been greatly instructed, edified and inspired this morning." Several times he told me how his soul had been thrilled by Dr. J. W. Beckett, when singing: "Jesus my Saviour, to Bethlehem, came, Born in a manger to sorrow and shame; Death has ended the career of the long and useful life of this great, good and unique man. We can't say of him as of Abner, that he has fallen, but that he has risen, in that to a greater extent, by his death, his true merits and character will be emulated. The hearts of the people will be cemented in closer bonds of sympathy for that, and for those for whom he so ably labored. Douglass, the Success, the Student, Worker, Philanthropist, Patriot and Leader was given us by God, and the Lord has taken him. "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them." On his return from the National Council of Women last Wednesday, February 20, the chariot of God met Mr. Douglass in the hallway of his home, when without a struggle, while in conversation with his beloved wife, the two alone, the spirit passed into the better land, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. On Wednesday, February 20, there was caused a great commotion in the Spirit World. There it was announced, "Frederick Douglass has come." There gathered about him among others, Peter Landy, William Lloyd Garrison, William Wilberforce, Daniel O'Connel, Owen Lovejoy, Garrett Smith, William C. Nell, Samuel R. Ward, John Brown, Lewis Hayden, Henry Highland Garnett, William Wells Brown, Charles Sumner, Abraham Lincoln, Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, John A. Andrews, Daniel A. Payne, with many heroes prominent in the antislavery conflict. Garrison and Brown inquired, "Well, Frederick, how is it in the world from which you just came? What are the results of freedom for which we all struggled?" Douglass replied, "The victory has been achieved; slaves freed and enfranchised, and made citizens. They have schools, colleges, and great churches. Two millions of children in school, and sixty thousand teachers instructing them. They have their own press, paper and periodicals. They have able men and women in every trade, calling and profession. They have accumulated since freedom $200,000,000, and my people are advancing along every line and are rising generally." The angels heard the tidings, took down their harps, and sang, "Alleluia, Alleluia, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. He leaves two sons, a daughter, grandchildren and a wife to mourn his loss. He leaves a race in grief, the world of mankind in respect and in regret, but heaven and earth will unite in saying, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." Father, brother, leader, farewell! Dear family, wife, sons, daughter, grandchildren and relations, we commend you to the God of all grace, in this your deepest sorrows. Be you assured that you will never cease to have the deepest sympathy and profound respect of a grateful humanity for whom your great head gave his life and best efforts. The Rev. Hugh T. Stevenson, pastor of the Baptist Church of Anacostia, D. C., followed Pastor Jenifer, and tendered these words in memory of Mr. Douglass: You will pardon me if I can not find words to express the feelings of my soul, for my heart beats in sympathy with yours at the realization of the sad fact that Frederick Douglass has gone. I shall never forget the scene that greeted me last Wednesday night, when I climbed Cedar Hill and beheld the noble form of the great man who had just fallen asleep. I could hardly realize that he was gone. Yes, he is gone. He heard his Master's voice calling him home to His mansion in the skies. His soul, that loved freedom, hastened to respond, and suddenly took its journey to the palace of his King, rejoicing as it burst the chains that bound him, for at last he was free. ransomed him, and with the imprint of soul he entered the gates of paradise. The price that Jesus paid had his Saviour stamped upon his We shall never see another like him. His life has passed into the world's history, which amid its records of men has none like that of the man whose encasketed form lies before us. For as Emerson says, “God once in a hundred years or so creates a great man, and then breaks that mould forever." Frederick Douglass was one of God's great men. Gifted with elements that would have made him a master in any walk of life, his work developed in him three prominent characteristics: breadth of sympathy, dauntless courage, and oratorical power. Frederick Douglass was a prince among the orators of the world. He swayed men by the power of his eloquence. He moved them from their positions by the tide of his convictions. The eloquent tongue is silent. The great heart, which was the source of his power, has ceased its labor. The heart which beat in sympathy with all mankind, which felt for the oppressed not only of his own, but of every race and clime, which throbbed as never did a heart before in human breast for freedom, shall never beat again. The great soul, which with undaunted courage has faced death time and time again, in his struggles for freedom, justice and equity, has met death with the same courage in the hour of peace, leaving the smile of the conqueror behind upon his lips. "Oh death! where is thy sting? Oh grave! where is thy victory?" Let us give thanks unto God for the victory given through our Lord Jesus Christ. I shall leave it to others to paint the record of the heroic life which Frederick Douglass gave to the world. If I should paint it, I would take it from your hearts-but then, how poor would be the picture! Yet, you must tell the story; you who have been side by side with him in his conflicts on behalf of his people, you who have followed the leadership of this warrior of civil and religious liberty, amid the strife of agitation, the battling of the sword, and the conquests of peace; you who have received the word of cheer, the encouragement of hope, and the gift of love in your efforts to advance another round on the ladder of life, tell the world-you owe it to us-of his consecrated and concentrated life as the apostle to humanity. You who have