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 A FUNERAL ADDRESS, 
 
 BEFORE THE CITIZENS OF BURLINGTON, 
 
 AT THE REQUEST OF THE COMMON COUNCIL, 
 
 ON TUESDAY, 13 APRIL, 1841; 
 
 ON OCCASION OF THE DEATH 
 OF 
 
 WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, 
 
 LATE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES : 
 
 BT 
 
 THE RT. REV. GEORGE WASHINGTON DOANE, DD., LL.D. 
 
 BISHOP OF NEW JBRSET. 
 
 ^ 3Suvltnfltou: 
 
 J. L. POWELL, PRINTER 
 
 M DCCC Xll. 
 
t 
 
 O God, whose days are without end, and 
 whose mercies cannot be numbered ; make 
 us, we beseech thee, deeply sensible of the 
 shortness and uncertainty of human life ; 
 and let thy Holy Spirit lead us through 
 this vale of misery, in holiness and righte- 
 ousness, all the days of our lives : That, 
 wlien we shall have served thee in our 
 generation, we may be gathered unto our 
 fathers, having the testimony of a good 
 conscience ; in the communion of the 
 Catholic Church ; in the confidence of 
 a certain faith ; in the comfort of a rea- 
 sonable, religious, and holy hope ; in fa- 
 vour with thee our God, and in perfect 
 charity with the world: All which we ask 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen, 
 
T ESTIMONY OF RESPECT. 
 
 RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 The following are the proceedings of the Common Council of the City of 
 Burlington, held at the City Hall, on the 9th instant, on receiving intelligence 
 of the death of the President of the United States, General William Henry 
 Harhison'. 
 
 WaEnnAs, it has pleased the Supreme Arbiter of the destinies of nations, by 
 an inscrutable dispensation of His unerring wisdom, to remove from his official 
 duties, and from life, the Chief Magistrate of the United States ; and Whereas, 
 the high and responsible station which he occupied, (independent of his vener- 
 able age and long and distinguished services,) renders this event a national be- 
 reavement, which calls for a manifestation of feeling, in every section of our 
 country. Therefore, 
 
 1. Resolved, That in this afflicting dispensation, it is our duty, as Christians, 
 to bow in resignation to the Divine decree, and to acknowledge, with gratitude 
 and adoration, the many blessings mercifully extended to us by the same Hand 
 that has dealt the blow which now we mourn. 
 
 2. Resolved, That this event calls upon the people as members of the great 
 republican family, laying all distinctions aside, to entertain and to evince deep 
 feelings of respectful sorrow. 
 
 3. Resolved, That, as representatives of the citizens of Burlington, we 
 sincerely sympathise with the afflicted family of our late venerable President, 
 and that we feel ourselves partakers in their bereavement. 
 
 4. Resolved, That a person be appointed by this Board, to deliver before the 
 inhabitants of Burlington, an appropriate Address, upon this solemn and mourn- 
 ful occasion. And that Messrs. Allen, Wetherill, and Burns, in connection 
 with the Mayor, be a Committee to carry the last resolution into effect. 
 
 It was, on motion. Resolved, that the Committee last appointed be requested 
 to invite Bishop Doane to deliver the Address, contemplated by the 4th Reso- 
 lution. 
 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Burlington, Jpril 10, 1841. 
 Rt. Rev. G. W. Doaxe, D.D,, LL.D. 
 
 Dear Sir — At a special meeting of the Council of the City of Burling- 
 ton, convened at the Town Hall, on the 9th inst., for the purpose of expressing 
 their sentiments, and sympathizing with their fellow citizens in the national 
 calamity which has befallen our country, by the sudden and unexpected death 
 of its Chief Magistrate, Gen. William Henry Harrison, the undersigned were 
 appointed a Committee to confer with you on the subject, and to invite you to 
 deliver, an Address suitable to the occasion, and in commemoration of the vir- 
 tues and character of one who has died "full of years and full of honors," at 
 such time and place as may best suit your convenience. 
 We have the honor to be. 
 
 Very respectfully. 
 
 Your obedient servants, 
 
 A. W. BuRirs, 
 Wni. R. Allen, 
 Samuel W. Eahl, 
 Samuel R. Wetherill. 
 
 Riverside, Saturday morning, April 10, 1841. 
 Gentlemen — I have this moment received your very courteous note, request- 
 ing me, in behalf of the Council of the City of Burlington, to deliver an Ad- 
 dress adapted to the solemn occasion, when the nation mourns the loss of its 
 Chief Magistrate, and commemorative of his great virtues and distinguished 
 services. Allow me to assure you of my deep and lively sympathy with my 
 fellow citizens in this severe bereavement; and of my fervent prayer, that He 
 who "doeth all things well," will make this national calamity a profitable lesson 
 to us, as a people. Although my appointments are out, for a Visitation of a 
 portion of my Diocese, I deem the occasion proper to recal them, for one day, 
 that I may discharge the service to which the Council have been pleased to de- 
 signate me. I accept the invitation; and propose the afternoon of Tuesday 
 next, at 5 o'clock, for the time: leaving the place to be decided by the Council. 
 It affords me sincere pleasure to serve at all times, and in any way, the com- 
 munity with whom I live ; as it does to subscribe myself. Gentlemen, your 
 faithful friend and servant, 
 
