members, regardless of party affiliations, gather in small groups and engage in social converse and friendly greetings in the Hall of Representatives; the time for the adjournment of the last session of the Fifty-sixth Congress was drawing near, and members were bidding each other adieu. In the course of conversation Mr. BROSIUS remarked that he felt better than he had felt for a long time; that he looked forward with bright anticipation to the recreation the vacation would afford him and the renewed zest with which he expected to return to his labors in the Fifty-seventh Congress; that he was at peace with the world and bore no ill will to anyone.

Little, indeed, did I think that I was bidding him a final farewell, and that within a few short weeks I should be called upon to assist in laying his earthly remains to rest. But our friend was unexpectedly and suddenly stricken down by the fell reaper who is no respecter of persons or of time or place, and who comes like the thief in the night, without warning. Yet death did not find him unprepared, and had no terrors for him, as he had lived an incorruptible life, crowned with honor, usefulness, and the affections of his fellow-men. He died in his own happy home that he had founded, surrounded by kindred and friends, in the unfaltering devotion to his people and faith in his God. He had served his country on the battlefield and in the forum; he had borne the brunt wherever duty, civic and military, had called him; he had trod the lofty planes of statesmanship and charmed and electrified listening senates and assemblies of men with his eloquence, and had bared his breast to the missiles of war; he had burned the midnight oil of the student, and walked the perilous paths of the soldier; he had discharged the duties of the citizen and the loyal friend, and he had consecrated his life to family, home, and country.

He had, in a word, lived the life of the just, a man without fear or reproach. Well could it be said of him:

His life was gentle, and the elements

So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up,
And say to all the world, "This was a man!"

But our friend, while so well equipped for all the strenuous duties of life which were so admirably tempered by his strong. social traits and his innate taste for the beautiful, yet realized and appreciated, with a deep religious conviction, the serious side of life. He was a philosopher as well as a soldier and statesman. Not only did he drink deep at the fountain of knowledge, but he was a student of nature, and with majestic sweep his mind was prone to explore the mysteries of life and its profound meaning from many sides. This side of his nature produced that nice balance of character which set him at peace with all the world and his fellow-men.

ADDRESS OF MR. LACEY, OF IOWA.

Mr. SPEAKER, MARRIOTT BROSIUS, whose life and services we commemorate to-day, was my friend.

We first met in the Fifty-first Congress, and from the beginning of our acquaintance our lines were closely drawn together. To love the same things and to hate the same things constitute true friendship.

Measured by this standard, personal and political, we became closer in our relations in each successive Congress in which we have served together.

His record as a soldier, a citizen, and a statesman has been recited by his colleagues, and I can add nothing thereto. In thinking of what I might say upon this occasion it occurred to me that, as these exercises will be printed in a memorial volume, there was nothing that I could prepare which would so well give a correct view of our departed friend as to quote his own utterances upon like occasions.

I have listened to him upon the tariff, the currency, and other political questions. I have heard him at the banqueting board, but there was no place or theme where the beauty of his diction and the purity of his sentiments made a stronger impression than when, upon a memorial service, he gave utterance to the feelings of his generous heart.

I intend, therefore, Mr. Speaker, to pluck from the garden of his eloquence two flowers that I deem worthy to place with our own tributes to his memory, and I therefore submit, to be printed in his memorial volume, his own beautiful and impressive language in his addresses upon the lives and services of

Vice-President Hobart and Congressman Hoffecker, of Delaware, the latter of which was his last address in this House. Let me quote the last words of his last speech on this floor as he spoke of his departed colleague.

He said:

That while green grass will cover his grave, blue skies bend over it, sweet birds sing near it, and the place will be hallowed ground, yet greener than the grass, fairer than the skies, sweeter than the birds, more hallowed than the grave itself will be his fragrant memory, enshrined with supreme sacredness in their heart of hearts.

And as his voice, trembling with emotion, uttered these words he took his seat, and his eloquent voice was no more to be heard in this Hall forever.

MEMORIAL TO VICE-PRESIDENT GARRET A. HOBART.

Mr. BROSIUS. Mr. Speaker

"Sir Launcelot, there thou lyest; thou were never matched by none earthly knight's hands; thou were the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrode a horse; thou were the kindest man that ever struck with a sword."-La Morte d'Arthur.

The Arabs had a saying that death is a camel that kneels at every man's door. This expresses how common an event it is in the providential order, as common and familiar as birth; yet of all natural events it produces the most profound and lasting impression upon the mind. This is true even when it comes to the humble and undistinguished; much more so when it overtakes those eminent persons who have achieved honor and distinction in the public service and occupy positions of great elevation in the public eye and in general esteem.

The death of the gifted and great has always been and will ever be a solemn, impressive, and imposing circumstance. Its value in the way of example, admonition, and instruction is in proportion to the elevation from which the subject falls to his natural end. It comes to the surviving like a faithful schoolmaster with the open book of a closed life, and assigns the lesson which we must study or lose its teaching. The fame of the great and noble dead is among the most enduring and valuable of our public possessions, and the contemplation of their example and their virtues exerts a salutary and ennobling influence upon the living.

It is one of the very best of men-and there is no higher praise-that we contemplate to-day. It is the universal estimation, the consensus of opinion among those who knew him, that the late Vice-President, in the essential elements of a well-organized being and the necessary excellencies of a character of the very first rank, had few, if any, superiors. The high

success he achieved, the eminence he attained, the perfect character he formed, were not due to any adventitious aids. Neither birth nor rank nor fortune smoothed his upward way to the clear-aired heights he reached and kept. True, he had the good fortune to be born in a country one of whose glories is that its social formation is not in horizontal strata common in the Old World, through which few ever pass from below upward, but is mobile as the sea, where the lowest drop, winged with merit, may rise and glitter on the highest wave that rolls. All else was due to principles, qualities, and forces which summed up a strong, interesting, and attractive personality.

If the limits of the occasion permitted, we could easily name the traits which were chief agencies in the development of his splendid manhood. Honor, sympathy, courage, and duty were the precious and conspicuous jewels in the crown of his superb character, and we may set them apart to-day and lift them over his new-made grave as the golden texts in the lesson of his life.

Some one has said he had an unusual capacity for winning affection. This was due to his deep human sympathy. He was not deficient in imagination and could place himself in the position of others and realize their distresses and their needs. His kindness to every human creature was proverbial. He was happy in promoting the comfort of those who served him. In his business career, which was a conspicuous success, his example, if followed, would cure two maladies said to afflict our time— the envious hatred of him who suffers want and the selfish forgetfulness of him who lives in affluence. This problem can be solved by sympathy, love, and good will.

There is no sunshine like that of kindness to open those beautiful flowers, sympathy, love, hope, and trust, which ought to bloom over the garden walls which separate the rich and the poor. Mr. Hobart was thoroughly imbued with that beautiful sentiment which holds the human family in the bonds of unity and love, that we are children of the same Father, traveling toward the same home, and hoping to sit down at last at the same banquet, and therefore we should "love one another."

"So many gods, so many creeds,

So many ways so hard to find,

When all this wicked world needs

Is just the art of being kind.”

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Our distinguished friend has been twice ennobled. Death and duty ennoble all men. Devotion to duty was one of his characteristic traits; her command to him a Thus saith the Lord." He was unremitting in his attention to his public engagements. His entire life exemplified the truth that the path of duty is the upward way; that—

"Not once or twice in our fair land's story

The path of duty was the way to glory."