THE FUNERAL CORTEGE. 421 hope continued to the end, though true and real, to be tremulous with humility rather than rapturous with assurance. When he felt most the weari ness of his protracted sufferings, it sufficed to suggest to him that his Heavenly Father doubtless knew that, after a life so long, stirring, and tempted, such a discipline of chastening and suffering was needful to make him meet for the inheritance of the saints; and at once the words of meek and patient acquiescence escaped his lips. "Exhausted nature at length gave way. On the last occasion when I was permitted to offer a brief prayer at his bedside, his last words to me were that he had hope only in Christ, and that the prayer which I had offered for his pardoning love and his sanctifying grace, included everything which the dying need. On the evening previous to his departure, sitting an hour in silence by his side, I could not but realize, when I heard him in the slight wanderings of his mind to other days, and other scenes, murmuring the words, 'My mother! mother! mother! and saying, 'My dear wife,' as if she were present, I could not but realize then, and rejoice to think how near was the blessed reunion of his heart with the loved dead and with her our dear Lord gently smoothe her passage to the tomb!-who must soon follow him to his rest, whose spirits even then seemed to visit and to cheer his memory and his hope. Gently he breathed his soul away into the spirit world. How blest the righteous when they die! When holy souls retire to rest, How mildly beams the closing eye! How gently heaves the expiring breast! 'So fades a summer cloud away; So sinks the gale when storms are o'er; So gently shuts the eye of day; So dies the wave upon the shore !' "Be it ours to follow him in the same humble and submissive faith to Heaven. Could he speak to us the counsels of his latest human and of his present heavenly experience, sure I am that he would not only admonish us to cling to the Savior in sickness and in death, but abjure us not to delay to act upon our first convictions, that we might give our best power and fullest influence for God, and go to the grave with a hope unshadowed by the long worldliness of the past, and darkened by no films of fear and doubt resting over the future! "The strong staff is broken, and the beautiful rod despoiled of its grace and bloom; but, in the light of the eternal promises, and by the power of Christ's resurrection, we joyfully anticipate the prospect of seeing that broken staff erect, and that beautiful rod, clothed with celestial grace, and blossoming with undying life and blessedness, in the paradise of God." The ritual of the Episcopal Church, at the burial of the dead, closed the solemn service, and the body was removed to the Rotunda, that his sorrowing countrymen might gaze upon that face in death which has cheered them so much while living. The funeral cortège, with the mortal remains of the departed statesman, left Washington by railroad soon after the conclusion of the above services, halting for the night at Baltimore, where the whole people came out to attest by fit observances their af fection and sorrow. Thence it proceeded next day, halting briefly at Wilmington, to Philadelphia, where the most impressive honors were paid to the mighty dead by countless thousands. The body rested for the night in Independence Hall, under imposing military guardianship. The next day (Saturday) it moved on to New-York, halting briefly at the principal villages of NewJersey, where Mr. Clay had ever been most deeply beloved and warmly supported. Again at New-York, where the great Kentuckian had 'troops of friends' as devoted as man ever had in the world, the people had gathered at one o'clock in countless thousands to share in the solemnities of the occasion; and, after waiting its arrival till five, followed the bier in long and sad procession to the City Hall, where the coffin rested through the Sabbath in the Governor's Room, guarded by the Washington Greys, who afterward formed its escort to Albany. While it remained in New-York, more than thirty thousand persons passed in succession through the Governor's Room to gaze at the closed coffin which shrouded from view the deserted tenement of Genius and Patriotism. On Monday morning the procession departed by steamboat for Albany, where the most imposing testimonials of public grief were rendered by nearly the whole people. The bier rested for the night in the State capitol, and thence took its way next morning, with its long train of attendants, by railroad through Ithaca, Syracuse, Rochester, to Buffalo, thence by steamboat to Cleveland, by railroad to Cincinnati, and so by Louisville to Lexington, everywhere evoking from the entire community unanimous manifestations of a fond and tender regard for the great and good Statesman so ripely called to everlasting rest. Party differences were utterly forgotten; the miserable calumnies which for a season had clouded the fame of the noblest living American were remembered, if at all, only as deeply disgraceful to their inventors; and the whole American People mingled their tears of fond and grateful sorrow above the urn that enclosed the dust which once was Henry Clay. And thus, his ashes were laid to rest, on Saturday, July 10th, at the city he had early chosen for his home, and among the people who had admired, supported, and loved him with unwavering fidelity through FUNERAL AT LEXINGTON. 423 all the storms and calms of more than half a century of eventful public life. Surrounded by the whole circle of his stricken relatives, including the faithful and devoted partner of his joys and sorrows, and attended to the grave by the entire community of which he was so eminently beloved a member, his body was buried in the spot of his choice, there to mingle with the soil of that gallant State which he had so loved and honored, and which had equally loved and revered him in turn. There let the marble rise proudly and gracefully above his silent dust; but that will not be his only nor his noblest memorial. Wherever our seamen shall ride out a tempest in safety, protected by the piers and breakwaters of our Atlantic or inland harbors-wherever internal trade shall find a highway opened for it over mountains or through morasses by the engineer's science and the laborer's sturdy arm-wherever Industry shall see its pursuits diversified and its processes perfected through the naturalization among us of new Arts or the diffusion of Manufacturing efficiency -there shall henceforth arise in the hearts of grateful Freemen enduring monuments to the genius, the patriotism, the statesmanship, the beneficence, of our beloved HENRY CLAY. Holding the principle that a citizen, as long as a single pulsation remains, is under obliga tion to exert his utmost energies in the service of his country, whether in a private or public station, my friends may rest assured that, in either condition I shall stand erect, with a spirit unconquered, while life endures, ready to second their exertions in the cause of Union and Liberty.-HENRY CLAY. I have doubtless committed many errors and indiscretions, over which you have thrown the broad mantle of your charity. But I can say, and in the presence of my God and of this assembled multitude I do say, that I have honestly served my country-that I have never wronged it-and that, however unprepared I lament that I am to appear in the Divine Presence on other accounts, I invoke the justice of his judgment on my official conduct, without the smallest apprehension of his displeasure.-Speech of Mr. Clay, at Lexington, Ky., 1829. Ay-stand erect! the cloud is broken- Still boasts thy lip its fiery zeal— Still first in Freedom's cause to stand, The champion of her favorite land. Oh! what to thee were pomp and show- New honors for their wearer's sake- |