 G. W. DOANE. 
 
 Messrs. Burns, Allen, Earl and Wetherill, 
 
 Committee of the Council. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 It is a dark December day. A deep snow clothes 
 the ground. A sharp and cutting sleet drives with 
 the wind. Against the blinding storm, and through 
 the deepening drifts, a youthful soldier, with his 
 knapsack on his back, pursues his steadfast way. A 
 stripling of nineteen, of slender frame, and feeble 
 health, he is an Ensign in the army of America, 
 with Washington's commission ; and he marches, 
 with his small detachment, on his first service. It 
 was a patriot and a Christian duty. There are those 
 before me who remember well, w^hat, in my young 
 days, was yet a nursery-word, at which the mother 
 pressed her infant to her bosom, and children gathered 
 closer to the fire — St. Clair's defeat. It was to 
 that battle-field, to inter the bones of its six hundred 
 slain, that our young Ensign hastened with his troop. 
 And though it was a patriot and a Christian duty, 
 how much more sternly than the fiercest onset of the 
 heady fight, must that still forest field, the lowering 
 sky, the howling wind, those gallant men butchered 
 by savage hands, and all the recollections and fore- 
 bodings of that most disastrous day, have tried the 
 spirit of a youthful soldier, on his first campaign I 
 
 It was a chill November night, when a small arny 
 of Americans encamped themselves upon a point of 
 
G 
 
 land, between the Wabash and a tributary stream. 
 They were the gentlemen and yeomen of the coun- 
 try, who had enrolled themselves, under the territo- 
 rial Governor, to defend their homes against the in- 
 roads of the hostile Indian tribes, and to chastise their 
 insolence. A long and tedious march, through a 
 most dreary wilderness, brings them at last to where 
 their wily foes await them ; and, on their proposition 
 for a conference and treaty, hostilities are intermitted 
 for a day. Slowly and cheerlessly the night w^ears ■ 
 off, within that guarded camp, with clouds and rain. 
 But weary men will sleep, whatever may betide them ; 
 and now, for hours, no sound has stirred the stillness 
 of the scene, save the lone sentry's guarded step. 
 But what is that, which, through "the misty moon- 
 beams' struggling light," is seen, not heard, as it 
 glides through the prairie grass ? Is it a snake that 
 winds his stealthy w^ay ? No ; but a subtler Indian : 
 and in one instant he is dead ! Another ; and the 
 savage yell starts every sleeper from his cold, damp 
 couch, and death begins his work. And was this 
 sleeping camp deceived, surprised, betrayed? Was 
 their Commander faithless to his trust? No; every 
 man had slept where he must fight, his clothes on, 
 and his gun loaded. And he, while yet the night 
 was young, sat by his tent-fire, till the hour should 
 come to rouse his weary comrades. In a moment, 
 he was mounted. Where the fight was hottest, there 
 was he. A ball, with no commission for his life, flies 
 through his hair, in vain his officers remonstrate 
 with him for his fearless hazard of liimself. He 
 thinks of brave St. Clair, and of the gallant victims 
 
of that fatal field. He thinks of wasted towns, and 
 blazing homes, and mothers slaughtered with their 
 infants. And the morning dawns not till the victory- 
 
 is won ! 
 
 Along the banks of the Ohio, spreads a smiling 
 farm. A plain and modest mansion rises from a 
 sloping lawn. Its owner, having filled, with credit 
 to himself, and honour to his country, almost every 
 station but the first — fought its battles, governed its 
 territories, served it in both houses of Congress, and 
 represented it abroad — wears out, in frugal industry, 
 his green old age, a plain Ohio farmer : his house, 
 the very home of hospitality; his name, the refuge 
 and the solace of the poor, the stranger and the or- 
 phan ; his style, the noblest that is known to nature's 
 heraldry, a patriot, and a patriarch 1 
 
 It is a gusty day in March. Before the morning 
 dawns, the Federal city is alive with men. It seems 
 now full to overflowing; and yet every hour brings 
 hundreds, thousands more. A cavalcade is formed. 
 Bells ring, and cannons roar. Fair women, and 
 brave men, throng every window of that noble Ave- 
 nue. Not a State of the whole twenty six that is 
 not represented in that long drawn line. It is the 
 nation's Jubilee. All classes, all conditions, both 
 sexes, every age, partake the general joy. A grave, 
 plain man, arrayed in modest black, that rides, un- 
 covered, on the steed, more conscious than himself 
 of the occasion, is the magnet that attracts all eyes, 
 and touches every heart. He reaches the Capitol. 
 He ascends the steps. He stands, majestic in his 
 meekness and simplicity, before the immeasurable 
 
8 
 
 multitude, who have brought up with them the hom- 
 age of the nation. The highest officer of Justice ad- 
 ministers to him the most magnificent oath that ever 
 rises up to heaven. And the youthful ensign, the 
 gallant general, the laborious farmer, is President 
 OF THE United States. 
 
