where was unbounded. There were, and are, many who not only listened eagerly for his voice, but, having heard it, all controversy with them was at an end.

Over many who had no personal acquaintance with him this influence of his was exerted.

It was not his eloquence, or his fire, or his courage that captivated them. It was a something running through all that he did or said; that looked out of his eyes, that sounded in his voice, that appeared between the lines of all he ever wrote. It was as imperceptible as a spirit to the common eye, but making its presence felt upon kindred spirits. It was that, back of genius and education and culture, vitalizing and inspiring all, there was, as the chief part of his being, physically, mentally, and spiritually, a gushing, throbbing, warm, true Great Heart.

And now we are to write that this great heart has ceased to beat. In the quiet cemetery, near the little town of Dover, his still and silent form has been laid away until the great day of resurrection.

The green grass waves gently over him, and from the neighboring wood the sound of the singing of birds is low.

Sleep on, great heart! Thou art done with earth and its sorrows and joys, its victories and defeats, its sins and virtues. Many of thy comrades have gone before. A few years more and the last one will cross over to thee. But while we live, aye, while our children and children's children live, there shall never a deed of daring, or an act of devoted friendship, such as thou didst love to hear of and do, be performed, but that the telling of it shall bring thee fresh to mind, and so all the heroism of the land shall help to keep thy memory green.

Sleep on, great heart! Thougn there shall be sighs and prayers and "tears and breaking hearts for thee," thou shalt never more feel a kindred woe.

Sleep on, great heart! Thine enemies are powerless to do thee harm. For when detraction, and envy, and hate, and all uncharitableness have done their worst, and heaped upon thy grave all of thy weaknesses and thine errors, thy follies and thy sins, we might admit them all, but we

will bring such a multitude of thy merits, thy countless kindly acts so secretly done, thy devotedness to friends who owe thee all, thy generosity to foes now turned to friends, thine undaunted courage, thy perfect sincerity, thy noble unselfishness, and thine undying faithfulness though thyself hath died, and lay them, too, upon thy resting place, until when the angels look down from heaven they will see only the mountain of thy virtues, under whose towering height all of thine imperfections are completely hid from sight.

Sleep on, great heart! Love is stronger than hate. Where one shall blame a hundred more shall praise— where one condemn a thousand shall' pay you tribute of undying love.

Love shall stand guard for thee,

Friends without number,

Bereaved and disconsolate over thee weep:

Sweet be thy dreams,

Untroubled thy slumber;

Tranquilly, peacefully, restfully sleep.

Y.

NEWSPAPER TRIBUTES.

MAJOR JOHN N. EDWARDS.

[Kansas City Times, May 5, 1889.]

No pen but his own should write of a nature like that of the brilliant journalist who died yesterday at Jefferson City The spirit of Major John N. Edwards is justly measured in the hearts of a thousand men who knew him on the battlefield and in the intellectual life of later years, but to interpret it in words is beyond any one who has not his richness of flashing phrase, his warm love of the great and the beautiful and his constant study of the best literary models. And who has those resources, or who has the charity of soul, the tender sympathy, the insight into the subtler beauties of humanity and nature? Not one. Yet friendship will not allow the first opportunity to pass for telling the world, however poorly, what a noble man has departed.

Filling a part in the intense commercial life of the West, Major Edwards had no thought of money except to regret that he had not more when he wished to help a fellow man. In an age of ephemeral literature he had no literary passion except for the great masters, and if his all-embracing charity preserved a patience with the slight performances of the day, his unspoiled taste saved him from either admiration or imitation. Absorbing from his intimate acquaintance with the masters of all nations, a vast amount of knowledge, he formed a style all his own, and for twenty years he has had a circle of readers wider than that gathered around any contemporary American journalist. The chivalric spirit of the man, his bountiful vocabulary, his singular faculty for imaginative illustration, his habit of instantly striking at the heart of a subject and his skill in changing from the simplest of prose to the dramatic or poetic, as the phases of his thought suggested, invested his writing with an individualny and charm which every one of the readers in the circle recognized at a glance. As the soldier boys were cheered and held to their cause by his brave example in the weary days at the close of the war, his friends-and all the readers were his friends-were held to their political allegiance, to their faith in ideals and works, when the mistakes and misfortunes incident to most human affairs threatened disorganization and dispersion. The measure of his services to his party and to all other good causes which he made his own can never be taken, because there neither is or can be a record of such efforts.

Thinkers enough there are and trained writers, but who like him can clothe every thought in shining raiment? Who has for every abstraction its symbol, and for every feeling its signet? Who knows the ways to the core of mankind's heart as he did and can utter the word which makes it palpitate as he could? Moreover, is there another who possesses men's affections to such a degree and has

drawn on them so little. In all his life he never sought to advance himself. With all his abundant abilities he never boasted that he could do anything. With a courage so immaculate that it was a proverb, he was the man gentlest in speech and most lovable in nature in whatever community he lived.

