prone to indulge on occasions like this. This death is to my 
 mind the gathering of ripened fruit, the garnering of the sheaf 
 in the well rounded fullness of its golden maturity. 
 
 John S. Barbour was in all the relations of this world an ele- 
 vated character and an upright man. His sterling qualities of 
 mind and heart bore practical fruit. His genius for affairs made 
 monuments in the business and public walks of men, as, in a 
 narrower sphere, his humanity made gratitudes which will follow 
 like angels, guarding him to the tomb. 
 
 When the Senate, as is its custom, shall have set apart a day 
 to be devoted to the recounting of his manly virtues and the 
 exhibition of the elements of his lofty character, it will be seen 
 of all that his traits were above those of most of his fellow-men* 
 that he was useful and valuable to his country and his countoy- 
 men: that he practiced justice and fair dealing; that he was im- 
 bued with a love of right; that he gave example worthy of emu- 
 lation by youth as well as by age, and that he moved and had 
 his being, without ostentation or form, in the reverence and 
 veneration of his God. 
 
 Mr. President, I offer the resolutions which I send to the 
 desk. 
 
6 
 
 The VICE-PRESIDENT. The resolutions will be read. 
 The Chief Clerk read the resolutions, as follows: 
 
 Resolved, That the announcement of the sudden death of Hon. John S. Bar- 
 bour is received with profound sorrow by his associates in the Senate. 
 
 Resolved, That a committee of nine Senators be appointed by the Vice-Pres- 
 ident to take order, with a committee of the House of Representatives, for 
 the funeral of the late Senator Barbour: and as a mark of respect for his 
 memory that his remains be removed from the Capitol to his late residence 
 in Washington, and thence to Poplar Hill, Md., for interment in charge of the 
 Sergeant-at-Arms, and attended by said committee, who shall have power 
 to carry this resolution into effect. 
 
 Resolved, That the Senate will at 1 o'clock to-day attend in its Chamber the 
 exercises incideat to his funeral. 
 
 Resolved. That the Secretary of the Senate communicate these proceedings 
 to the House of Representatives and invite the House of Representatives to 
 attend the funeral in t£e Senate Chamber at the hour named. 
 
 The resolutions were agreed to unanimously. 
 
 The VICE-PRESIDENT. Under the second resolution, as the 
 committee on the part of the Senate to take order with the com- 
 mittee from the House of Representatives to accompany the re- 
 mains of their late colleague to his final resting place, the Chair 
 appoints the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Daniel], the Senator 
 from West Virginia [Mr. Kenna], the Senator from Maryland 
 [Mr. Gorman], the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Walthall], 
 the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Carlisle], the Senator from 
 Nevada [Mr. Stewart], the Senator from Michigan [Mr. Mc- 
 Millan], the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Cullom], and the Sen- 
 ator from Minnesota [Mr. Washburn]. 
 
 recess. 
 
 Mr. KENNA. Mr. President, I ask the adoption of the reso- 
 lution which I send to the desk. 
 
 The resolution was read, as follows: 
 
 Resolved, That the Senate do now take a recess until 12:50 o'clock. 
 
 The resolution was agreed to; and (at 12 o'clock and 15 minutes 
 p. m.) the Senate took a recess until 12 o'clock and 50 minutes 
 p. m., at which hour it reassembled. 
 
 MESSAGE FROM THE HOUSE. 
 
 A message from the House of Representatives by Mr. T. CX 
 
 TOWLES, its Chief Clerk, announced that the House had passed 
 
 the following resolutions: 
 
 Resolved, That the House of Representatives accept the invitation oi the 
 475 
 
Senate to attend the funeral services of the late Hon. John S. Barbour, a 
 Senator of the United States from the State of Virginia, to be held in the 
 Senate Chamber this day at 1 o"clock p. m. 
 
 Resolved further, That the Clerk of the House be directed to inform the 
 Senate that the Speaker of the House has appointed the following commit- 
 tee, to act in conjunction with the committee of the Senate, to make neces- 
 sary arrangements and accompany the remains to the place of burial, viz : 
 Mr. Meredith, Mr. Holman, Mr. "Wilson of West Virginia, Mr. Henderson 
 of North Carolina, Mr. Hemphill, Mr. Mutchler, Mr. Blount, Mr. Comp- 
 ton, Mr. O'Ferrall, Mr. Harmer, Mr. Payne, and Mr. Grout. 
 