 " One little month" has passed. It is a fitful April 
 day. Again, the Federal city is astir. Cannons are 
 heard : but these are minute guns. The bells peal 
 out : but 'tis the funeral knell. The streets are 
 thronged : but every face is sad, and every voice is 
 still. Once more, a long procession passes do^vn that 
 noble Avenue : but yew and cypress take the place 
 of nodding plumes, and muffled drums beat time to 
 aching hearts. Again, that grave, plain man is there : 
 no more erect and tall, the pillar of the State ; but 
 in his grave clothes, stretched upon the funeral Car. 
 He enters not the gate, as when we last beheld him, 
 to that glorious Capitol ; but turns aside, to the still 
 spot, where sleep the honoured dead : and " earth to 
 earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," concludes the 
 story and the scene. Never had man a funeral so 
 sublime. Never, for Chieftain fallen, did a whole 
 nation so pour out its heart. Was it not beautiful — 
 and just as it was beautiful — that he, who, on that 
 sleety day, began his public life, with pious rites for 
 St. Clair's butchered host, should find himself such 
 sepulchre ? 
 
 Fellow citizens, is it not so that " truth is strange, 
 stranger than fiction?" Can we yet realize that 
 these things are ? Does it not seem like some wild 
 night-mare dream ? Or, rather, like some deep, por- 
 
9 
 
 lentous plot of the old Grecian drama, with range as 
 wide, with themes as high, with incidents as various, 
 with interest as thrilling; the same vicissitudes of 
 fortune, the same procrastinated hopes, the same splen- 
 did attainment of the loftiest aim, and then, in one 
 more moment, the same catastrophe and cruel crush 
 of all? But surprise, amaze, and overwhelm us, as 
 it may, it still is sadly so. The brave soldier, the 
 wise statesman, the honest man, the patriot Presi- 
 dent, is taken from us, ere we yet had felt that he 
 was ours : and we are met, to interchange our sym- 
 pathies; and to comfort one another; and to draw 
 from his life, and character, and services, and, chiefly, 
 from this most striking incident of modern times, 
 such lessons, both of patriotism and piety, as may 
 serve to make us, if God bless them to our use, both 
 better citizens and better men. 
 
 The promise of his life, so far as parentage and 
 education were concerned, could scarcely have been 
 better. His father, Benjamin Harrison, was among 
 the immortal sisfiiers of the Declaration of American 
 Independence, and a man distinguished among those 
 distinguished men. In 1764, he had been one of 
 the remonstrants against the odious Stamp Act. He 
 was a member of the first Continental Congress, 
 which met in 1774. He was one of the Committee 
 to place the country in a posture of defence ; one of 
 the Committee to devise a plan for the support of the 
 army; Chairman of the Committee whose agency 
 secured the services of La Fayette and his compan- 
 ions ; and, afterwards, a member of the Board of War. 
 
 And, on the 10th of June, and 4th of July, 1776, he 
 2 
 
10 
 
 was among the foremost in the consummation of that 
 glorious deed, which made, of thirteen British Pro- 
 vinces, as many free and independent States; and 
 laid, in this new world, the broad foundations of an 
 empire, which will dishonour and betray its founders, 
 and disappoint its destiny, if it be not the greatest, 
 the most happy, and the most virtuous in the world. 
 It was of such blood — show me the blood, and for 
 the most part, I will tell you of the man I — and in 
 such stirring times, that William Henry Karrison 
 was born, at Berkley, on the James River, not far 
 from Richmond, in Virginia, on the 9th day of Feb- 
 ruary, 1773/ His birth was thus in the heroic age 
 of the Republic ; and the stern virtues, simple man- 
 ners, and self-denying habits of " the times that 
 tried mens' souls" moulded him, even from the 
 cradle, for a patriot and hero. His father dying in 
 his eighteenth year, while he was yet at Hampden 
 Sidney College, the care of his education devolved 
 upon his guardian, Robert Morris, the great Finan- 
 cier of the Revolution : and, with his permission, he 
 
 ' General Harrison was not less happy in his bringing up than in his blood. 
 After all, the mother has the making of the man. I am happy in being in- 
 debted to my esteemed neighbour and good friend, the Rev. Certlandt Van 
 Rensselaer, for this notice of the mother of the President. It is taken from his 
 sermon, in the city of Washington, on the Sunday after his decease ; as pub- 
 lished in " the New World." — " He was 'trained up in the way he should go,' 
 by the example and instructions of maternal love. His mother (of the Bassett 
 family,) wbs a woman of piety and prayer. During the General's last visit to 
 Virginia, he occupied his mother's apartments — the one in which he was born 
 — and he took great interest in pointing out the closet to which she retired for 
 private devotion, and th? corner of the room where she sat by the table to rend 
 her Bible ; and where she taught him on hia knees to pray, ' Our Father which 
 art in heaven !' " 
 
