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 ADDRESS AT THE FUNERAL 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HON. JOHN K. KANE, 
 
 AT FERN-ROCK, PHILADELPHIA, FEBRUARY 24, 1858. 
 
 B Y 
 
 CHARLES W. SHIELDS, 
 ri 
 
 PASTOR OF THE SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 
 
ADDRESS- 
 
 Familiar as we are with confessions of 
 human ignorance and helplessness, it is 
 only in some actual sorrow that these facts 
 of our condition impress us with the force 
 of reality. The ordinary developments of 
 Providence but seldom suggest the peniten- 
 tial common-places which we parade on 
 religious occasions. Though really no less 
 inscrutable than the most enigmatical 
 events that ever befall us, yet we per- 
 versely deal with them as their authors 
 and masters, and in the very presence of 
 Infinite Wisdom deport ourselves as confi- 
 

 dently as if admitted to its most secret 
 counsels. 
 
 Sudden calamity rends the veil of this 
 proud illusion and forces us back in con- 
 scious, helpless dependence upon the all- 
 ruling Deity. A sore bereavement utterly 
 
 dissipates our wonted complacency, turns 
 all ordinary wisdom into folly, and leaves 
 us no alternative but simple resignation to 
 the will of God. 
 
 When an object of many fond affec- 
 tions, a centre of many clustering hopes 
 and sympathies, and an upholder of widely- 
 extended and varied relations, in the midst 
 of health, usefulness, and duty, is swiftly 
 prostrated by disease and death — like some 
 riven oak, involving in its fall, together 
 
with its own foliage and the tendrils cling- 
 ing around its boughs, the interlacing 
 branches of the neighboring forest — we 
 can only stand contemplating the melan- 
 choly ruin with bewilderment and grief. 
 We know not how to order our feelings. 
 The foundations appear to be giving way 
 
 beneath us; life looks strange and vision- 
 ary; and the very joy of nature seems 
 gairish and cruel. 
 
 These moments, my friends, are sacred 
 to sorrow. We visit this house of mourn- 
 ing and join this bereaved circle on an 
 errand of sympathy and consolation. I 
 respect the proprieties of the occasion. 
 
 Solemn lessons indeed there are in the 
 startling event which has called us to- 
 
Bl 
 
 gether, of the utter vanity of all human 
 prospects. How like some wild, distem- 
 pered dream this whole reality ! How 
 terribly abrupt this transition from the 
 honors, the duties, and the endearments 
 of life, to the nameless horrors of the 
 grave ! What a rebuke upon that habit- 
 ual heedlessness in which we live ! 
 strange infatuation, which leads us to 
 stake immortal interests upon the uncer- 
 tainties of a moment ! Overshadowed by 
 such a monitory dispensation, we do well 
 indeed to pause and weigh the great 
 questions of duty, destiny, and eternity. 
 Yet the mere moral of the bereave- 
 ment need not, surely, absorb or exhaust 
 our sensibility. No : there are griefs and 
 
sympathies around me which have a right 
 to some solacing expression. I would I 
 could do them but simple justice. 
 
 You do not, however, expect any ela- 
 borate portraiture or studied eulogy in 
 connection with these solemnities. 
 
 Of the public life and services of the 
 deceased; of the distinguished political 
 stations he has occupied, the eminent pro- 
 fessional abilities and attainments with 
 which he has dignified them, and the 
 industry and zeal he has brought to the 
 discharge of their duties; of his contri- 
 butions, in time, influence, and counsel, 
 to our different civic associations for the 
 promotion of Art, of Science, of Letters, 
 and of Charity; of his varied scholar- 
 
8 
 
 ship, his literary tastes and acquirements, 
 his familiarity with the ancient and mo- 
 dern classics, and his own exact and 
 elegant diction both in colloquial and 
 written composition ; of his discriminating 
 intellect, severe analytic power, astute- 
 ness in argument, and tact in . affairs ; of 
 the uniform dignity and amenity which 
 marked his deportment in all these varied 
 spheres and relations; — of such and other 
 features of his public career his public 
 associates will make fitting acknowledg- 
 ment. 
 
 These are not the topics which occupy 
 our present sympathies. Here, in this 
 circle of kindred and friends, it is the 
 private character — that aspect of an offi- 
 
9 
 
 cial personage always more or less con- 
 cealed and sometimes distorted in the 
 popular fancy — it is, in a word, the man 
 himself who invites and absorbs our con- 
 templation. 
 