 FUNERAL OF SENATOR BARBOUR. 
 
 At five minutes before 1 o'clock the members of the House of 
 Representatives, preceded by the Sergeant-at-Arms and Clerk, 
 and headed by the Speaker, entered the Senate Chamber. The 
 Speaker was escorted to a seat at the right of the Vice-Presi- 
 dent, the Clerk at the Secretary's desk, and the Sergeant-at- 
 Arms on the right of the Vice-President's desk, and the mem- 
 bers of the House were escorted to the seats on the floor provided 
 for them. 
 
 They were scon followed by the Major-General Commanding 
 the Army, the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, the 
 Chief Justice and associate justices of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, the members of the Cabinet, and the Diplomatic 
 Corps, who were respectively escorted to the seats assigned them 
 on the floor of the Senate Chamber. 
 
 At 1 o'clock and 10 minutes p. m. the casket containing the 
 remains of the deceased Senator was brought into the Senate 
 Chamber, having been preceded by the family and friends of the 
 deceased, and escorted by the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate 
 and the committee of arrangements of the two Houses and pall- 
 bearers selected from the Capitol police, and followed by acolytes 
 and R. Rev. John J. Keane, rector of the Catholic University 
 of America, Rev. C. Gillespie, S. J., Rev. M. C. Dolan, S. J., 
 Rev. A. M. Mandalari, S. J., Rev. James Smith, S. J., Rev. Jacob 
 Walter, Rev. James F. Mackin, Rev. John T. Delaney, Monsig- 
 nor I. Schroeder and Prof. Joseph Pohle, of the Catholic Uni- 
 versity, and Rev. Aloysius Brosnan. S. J., master of ceremonies. 
 
 The prayers for the burial of the dead, prescribed in the ritual 
 of the Catholic Church, were read by Rev. C. Gillespie, S. J., 
 
rector of St. Aloysius Church, first in Latin and then in English, 
 the responses being made by the attending clergymen. After 
 the incensing and blessing of the body, R Rev. John J. Keane 
 delivered the following sermon: 
 
 Judge not before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to 
 light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of 
 the hearts, and then shall every man have his praise from God.— 1 Cor., iv, 5. 
 
 In the presence of the judgment of God, how must all human 
 judgment bow in adoring silence! It is the lesson which the apos- 
 tle of the Gentiles thus solemnly impressed on the Corinthians. 
 It is the lesson which in this hour of mourning and of wist- 
 ful gazing beyond the tomb he lovingly whispers to us. It is 
 the lesson by which he ever shaped his own life. In no spirit 
 of contempt for his fellow-men, but in the profound conviction 
 that man's judgment is of but small account when compared with 
 the judgments of the Almighty, he exclaimed: "To me it is a 
 very small matter how I am judged by you, or by human judg- 
 ment: neither do I judge my own self. For I am not conscious 
 of any wrong in myself; yet am I not hereby justified; but He 
 that judge th me is the Lord." 
 
 Could those white lips speak to us now, would they not, with 
 the awful eloquence of eternity, re'icho the words of the Apostle? 
 "Judge me," he would say, "ye friends and partners and wit- 
 nesses of my life, judge me, for it is your right; my life was not 
 my own but yours, and you have a right to pass sentence on it. 
 Judge me, all ye whose interests were for so many years in- 
 trusted to my keeping; honestly I strove to do my full duty to 
 you, but I own my responsibility and your judgment is welcome. 
 Judge me! O, my country, to whom the best energies of my life 
 were consecrated; thou knowest that I loved thee devotedly; 
 that I strove to serve thee unselfishly: that beyond all the in- 
 terests of family or friends or party thy welfare was the chief 
 object of my desires: to thee my life belonged and thou hast 
 a right to judge it. But. O, my country and my friends, highly 
 though I value your judgment, sorely though I would be grieved 
 if ye found me worthy of your disapproval, sweet as will be to 
 
9 
 
 me the sentence of your approbation, the hope of which was 
 ever a spur to my endeavors, yet what will all this avail me in 
 the eternity into which I now have entered, unless the judg- 
 ment of Him who searcheth the reins and the hearts be also a 
 judgment of mercy and approval? O, pray for me, my friends, 
 for the hand of the Lord hath touched me." 
 