11 
 
 repaired to Philadelphia, and commenced the study 
 of medicine, under the care of Dr. Benjamin Rush; 
 like Morris, a member of the great Congress of 1776, 
 and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Thus 
 was he brought up at Gamaliel's feet; and with such 
 a training to bring out such blood, what wonder if 
 we find him, at nineteen, his books forsaken for the 
 sword, an ensign in the army, and engaged with 
 Wayne, in that most desperate and most patriotic 
 service, the rescue of the frontier states from the in- 
 cursions of the Western Indians ! From his first 
 service of piety and patriotism, on St. Clair's fatal 
 field, his path was ever that of duty and of honour. 
 The next year, he was made Lieutenant, and soon 
 after Aid to that incarnate spirit of indomitable 
 bravery, Anthony Wayne ; receiving more than once 
 his never to be questioned attestation of devotion, skill, 
 and gallantry. In 1775, at twenty-two, he was a 
 Captain in command of an important frontier station, 
 on the spot where now the city of Cincinnati stands ; 
 and Washington himself appointed him, at twenty- 
 four, the Secretary of the North Western Territory, 
 and ex officio its Lieutenant Governor. From that 
 Territory he became, at barely twenty-five, its first 
 Representative in Congress ; and, though the young- 
 est, one of the most effective members of that body ; 
 and, among other most important measures, carried 
 through a bill by which the Public Lands were made 
 accessible to purchasers of moderate means, the pro- 
 gress of improvement and of comfort accelerated in- 
 finitely, millions paid into the public treasury, and 
 homes created for unnumbered millions, in the ages 
 
12 
 
 yet to come, of happy Christian freemen. In 1801, 
 at twenty-nine, he was appointed Territorial Go- 
 vernor of Indiana, and sole Commissioner for treaties 
 with the Indians, with powers unlimited ; and re-ap- 
 pointed, at the people's instance^ thirteen times. On 
 the 6th of November, 1811, as Governor of Indiana, 
 and Commander-in-chief, he gained the important 
 victory over the Indians, at Tippecanoe ; a name, im- 
 mortal now, as Marathon, or Monmouth, or New 
 Orleans. In 1812, he was appointed, by President 
 Madison, Commander-in-chief of the North Western 
 army ; encountering dangers, enduring hardships, 
 and performing services which won for him from 
 every quarter confidence and praise. In April, of 
 the following year, he conducted the successful de- 
 fence of Fort Meigs, against the British troops and 
 Indians ; and terminated it by a sortie, which, for its 
 boldness of conception, and rapidity and energy of 
 execution, ranks among the most distinguished acts 
 of modern warfare. And, in October, he drove the 
 enemy completely from the field in the decisive vic- 
 tory of the River Thames—" a victory," said Langdon 
 Cheeves, Speaker of the House of Representatives, 
 " such as w^ould have secured to a Roman General, 
 in the best days of the Republic, the honours of a 
 triumph, and put an end to the war in Upper Cana- 
 da." "The result," said President Madison, "is 
 signally honourable to Major General Harrison, by 
 whose military talents it was performed." "The bless- 
 ings of thousands of women and children," says Gov- 
 ernor Snyder of Pennsylvania, "rescued from the 
 scalping knife of the ruthless savage of the wilder- 
 
13 
 
 ness, rest on Harrison and his gallant army." His 
 public life from this time was in civil stations. In 
 1814 and 1815, he discharged most honourable duties, 
 as a Commissioner of Indian treaties. In 1816, he 
 went to Congress, where he was a prominent and 
 influential member. In 1819, he was elected to 
 the Senate of Ohio, where he served for several 
 years. In 1824, he took his seat in the Senate of 
 the United States, and succeeded General Jackson, 
 as Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs ; 
 and from that station he was sent, in 1826, as Minis- 
 ter Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Colombia. 
 Twelve years, from his recal, he spent in dignified 
 retirement at North Bend, from which the people's 
 will summoned him, by the electoral vote of nine-, 
 teen states, to the Chief Magistracy of the Republic, 
 to be the first of sixteen millions of free men : a sta- 
 tion from which the present life permits of no pro- 
 motion; and from which, therefore, by an euthana- 
 sia, more poetical than ever poet dreamed of, while 
 yet the flush of triumph was upon his cheek, he was 
 removed, to wait, in the serene asylum of the grave, 
 the coming and the kingdom of his Lord. 
 
 I have felt that there was no need to dwell upon 
 the history of President Harrison. His life, with all 
 its incidents and issues, is familiar to your ears as 
 "household words." Never, I believe, was any man 
 so thoroughly well known to any people. From the 
 year 1791, v/hen he first entered the army, until the 
 year 1829, when he came home from the Republic 
 of Colombia, his life was wholly in the public ser- 
 vice. And from 1835, to the present time, the eye 
 
14 
 
 of the whole nation has been continually and intense- 
 ly fixed upon him. He has been written of, spoken 
 of and talked of; and, what makes more for thorough- 
 ness of scrutiny, he has been written against, spoken 
 against, and talked against, through all that time. If 
 ever the charge of being deficient in enthusiasm 
 rested on us, as a nation, the year last past has 
 wiped it off". There is no echo in this land that has 
 not answered to the name of Harrison. He has 
 been chanted in songs, and painted on banners, and 
 engraven on medals, and woven into ribbons, and en- 
 amelled in vases. Not a deed of his that has not 
 been discussed in Congress, and in the Legislature 
 of every State, and at mass meetings from Maine to 
 Georgia, and in the primary assemblies in every 
 town. All his battles have been fought and fought 
 again. The place where one of them occurred has 
 been adopted as the name for gatherings in every city 
 and in every village ; and supplied a watchword that 
 has gone abroad on every breeze. The place of his 
 residence, the materials of his house, the least im- 
 portant of his daily habits, were taken up as counter- 
 signs, and set to music, and immortalized in song. 
 It may be said, in short, without a figure, that his 
 private life was as public as the sun. That, under 
 such circumstances, and wdth such a trial, he should 
 be chosen, by so large a vote, to the first office in the 
 nation, is praise beyond all eulogy. It releases from 
 all necessity, and it leaves but little opportunity, on 
 an occasion such as this, to speak with much detail 
 either of his life or character. A few of its more ob- 
 vious traits, however, shall be noticed now; and this 
 
16 
 
 will bring us to the lessons which this striking pro- 
 vidence seems meant to teach us. 
 
