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thick sown with memory. It was but two days since 

 that there was commemorated in this city, the anni- 

 versary which rounded out twenty-five years since the 

 death of the first American of this century.* To-night 

 we meet in recognition of one hundred years which 

 have elapsed since the death of the first American of 

 any century. 



For us all the death of Lincoln still brings senses of 

 loss for a leader taken away with his work unfulfilled, 

 his mission unaccomplished. For none in the genera- 

 tion which stood by the open grave in which were 

 buried the hopes of one section and the sorrow of both, 

 can "the lilacs bloom with blossom of mastering odor" 

 without thought that " the sweetest, wisest soul of all 

 our days and lands " passed away when the task of 

 retribution was over, and before the office of reconcilia- 

 tion began. To-night, as a century ago, the death of 

 Franklin can only remind men that he left no task unac- 

 complished and no aim unfulfilled. In the supreme 

 prosperity of his life nothing became him like its leav- 

 ing. Felix opportitnitate mortis, not like the Roman of 

 old, in death escaping evil to come, but leaving count- 

 less and completed good behind. Death, for other men, 

 lays the corner-stone of that fabric of appreciation and 

 honor which posterity erects. For Franklin the hands 

 of death set in place the cap-stone of the great struc- 

 ture which noble deeds had raised in honor, whose 

 fame we cherish and whose shadow the descending 

 years of a century still lengthen and prolong. 



It is not our task to-night to magnify his deeds or 

 add to his praises. In the presence of a career like 

 his, eulogy is an impertinence and praise presumption. 



* The Twenty-fifth Anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's death was celebrated in Phila- 

 delphia by the delivery by Walt Whitman of his address on the subject, April 15, 1890. 