 ' ' Who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His 
 counsellor? " Not even the Church of Christ pretends to lift the 
 veil and declare the sentence of the Most High. For every child 
 of God over whom her funeral rites are celebrated she has ever 
 the self-same form of humble and repentant supplication for 
 mercy. Even over those who have been highest in the ranks of 
 her ministry she utters the same cry for mercy, and whatever 
 there is of added liturgy is only addition of supplication because 
 of their weightier responsibility. Knowing full well how truly 
 the apostle says: " If we say that we have no sin we deceive our- 
 selves and the truth is not in us; " in the awful hour of death she 
 discerneth not between layman and cleric, between the poor stray 
 sheep that has got into the fold, as it were, at the last moment, 
 and the faithful one that has stayed in it always; but over them 
 all and in the name of all equality, she cries out to the Eternal 
 Judge: "Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great 
 mercy, and according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot 
 out my iniquity. For I know my iniquity and my sin is always 
 before me." 
 
 She offers up that prayer for mercy not only for them, but in 
 their name. She prays for all men, without limit or exception, 
 with a charity as catholic as her name, as limitless as the charity 
 of Christ. But she can pray in the name only of those who have 
 associated themselves with her, who have become her members 
 either in accomplished fact or in clearly declared intention and 
 desire. She prays this day not only for Senator Barbour, but in 
 his name, because for years past he had identified his religious 
 life entirely with her. She regards him as having been a cate- 
 chumen, a candidate for baptism and for full membership in her 
 communion, for such his words and acts plainly declared him to 
 
 475 
 
10 
 
 be. And from the earliest days of the Church's history we see 
 with what special tenderness she regarded her catechumens. 
 History has preserved to us the discourse pronounced by the 
 great St. Ambrose over the Emperor Valentinian, who was cut 
 off by an untimely death ere yet he had joined the membership of 
 the Church by receiving baptism. 
 Grieve not— 
 Says the saint — 
 
 because he died without the sacrament of baptism. Tell me, is there any- 
 thing on our part but the will, the desire? That grace he desired he asked 
 lor; who then will say that having asked he did not receive? Assuredly be- 
 cause he asked the grace he received it. Pour forth then, O Eternal Father- 
 He continues — 
 
 pour forth on this Thy servant the abundance of the mercy and the grace 
 which he so desired. As Thou has crowned Thy unbaptised martyrs with 
 the baptism of their blood, so crown this Thy servant with the baptism of 
 his desire. And ye, O brethren- 
 He exclaims to the people — 
 
 unite your supplications with mine; offer for his soul the holy mysteries; 
 with pious affection let us pray for his repose; by the offering of the heav- 
 enly sacraments let us follow his soul with spiritual help. I scatter not 
 flowers on his tomb, but I pour upon his soul the sweet perfume of Christ. 
 With this will I sanctify his remains; through this will I invoke on him all 
 heavenly grace. 
 
 In very many words like these, all glowing with faith and 
 charity, all laden with the sweetness of Christian hope, did this 
 great father of the Church utter the feelings of his soul towards 
 his beloved catechumen. And well we know that this was no 
 prompting of human respect, no sacrifice of Christian principle 
 to the dignity of the dead emperor. For it was that same Ambrose 
 who met the Emperor Theodosius at the church door and drove 
 him from the consecrated threshold and from the communion of 
 the faithful, because the blood of the people of Thessalonica was 
 on his hands. No, it was a duty which the great bishop knew 
 that he owed to the catechumen whom death had so suddenly 
 snatched away. And were he here to-day he would speak and 
 act in like manner towards this our friend, who years ago declared 
 his intention of becoming a member of the old Church of Jesus 
 Christ, who, when the duties of public life, which he then thought 
 
 475 
 
11 
 
 he had laid aside forever, again seized on him and absorbed him, 
 though he temporarily delayed the final step, never retracted his 
 expressed determination to take it, who all these years has spoken 
 and acted as if he were already in full membership, and who, had 
 time been given him at the last, would assuredly, as his family 
 well knew, have askedfor the grace and consolation of her sacred 
 rites. 
 