 It never has been claimed for General Harrison 
 that he was a man of brilliant parts. Neither was 
 General Washington. Snch men are showy, taking, 
 often dangerous, seldom useful. Their splendour is 
 the excess of some one quality; most generally, at the 
 expense of others, quite as valuable. They give 
 more light than heat ; and are admired more than re- 
 lied on. True greatness is the equipoise of parts. 
 Shakspeare, the great philosopher of our humanity, 
 has touched this truth with his own matchless skill. 
 
 " the elements 
 
 So mix'd in him, that nature might stand up, 
 And say to all the world, This was a man!" 
 
 So it was, beyond all men of ancient or of modern 
 times, with General Washington. And it was this 
 well mixing- of the elements that constituted General 
 Harrison's greatness. He was, emphatically, a well 
 BALANCED MAN. It was tliis wliich bore him up in 
 all his different and weighty trusts, through an half 
 century of public service — the Ensign of 19, the Pre- 
 sident of 68 — and won for him his final triumph, and 
 made him equal to that greatest of his trials, his suc- 
 cess. It was this that carried him not only through 
 the most unsparing canvassing that ever man en- 
 dured ; but all the while developed new energies of 
 character, and inspired new claims to confidence. 
 It was by this, that even the nick-name that was 
 every where applied to him, on banners and in songs, 
 and would have cheapened in the public estimation 
 any other man, was dignified by its connexion with 
 
16 
 
 his character, and became a title of affectionate re- 
 spect. It is a superficial explanation of his unlooked- 
 for and unparalleled success, to say, that "the hur- 
 rah" elected him. The greatest difficulty was not 
 to catch, but to sustain, the popular gale. A craft 
 that carried too much sail would have run under in 
 it. Well built, well ballasted, well trimmed, it bore 
 him straight to port. 
 
 To specify a few of the good elements that were 
 " so mixed in him." He was a man of dear, sound 
 judgment. This is every where apparent in his 
 course of life. Hence, his selection, while so young, 
 to such high trusts, by men so keen in their analysis 
 of character ; by Washington, by Jefferson, by Ma- 
 dison, by Quincy Adams. It is apparent in his out- 
 line of the principles by which a just administration 
 of the Executive department should be governed, in 
 his celebrated letter, in 1838, to Mr. Denny. And it 
 was shewn, to take one great example, in the place of 
 all that might be pointed out, in his selection of a 
 Cabinet, at such a time, under such circumstances, 
 of which, both as a whole, and as to its individual 
 members, the nation has expressed unanimous, un- 
 qualified approval. 
 
 He had improved the native strength and sound- 
 ness of his mind by careful studAj and reflection. 
 "He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one." More 
 practice with the sword and plough than with the 
 pen exposed him, doubtless, to the criticism of using 
 the materials, rather than the results, of scholarship. 
 But, while there were those who charged the Inaugu- 
 ral with being pedantic, who, for their lives, could not 
 
17 
 
 have told whether this ancient name, or that, on which 
 he dwelt, with such high zest, were from the Greek 
 or Roman history; there was this charm about his 
 pedantry, that it proved clearly that the piece was 
 
 his. 
 
 He was an eminently practical man. It must have 
 been so ; or he never would have exercised so well 
 and wisely the office of Territorial Governor, so com- 
 plicated and so arduous in its responsibilities, as to 
 be re-appointed to it so often, and so long. That he 
 was so, the great measures prove which he espoused 
 and carried through, in his Congressional career. 
 That he was so, his announcement of the principles 
 of his administration clearly showed. And even more 
 so, the alacrity with which, from his twelve years' 
 retirement, at North Bend, he stepped at once, as if 
 promoted from the Cabinet, into the duties of the 
 Presidential office. 
 
 He was a man of great directness. He had no 
 knowledge of stratagem and subterfuge. He went 
 by the air-line to the object which he sought; and 
 verified the saying of the Sultan Akbar, that ''he 
 never heard of any man being lost in a straight road." 
 This was the secret of his great success in dealing 
 with the Indians. He made not less than thirteen 
 treaties with them : all securing their just rights, 
 and all promoting the advantage of the government. 
 A common view of things would seek to match the 
 savage subtlety with cultivated cunning. There is 
 no greater error. The overmatch for craft is honest, 
 open dealing, universally. Your wily politician stands 
 no chance with such a man as General Harrison. He 
 
 3 
 
38 
 
 IS thrown off the track at once. It is what the Scrip 
 ture saith, " He taketh the wise in their own crafti- 
 
 ness." 
 
 He was an honest man. What mines of wealth w^ere 
 opened to him, in his long- connexion with the pub- 
 lic lands, and in his dealings with the Indians, those 
 hapless victims of the cupidity of agents ! And yet, 
 he lived poor, and he died poor. He held his offices 
 for service, not for spoils. 
 