He

Major Edwards was a hero worshiper in the noblest sense. worshiped great qualities and reveled in watching the play of mighty forces as they wroght mighty deeds. He never wearied of picturing in his inimitable style the impact of genius on history. Beyond any man he had that

"Highmindedness, a jealousy for good,

A loving kindness for the great man's fame."

With the poet's imagination he combined a remarkable power of taking in a larger way an estimate of actual movements. This power was displayed again and again, when but little more than a boy, in his career as a soldier. Mature and able field officers were not ashamed to seek his advice and to be guided by his judgment. He displayed it with equal readiness as a journalist in dealing with political and social events. His eye was never off the game upon the European chessboard. He followed the diplomacy of Bismarck with the same zest he had for a presidential campaign in the United States, and he was seldom at fault in foreseeing the outcome of either. Worldly knowledge, of these national questions or of smaller matters, never made him cynical. In the highest or the lowliest he saw virtues before faults, and if he could, he would evade seeing faults at all. To the last his friendship was as tender and his sympathy as freely flowing as a girl's. Enjoying relations of the warmest mutual esteem with many of the most distinguished statesmen of the country, he had an hour or a day, if need be, for the humblest claimant upon his attention.

Major Edwards was the first editor of the Kansas City Times and the last years of his life were also spent in inspiring its staff with the ambition of vigorous journalism. What the host of loving personal friends feel at the loss of the versatile urnalist, the true-hearted man and the most loyal friend they could ever hope to meet the Times feels as a newspaper. His unique personality will not be reproduced soon if ever in the lifetime of those who have known him. Besides the other characteristics and gifts which excited such uncommon affection, he was one of the rare beings of whom it can be said that he never felt animosity except to drive "Envy and malice to their native sty." Against those mean passions he blithely and with determined energy. ance when he could not give praise.

could lay his lance in rest For all else he had forbear

It is not derogation to other good and brave men to say that the death of no man in Missouri would cause genuine pain and grief to so many and so different persons as that of John N. Edwards. Nor will the memory of any be so cherished.

JOHN N. EDWARDS.

[Kansas City Journal]

Elsewhere the death of Major Edwards, for more than twenty years at various times connected with the press of Kansas City, is announced. At this writing we are not in possession of the particulars attending or preceding his decease, and it is here we only

desire to lay a flower on the bier of a child of genius, whose life story is as strange and weird as the inspiration of his pen.

He was in every respect the result of birth and environment, and never for a day changed the habits of thought in which he grew up. All this rush, bustle and change we call modern progress was a new and strange world to him and of which he never became a part. His literary inspirations were those of romance and of the age of romance. He was a knight of the antique order, and wrote of knights and their ideals. If he ever drew upon the more modern for his chivalric ideas it was of the Napoleon era and the ideals of the old guard. Some of the finest pen pictures that have graced contemporary journalism, were from his pen, and his admirers were in larger number than any of his contemporaries.

We always thought and often told him that the political newspaper was not the field he should have selected, as his mental organization and brilliant word painting were best suited to the magazine, and it has always been a regret that he did not choose that field. His was a singularly gentle nature, and one that knew no fault with his friends and brooked no criticism of those he esteemed. The finest judgment we have ever heard passed upon him was that he was a child of the twelfth century born in the nineteenth. It seems extravagant, but it describes the peculiar genius of our dead friend.

THE LATE JOHN N. EDWARDS.

[Kansas City Globe.]

John N. Edwards died yesterday. Throughout the length and breadth of this State and scattered throughout this country are men who will grow sad as they hear of his demise. Death silently, swiftly stole into the din and clamor of the world about him and led him away. Silent forever is the pen from which eloquence always flamed-a natural eloquence such as the wild wood bird sings forth in its morning carols. His characteristic writings, startling for their boldness and originality, stirring for their pathos and genuine feeling, piercing with sharp satire or soothing with melodious measures, emanating from a heart at high tide until the man and his pen seemed one; will be seen no more in the press. Many of his works will be read and re-read-but most were written for the day which is past. John N. Edwards is dead.

As for the man, he was a man indeed. As he wrote he spoke, he acted; he was loyal to his friends. As softly, harmoniously, sweetly as his measures formed themselves on paper-for he wrote in measures--so his generosity of heart and mind made themselves felt to those about him. Every time he met a man he made a friend. He had few enemies and even those were compelled to admire him for his fearlessness.

A BRIGHT AND SHINING LIGHT.

[Kansas City Star, May 4.]

The journalistic profession has lost a bright and shining light in the death of Major John N. Edwards, of the Kansas City Times, who died this morning at Jefferson City, after an illness of two days. He was barely fifty years of age, and was, therefore, in the very zenith of his intellectual powers. As a newspaper man he was one of the most commanding figures in the West. He was a writer of