 And Jiow the very image which rises 
 before you, while I speak — that personal 
 presence, expressive only of thorough cul- 
 ture and refinement, with those genial 
 and courtly manners, so full of delicate 
 tact and kindness, yet sustained with such 
 reserved self-possession — how this very 
 image, now present to your thought, ren- 
 ders verbal delineation at once inadequate 
 and unnecessary ! There was in his ha- 
 bitual demeanor a native grace and civility 
 which shone through all forms and con- 
 
10 
 
 ventionalities with original brightness, and 
 made the heartfelt compliment only the 
 more grateful for its disguise of playful 
 raiilerie. 
 
 But no mere enfeebled good nature or 
 undiscriminating amiability was this his 
 most obvious characteristic. It found its 
 becoming support in a sentiment of per- 
 sonal dignity which nothing could assail, 
 and was invigorated by a tenacious ad- 
 herence to opinion, logic, and principle, 
 that would admit neither of concession nor 
 of compromise. Thus he consistently min- 
 gled gentleness with firmness, and carried 
 into the severest conflicts of feeling a 
 blended deference and dignity that dis- 
 armed controversy of rudeness and still 
 
11 
 
 held captive a personal friend in the po- 
 litical foe. His was in fact that rare 
 magnanimity which is as incapable of in- 
 flicting as of inviting any assault upon 
 the generous sensibilities, and, like deli- 
 cacy in woman, is its own protection, 
 making it impossible for anything vile to 
 live in its presence. 
 
 Behind and above these more exterior 
 qualities, however, were others, always 
 their legitimate crown and complement in 
 every noble character. Like that most 
 accomplished courtier of his time, whose 
 " knee bent not more loyally to his queen, 
 than reverently to his God," he could not 
 understand why gentleness, firmness and 
 fearlessness before man should divest him 
 
 . 
 
12 
 
 of reverence, gratitude and faith in the 
 presence of his Maker. Content to be a 
 philosopher in everything else, in religion 
 he would be a child. 
 
 Nor was this the mere secret discipleship 
 that sometimes seeks to seclude itself in 
 the closet and at the fire-side. He openly 
 gave his name, influence, and labors to the 
 cause his heart had espoused; and in the 
 church, of which he was a leading member 
 and officer, has left lamented vacancies* no 
 
 * Judge Kane was a communicant in the Second 
 Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, and President 
 of its Board of Trustees. He was also a member of 
 various of the ecclesiastical Boards and Corporations 
 of the Church. In these relations his personal and 
 professional services were frequently and freely be- 
 stowed. 
 
13 
 
 less than in the worldly spheres through 
 which Providence ordered his more con- 
 spicuous pathway; — forming in this (I 
 trust I may be pardoned the allusion : it is 
 made in perfect consistency with profound 
 respect and admiration toward any who 
 
 may feel its pertinence), — forming in this an 
 exception to the course of too many of the 
 public men, who, in other respects, have 
 received the deserved applause of the 
 country. Was it not simply in keeping 
 with the generosity I have been com- 
 mending — (to place this transcendant in- 
 terest on no higher ground) — that he did 
 not countenance the paltry compromise of 
 adjourning to the flurried hour of death 
 a service for which the longest life were 
 
14 
 
 only too short, nor add another to the 
 eminent examples, who have entailed upon 
 survivors the perplexing task of extract- 
 ing consolation and praise from the frag- 
 mentary and dubious expressions of a 
 death-bed repentance. 
 
 Certainly I should not have felt so 
 
 wholly unembarrassed in the praises I have 
 heartfully bestowed, were it not that, in 
 that character which we contemplate, the 
 graces of the gentleman and the accom- 
 plishments of the scholar were crowned 
 with the virtues of the Christian. 
 
 There is another sphere, and other and 
 dearer relations — here under this roof and 
 within the seclusion of this home-circle, 
 where he moved a constant contributor 
 
15 
 
 and recipient of the fondest attentions — 
 into which I cannot trust myself to intrude 
 with any description. I could do justice 
 neither to their feeling nor to yours. I 
 will only assure them for all of our fervent 
 and prayerful sympathy. 
 
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