 What Ambrose did fifteen hundred years ago we, his succes- 
 sors in the holy ministry, do to-day. And his eminence Cardi- 
 nal Gibbons finding it impossible to fulfill this sad duty himself, 
 glad am I that to me should fall the honor of filling his place; 
 for during the eleven years that Richmond was my home and 
 Virginia the field of my episcopal labors I shared in the pride 
 that every Virginian felt at having for the representative of the 
 proud old State in the national Congress so honorable, so high- 
 toned, so spotless a man as John S. Barbour. When, about 
 six years ago, shortly after the untimely death of his saintly and 
 beloved wife, he gave me to understand that soon we would ba 
 fellow Catholics, I rejoiced that the luster which his civic vir- 
 tues l'eflected on his State and the honor which his public career 
 did to his whole country was likewise to be shared in by the old 
 church of all the ages, the mother of saints and heroes and 
 sturdy upright men and women in every age and clime and con- 
 dition of human life. Their lives are a testimony to her which 
 she values highly because of its utility to their fellow-men. 
 
 In this age of intense activity, when absorption in temporal 
 pursuits so often makes men unmindful of their eternal interests; 
 when the hard-wrought children of men are so prone to think 
 that fidelity to the business of this life renders it impossible to 
 be busy about the life to come; when Ctesar's claims are so im- 
 perious and so all-pervasive that the representative of the spir- 
 itual order is apt to be considered, as her Divine Founder was, 
 an intruder, a usurper, a disturber of the public peace — in such 
 an age that man is a benefactor to his race who by the example 
 of his life gives practical proof that it is possible and easy to be 
 at the same time an energetic business man and yet a man of 
 
12 
 
 prayer, to be an active politician and yet a conscientiously re- 
 ligious man, to be a clear-sighted American statesman and yet a 
 firm believer in the old Catholic Church of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Soon this Senate Chamber will resound with eloquent tributes 
 to the admirable character and the eminent public services of 
 this good and noble man. Would that the sound of those eulo- 
 gies might reach so far and sink so deep into the heart of the 
 nation that all his fellow-citizens might thereby be spurred to 
 emulate his civic virtues. Would that the moral of his life 
 might inspire good men everywhere with a better appreciation 
 of their duty to their country, with a firm resolve that no pri- 
 vate considerations should hinder them from taking their full 
 part in safeguarding the public interests, instead of leaving them 
 to the mercy of selfishness and greed. Would that, before this 
 example of clean-handed public service, venality and corruption 
 might cower in shame and disappear from the sanctuary of our 
 country's liberties forever. Would that, at the sight of this 
 union of American statesmanship with Catholic faith, the out- 
 cry of religious animosity, so out of place in this land of civil 
 and religious liberty, might forever be hushed. And, oh, would 
 that, above all, the silent eloquence of this impressive spectacle 
 might indelibly imprint on the mind of our country and on the 
 minds of all her public men that lesson so solemnly taught us by 
 Washington in his Farewell Address, that the absolutely indis- 
 pensable foundation and props of natioual prosperity must be 
 morality and religion. 
 
 Grant, O Heavenly Father, that such may be the beneficent 
 fruit of the life and the death of this good man. From his ex- 
 ample may there go forth an influence to purify and to elevate 
 the life of his people. May his country, which so lovingly hon- 
 ors his memory and so sincerely deplores his loss, reap profit 
 from the practical lesson which his death bequeaths to all her 
 citizens. May his testimony to the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ 
 strengthen that faith in the souls of us all and make it invulner- 
 able against the attacks of unbelief. And as Thy holy Pontiff, 
 St. Ambrose, prayed for the soul of his beloved catechumen, so do 
 
13 
 
 we implore thee, O Father of Mercies and God of all consolation, 
 to deal in sweetest mercy and love with the soul of this Thy serv- 
 ant. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual 
 light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen. 
 
 The VICE-PRESIDENT. The committee of arrangements 
 will escort the remains of the deceased Senator from the Cham- 
 ber, and after the guests of the Senate have retired the Senate 
 will accompany the body to the residence of the late Senator 
 Barbour, returning to the Chamber for further duty. 
 
 The casket was borne from the Chamber, and the Senate, as a 
 body, the invited guests, and the clergymen attended the re- 
 mains. 
 
 At 2 o'clock and 10 minutes p. m. the Senate returned to its 
 Chamber, and the Vice-President resumed the chair. 
 
 Mr. MANDERSON. I move that the Senate do now adjourn. 
 
 The motion was agreed to; and (at 2 o'clock and 11 minutes p. 
 m.) the Senate adjourned until to-morx'ow, Tuesday, May 17, 
 1892, at 12 o'clock meridian. 
 
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