have met with success, and he only waits until by some further signal he can know that no ill has happened to them. This is not long wanting. He does not even await their arrival, but the last care of the day being removed, and the last duty performed, he too seeks the rest that will enable him to go through the same routine tomorrow. But here I leave him, for my task is also done, and, unlike his, it is to be repeated no more. Binger Hermann The following extract was taken from Binger Hermann's address upon "The Life and Character of the Hon. Charles Crisp, Late Speaker of the House of Representatives": "Like the spire on some lofty cathedral seen at close view, when neither its true height nor its majestic proportions can be accurately measured, so is ex-Speaker Crisp, in according to him his just place in history in so brief a period after his death. His splendid life work will shine forth in even greater luster as time goes on, for then the mists which more or less obscure every active, ambitious genius, surrounded by enmities and personal antagonisms, will have faded away, and expose to view the intrinsic worth and the perfect symmetry, the strength and beauty of this well-balanced life." Again he says: "The light of our friend was extinguished while it was yet day-yea, at high noon. He was still in the midst of his usefulness, and no premonition pointed out the untimely end. The summons came, and the work was done. It is difficult to realize that this is true. Do we comprehend the uncertainty of life? Is it so frail? We hear the answer in the expiring breath and see it in the open grave. It leaves an admonition to us all: 'Do thy work today; for thee there may be no tomorrow.' May we not hope that if not here there may be that tomorrow in the celestial realms, 'in that temple not made with hands, eternal in the heavens?'"' J. Quinn Thornton Born March 24, 1810, near Point Pleasant, Mason County, Virginia. With his parents he moved to Champaign County, Ohio, in infancy. Educated at the University of Virginia, studied law, and admitted to practice. Removed to Palmyra, Marion County, Missouri, in 1835, where he taught school, practiced law, and for a short time edited a political paper. March 8, 1838, married Nancy M. Hogue at Hannibal, Missouri, and removed to Quincy, Illinois, where he practiced law. Came to Oregon in 1846. Judge of the Supreme Court under the Provisional Government of Oregon. Was appointed by Governor Abernethy a commissioner to go to Washington to urge upon Congress the necessity of providing a territorial government for the Pacific Northwest, and drew up the bill extending the jurisdiction of the United States over the Oregon country. Wrote a book entitled "Oregon and California.' Died in Salem Sunday night, February 5, 1888, and buried in Lee Mission Cemetery, where his body lies in an unmarked grave. A GRAVE IN THE WILDERNESS. A humble grave was dug under the spreading boughs of a venerable oak, and there the remains were followed by a silent, thoughtful and solemn company of emigrants, thus so forcibly reminded that they too were travelers to that land "from whose bourne there is no return." The minister improved the occasion to deliver to us an impressive sermon as we sat around that new-made grave in the wilderness, so well calculated to impress upon the mind the incalculable importance of seeking another and better country, where there is no sickness and no death. I had often witnessed the approach of Death; sometimes marking his progress by the insidious work of consumption; and, at others, assailing his victim in a less doubtful manner. I had seen the guileless infant, with the light of love and innocence upon its face, gradually fade away, like a beautiful cloud upon the sky melting into the dews of heaven, until it disappeared in the blue ethereal. I had beheld the strong man, who had made this world all his trust, struggling violently with death, and had heard him exclaim in agony, "I will not die." And yet death relinquished not his tenacious grasp upon his victim. The sound of the hammer and the plane have ceased for a brief space; the ploughman has paused in the furrow, and even the schoolboy with his books and satchel has stood still and the very atmosphere has seemed to assume a sort of melancholy tinge, as the tones of the tolling bell have come slowly, solemnly, and at measured intervals upon the moveless air, and hushing the mind to breathless thoughts that fain would know the whither of the departed. But death in the wilderness -in the solitude of nature, and far from the fixed abodes of busy men-seemed to have in it solemnity that far surpassed all this. Prince L. Campbell AN OLD VIOLIN. O quaintly-carved, grotesque old violin, Their ancient walls. Thy melodies arise From all thy sweetest notes, till now there lies A still increasing store as more is given, Till, like thy notes, each thought seems sent from heaven. Elwood Evans THE OREGON REPUBLIC. Penetrating the veil and looking behind, what do we realize? Our fellow countrymen and women, few in numbers, but steadfast in purpose, who had been forgotten by their government, yet neglect could not weaken their loyalty and love. Submitting patiently to that injustice, always true to birthright and origin, they carried with them love of republican institutions, had established, and upon that very day were successfully administering, a government of the people, by the people. Oregon already contained within it an infant republic. Here was a thriving, loyal American commonwealth, started by children of the great republican household, who, though for a time discarded, had ever been animated with unabated zeal for the glory and grandeur of their parent government. When I contemplate this history, this undying devotion to fatherland, this patriotic love of their native institutions. I know not which most to commend-their implicit confidence in the title of their country to Oregon which they never failed to assert on every proper occasion, and so sure were they that it would be maintained, their patriotic avowal was that the government, they constituted their trusteeship of the territory, should only continue until such time as the United States shall extend jurisdiction"-their signal and undying love for republican institutions, breathing through every line of the fundamental code of the government they founded; or their eminent conservative wisdom as displayed in that system, the laws enacted and their administration. How truly "Each man made his own stature, built himself; Her monuments shall last when Egypt's fall.” Henry S. DeMoss SWEET OREGON. (As sung by the DeMoss family, official song-writers of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893.) I'm thinking now of a beautiful land, Oregon, Oregon; With rivers and valleys and mountains grand, From the mountain peak all covered with snow, Chorus Oh Oregon, sweet Oregon, My native home, I long for thee; I think of the forests and the prairies wide, The mines, the fish, and the ocean tide; Oregon, sweet Oregon; Where the mighty Columbia rolls down to the sea; I long to dwell in my mountain home, Away from thy vales I shall never roam, I sigh for thy bountiful harvest again, And thy pure, balmy air, which wafts freedom's best song; Oh! Oregon, my home. |