 He was a zealous man. In this way, he made up 
 for shining talents. What he undertook, he did. He 
 gave himself to do it. He spared no time, no pains. 
 This you see in all his course. Especially, m the 
 prosecution of the leading measures, which he under- 
 took in Congress; the Land bill, the Militia system, 
 the Revolutionary pensions, the free governments 
 of South America. This he showed, in his short 
 month, in his devotion to the Presidential duties. 
 
 He was a kind a7id generous man. His house was 
 filled with widows and with orphans. He had a seat 
 by his cheerful hearth, a plate at his simple board, 
 for every passer-by that needed fire or food. He 
 was the liberal patron of all public enterprises, for 
 the promotion of learning and religion : and the 
 habit of his private hospitality was well expressed, 
 in the long latch-string, that hung down, in every 
 model, and in every picture, from his cabin door ; and 
 never was pulled in. This was the secret of his 
 universal popularity. The kindness, that was glow- 
 ing in his heart, beamed from his countenance. He 
 was felt to be, because in truth he was, the friend of 
 all. And, in his few short weeks at Washington, he 
 
19 
 
 had conciliated, by the frankness of his manners, his 
 modesty, simpHcity, and friendhness, the affectionate 
 respect of all of every class in the community. 
 
 In one word, and to sum up all, he was a christian 
 PATRIOT. He entered not upon his high and holy 
 trust for God and man, without making this explicit 
 declaration of his faith in Jesus Christ : " I deem the 
 present occasion sufficiently important and solemn to 
 justify me in expressing to my fellow citizens, a pro- 
 found reverence for the Christian Religion, and a tho- 
 rough conviction, that sound morals, religious liberty, 
 and a just sense of religious responsibility, are essen- 
 tially connected with all true and lasting happiness; 
 and to that good Being, who has blessed us by the 
 o-ifts of civil and relioious freedom : who watched 
 over and prospered the labors of our Fathers ; and 
 has hitherto preserved to us institutions far exceed- 
 ing in excellence those of any other people, let us 
 unite, in fervently commending every interest of our 
 beloved country in all future time." He bought 
 that day — an act of beautiful and simple piety! — 
 a Bible and a Prayer Book; as if he would begin 
 anew, in his new station, the sacred offices by 
 which his life had been consoled and consecrated. 
 He daily read, not without prayer, the holy word of 
 God. He constantly repaired, for public worship, to 
 the house of prayer. He prostrated himself, on bend- 
 ed knee, in the assembly of the faithful. He had 
 resolved,^ even on the next Lord's day that followed 
 
 1 This is stated by his Pastor, the Rev, William Hawiey, Rector of St. 
 John's Church, Washington city, who was with him through his sickness, and 
 closed his eyes. 
 
20 
 
 the commencement of that fatal sickness, to present 
 himself, his soul and body, a living sacrifice, before 
 the altar of his crucified Redeemer. And with those 
 latest words — delirious, if you will, but proving still 
 the ruling passion strong in death- — " Sir, I wish 
 
 YOU TO UNDERSTAND THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF THE 
 
 Government: I wish them carried out: I ask 
 NOTHING more" — words, as well suited to his illus- 
 trious successor, as they were worthy of himself — he 
 died, as he had lived, a Christian and a Patriot. 
 
 And he is dead ! He, that so lately was in every 
 mouth, the theme of praise or blame, has gone be- 
 yond the reach of both ! He, for whose elevation to 
 the Presidential chair, all business was suspended, 
 all interests seemed tame, the very stream of life 
 stood still, or rolled with torrent fulness in his wake, 
 to sit there, but one little month ! He, whose acces- 
 sion to the post of highest honour in the nation's gift 
 was hailed, as the commencement of a new and 
 brighter age — business to be revived, and confidence 
 restored, and peace and plenty and prosperity in- 
 creased and multiplied ; he, to whom every eye 
 was turned, and on whose look such thousands hung, 
 now lies, alone and still, the tenant of a cold and nar- 
 row tomb ! Oh ! what a lesson, if men would but learn, 
 of the uncertainty of all terrestrial things ! Oh ! what 
 a lesson, if men would but learn, of the utter worth- 
 lessness of human calculations! Oh! what a lesson, 
 if men would but learn, that whatever men desire, 
 design, or do, "the Lord God omnipotent reigneth!" 
 