associated with him in the public arena of life, and have seen his love of justice, and heard his demands for "fair play" and honesty, as he toiled for the weal of his country, and the purity of her public life, have a duty to perform, for you must tell the story of his patriotism and faithful services to the land he loved, which gave him birth. If you have enjoyed the friendship and had the privilege of seeing him in the sacred precincts of the home, tell of the man and the Christian, who in his love for the world, amid the great toils and cares which were his, gave the purest and best of his life to his family and friends. How I wish that some Boswell had followed him, and picked up the gems of purity and righteousness which dropped from his lips when he was alone with friends and family. But then, the pen of no man, much less his voice, could do him justice. No poet could to-day sing his true worth. We are too near to his life and times to do him justice. It will need the future as well as the present to judge him. When the youth of this and future generations read of his struggles to break the fetters which bound his soul in bondage, when they behold "his foot prints on the sands of time" and see him rise above every adverse wave and surmount every barrier to his onward progress, when they learn that "in spite of law and gospel, despite the statutes which thralled him, and the opportunities which jeered at him, he made himself by trampling on the law and breaking through the thick darkness that encompassed him," they, too, will be filled with the love for their fellows and be emancipators of men. His life, more eloquent than his silver tongue with its pathos and grandeur, passing through such vicissitudes of degradation and exaltation, will move men of all coming ages to be men. "'In the world's broad field of battle, In the bivouac of life,' To 'be not like dumb driven cattle,' In the future, which I trust is not distant, when the mildewed lips of prejudice shall be forever silent, when there will be no aspirants filled with envy at the elevation of a brother, when man shall be judged by his character and achievements, then I believe, that men hearing of the burdens Frederick Douglass has lifted, of the crises he has bridged, of his great heart, of his dauntless courage, and his eloquent tonguethen-I believe that he whom we mourn to-day as the leader of a great race will be written down as the greatest man of his times. A thousand years hence, the story of his life will be the subject of an epic that will be recited with increasing interest as time rolls on, moulding and developing the characters of the men of the coming ages. Farewell, Frederick Douglass, farewell, till that fair morn of morns, when the disciples of Jesus, emancipated from the slavery of sin, shall gather at the marriage supper of the Lamb. In the words of Mary Lowe Dickinson, whose trumpet commands were inspired by your parting, I would cry: "Swing wide, O shining portal, That opes to God's new day: Your hearts and hands outreach; "Greet him with martial music Stand back-to give him room! "Room for the stricken millions, To whom his strife meant light and life, The love out-poured in prayers and tears Is his spent love and life of years "To live-that freedom, truth and light To die, with woman's work and words To face the foes of human kind Through years of wounds and scars,- Thy place amid the stars. Farewell, Frederick Douglass, my friend, farewell! At the close of Dr. Stevenson's remarks the Rev. J. E. Rankin, D. D., President of Howard University, followed. He took as his text: He Psalm cv. 17-19. 'He sent a man before them. was sold for a servant. His feet they hurt with fetters. He was laid in chains of iron. Until the time that His word came to pass, the word of the Lord tried him." Dr. Rankin said: There is but one parallel to the life of Frederick Douglass, and this is found in the Bible; the Bible, which surpasses all other literature. There is no narrative which in natural pathos and eloquence so reminds me of the history of the favorite son of Jacob as the story of Frederick Douglass. And I find God in one as much as the other. And I think of all the men in his generation, so momentous of great events, so influential upon future humanity, no man is more to be congratulated-could human congratulations reach him-than this man who now sleeps in death's marble before us. God made him great; yes, but God also gave him a great opportunity, and that opportunity began when he was born a slave. I feel the pathos of it, in every fibre of my being, when this boy, without father, without mother, save as once or twice in his memory she walked twenty-four miles, between sunset and sunrise, to give her son a few clandestine kisses—yes, without beginning of days, for Mr. Douglass never knew the day of his birth, was, in that prison-house of bondage, slowly emerging to consciousness of himself and to consciousness of his surroundings. But that was his schooling for years to come. It was the only way in which he could become a swift witness against the great wrong which was crushing the bodies and souls of millions. It was the secrets of that prison-house of despair which the world needed to know. And God had given him the tongue of the eloquent to tell them. Fascinating as is the masterpiece of Harriet Beecher Stowe, beautiful and touching as are the scenes depicted, dramatic as is the movement, powerful as are the delineations, we all know it is fiction. It is founded on fact. But this narrative is fact. And I say, that just as God sent Joseph down into Egypt preparatory to great events which were to follow; to save much people alive; just as His word tried him in the house of Potiphar and in the dungeons of Egypt, so it was with the boy, the young man Douglass. When he was praying there with Uncle Lawson, God was girding him for that day when he was to go from town to town, from State to State, a flaming herald of righteousness; to cross oceans, to gain admission to palaces, lifting up the great clarion voice, which no one who ever heard can ever forget or forget its burden. So that I say Frederick Douglass was |