 Fellow citizens, is it not true that we have needed 
 such a lesson? Has not our day of unexampled sun-^ 
 
21 
 
 shine made us forgetful that a cloud could lower, or 
 that a storm could break? Instead of leading us to 
 penitence, as the Apostle tells us that it should, has 
 not the heavenly goodness been abused to rank 
 licentiousness, impenitence and unbelief? Were we 
 not fast becoming a worldly, sensual, godless na- 
 tion? I design not now to enumerate or to re- 
 prove the mass of national or of individual vices. I 
 confine myself to but one aspect. I ask your atten- 
 tion to but one single point. Will you not all admit, 
 that the great strife, which agitated the whole nation, 
 like a stormy sea, the ground-swell not yet over, 
 was entered into, and conducted, and the issue wel- 
 comed, in forgetfulness of God; in utter and mistaken 
 confidence in human wisdom, human power, and 
 human worth ? As the great contest drew towards 
 its crisis, did not all ears, all eyes, all hearts intensely 
 fix themselves on the report, as it was borne from 
 state to state ; as if the election of this candidate, or 
 that, involved all fears, all hopes, all destinies'; and 
 God were not in heaven? But, "be the people never 
 so unquiet," God is there. "The shields of the 
 earth belong to Him." And, " cursed be the man that 
 maketh flesh his arm," however long his justice may 
 delay the sentence, will be asserted, in terrific ven- 
 geance, upon every nation, and upon every individual. 
 It becomes us, then, to bow, in all humility, before 
 the astounding stroke. To read, in that brief sway 
 of the most noble empire that is lighted by the sun, 
 the feebleness of human power ; in this unlocked for 
 disappointment of the wisest plans, the fairest pros- 
 pects, and the loftiest hopes, the blindness of all hu- 
 
22 
 
 man wisdom ; in the rude shock, which makes the 
 land to tremble, and all faces gather blackness, the 
 resistless sovereignty of God. Forever blessed be 
 his name, that, as his wrath is slow, and destruction 
 his "strange work," so he is quick in mercy, and un- 
 bounded in his tenderness, to them that turn to him 
 with tears and prayers! "At what instant I shall 
 speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, 
 to pluck up and to pull down, and to destroy it, if that 
 nation against whom I pronounced, turn from their 
 evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do 
 unto them." May it be, my fellow citizens, that we, 
 roused by this voice of warning, may so turn from our 
 evil ways, that God, propitiated to us by the inter- 
 cession of his Son, may turn to us again, and bless us 
 as a nation! Such as the individuals are, such the 
 community must be. The work is in our individual 
 hands. The cure is in our individual hearts. The 
 blessing is for us, our children, and our children's 
 children — peace, plenty and prosperity, the nation's 
 heritage, as it has been so long ; and peace with God, 
 and everlasting life, assured to all, through Christ, 
 who take the Lord to be their God. 
 
 The present sad solemnity should lead us to re- 
 view the mercies which, as a nation, have been 
 showered upon us ; and to gather, even from its most 
 mournful aspects, wholesome lessons for the future. 
 There have been completed thirteen Presidential 
 terms; nine times the people's voice has summoned 
 one of their own number to the loftiest station which 
 a freeman can be called to fill ; and never before has 
 the divine decree set aside their suffrages. When 
 
23 
 
 we consider, that maturity of age, ripeness of wisdom, 
 hoarded treasures of experience, are among the most 
 immediate qualifications for the office, and that he 
 who fills it bears a weight of duty and responsibility 
 as great as man can bear, this must be owned a mer- 
 ciful and gracious Providence. Had we not come 
 almost to lose the thoug-ht of the Chief Mamstrate's 
 mortality? Was there not danger, lest we quite ne- 
 glect the best employment of that wise provision 
 which the Constitution makes for this contingency? 
 Was the consideration that he might be called to ex- 
 ercise the first, a leading thought in our selection of 
 the citizen to hold the second, office in our govern- 
 ment? Was it not needful that the nation should be 
 roused to its responsibilities ! Was it not time that 
 we were taught, by such a lesson as would speak, 
 with trumpet tongue, to every heart, the rashness of 
 our confidence, our carelessness of what the future 
 might bring forth? And what a trumpet voice it is ! 
 A month, between the pinnacle of human fame and 
 the cold grave! A month, between the high flood- 
 tide of power and influence, with men, not only, but 
 with nations, and the dust of death ! Fellow citizens, 
 is not the touching sentiment of Edmund Burke 
 forced home upon our hearts, " What shadows we 
 are; and what shadows we pursue!" 
 
 Short as the period was of General Harrison's ad- 
 ministration, it has sufficed for useful lessons, and 
 for signal benefits. Is it not a beautiful and most 
 impressive lesson, and full of hope — let us not yield 
 to the temptation, to say, pride — for our republican 
 institutions, to see a private citizen, a simple farmer, 
 
I 
 
 24 
 
 a man without an hour of service in the Cabinet, 
 called by a nation's voice, from the secluded shades 
 of rural life, to take his place among the proudest 
 princes of the earth : and to see him take it, with an 
 assurance to our hearts of skill, and self-possession, 
 and effective energy, which gives us perfect confi- 
 dence that all our interests are safe; no shadow of a 
 doubt, that our true honour, as a nation, is secure ; 
 no moment's apprehension, that our glorious Consti- 
 tution will be guarded, even to a letter ! And, when 
 one little month has laid the nation's choice in the 
 still grave, — without a shock, without a struggle, 
 without one tremulous vibration of the ijreat ma- 
 chine, — to see its destinies transferred to other hands ! 
 A plain Virginia citizen, called, at an instant, from 
 his fields, or from his books; the helm of government 
 assumed as firmly, yet as modestly and quietly, as if 
 he had but entered, at his father's death, upon the 
 old homestead farm ; and the great ship, in which 
 our destinies are all embarked, ploughing her gallant 
 way, as proudly, and as peacefully, beneath that glo- 
 rious banner of the stars and stripes, as if no cloud 
 of change had passed across the sky! Fellow citi- 
 zens, this is a new and searching trial of our institu- 
 tions : provided for, indeed, by the deep wisdom of 
 our fathers, but never called in action until now. To 
 my mind, the experiment is full of hope and promise. 
 It appeals to every generous sentiment. It chal- 
 lenges our utmost confidence, as citizens and men. 
 Let it not be our fault, if this unheard of crisis in 
 our government does not approve us, before all na- 
 tions, what we claim to be, a people who are sove- 
 
25 
 
 reigns! Let all our efforts be exerted, let all our 
 prayers be offered, that the nation's second choice 
 may fill the measure of our highest expectation from 
 their first ! 
 
 There is one benefit from General Harrison's ad- 
 ministration, of which no doubtfulness is possible; 
 his clear, distinct, and manly determination to serve, 
 under no possible circumstances, a second term. Let 
 it be, that the Constitution does not forbid it. Let it 
 be, that precedents in our past history have run the 
 other way. Still, the temptation — let us honestly 
 confess it ! — is too great for mortal man ; and if the 
 illustrious authority of Harrison, now consecrated to 
 us by the touch of death, shall be adopted, his brief 
 possession of the power of the Executive may be 
 fruitful of blessings, which the faithful exercise of 
 its full period had perhaps failed to bring us. 
 
 Fellow citizens, there is one lesson taught us by 
 this mournful dispensation, of inestimable value; the 
 lesson, that, as citizens of the United States, we all 
 ARE ONE. We have too much forgotten it. The strife 
 of conflicting parties has gone too far. We have 
 been tempted to lose sight of the precious trust com- 
 mitted to us, as freemen, by the great Arbiter of na- 
 tions, in our devotion to the men or measures, which 
 are but instruments for its promotion. We had come 
 to look upon the settlement of that greatest question 
 which ever comes before us, not as it tended to the 
 national interest and honour, but as it made for our 
 success, and for the triumph of our party. I deny 
 not, that on all sides, honest purposes might lead to 
 this result. I claim not, that a measure of it is not 
 
26 
 
 inseparable from our free institutions ; and, in modera- 
 tion, necessary to preserve their freedom. But I do 
 say, that the evil has by far outrun the good. I do 
 say, that the end has been lost sight of in the means. 
 I do say, that private courtesy, social regards and 
 Christian charity have been disregarded, in the 
 chase for powder and office. I do say, that the very 
 foundations of the republic have been shaken ; and 
 the glory clouded, that should ever rest upon the 
 citadel of freedom. God has reproved us from his 
 throne. The flap of the death -angel's wing has pas- 
 sed before all faces. And, in an instant, the nation's 
 head has crumbled into dust ! It still is true — -bad 
 as the world is! — it still is true, thank God! that 
 "sorrow is a sacred thing !" At this affecting spec- 
 tacle of mortality, hearts soften, eyes are moistened, 
 hands are clasped. We own, as one great family, 
 the common loss. We bend, as brethren all, be- 
 side our father's grave. Let us accept the omen, fel- 
 low citizens ! Let us own, and act upon, its lesson ! 
 Let us no more forget our common country, our com- 
 mon Constitution, our common heritage of freedom, 
 and the warm blood, on Bunker Hill, at Monmouth 
 and at Yorktown, that made it common to us all ! 
 Honest differences we must entertain. Honest pre- 
 ferences we must avow. But let all differences be 
 merged, let all preferences be yielded, in the great 
 cause which makes, and keeps us, freemen. Never 
 let us forget the patriot grief, that, as on this day, 
 bows the hearts of this whole nation, as one man. 
 And, when the day of trial comes again, and we are 
 tempted to forget our brotherhood of freedom, and 
 
27 
 
 the debt we owe to her, who is the mother of us all; 
 let us still hear the voice, which, from that patriot 
 grave, speaks to our hearts, " Sirs, ye are brethren; 
 why do ye wrong one to another?" 
 
 Fellow citizens, have we not all felt, was it in na- 
 ture not to feel, that, in the death of our Chief Magis- 
 trate, death has come near us all? But he will come 
 nearer yet YIq ivill come — when, God knows! — to 
 me, to every one of you. And, should he come to- 
 night, should we be ready to go forth and meet him ? 
 Ah, my dear brethren, talk as we may, and as we 
 must, of other thoughts, and other themes, this is the 
 trial question for us all. And I should ill become 
 my ofhce, and ill express the love which w^arms my 
 heart for you, and ill discharge the trust with which 
 the kindness of your honoured representatives has 
 honoured me, did I not bid you, in my Master's 
 name, to go, and make your peace with God, through 
 Jesus Christ our Lord; and, in all holiness and 
 righteousness of life, to wait, henceforth, His coming 
 and His kino-dom ! 
 
How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, 
 By all their country's wishes blest! 
 When Spring, with dewy finger cold. 
 Returns to deck their hallowed mould, 
 She there shall dress a sweeter sod. 
 Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. 
 
 By fairy hands their knell is rung. 
 By forms unseen their dirge is sung ; 
 There Honour conies, a pilgrim gray, 
 To bless the turf that wraps their clay, 
 And Freedom shall awhile repair, 
 To dwell, a weeping hermit, there ! 
 
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