was meant that he was only a maker of rhythmic phrases, or the framer of melodious sentences, the statement was scarcely just. His was the wonderful and acute insight of the true poetic faculty into the great problems of human life and action and destiny-the faculty that intuitively penetrates the reason of things. In this sense he was a poet. These things he clothed in the poet's glowing words, in striking and ofttimes surprisingly beautiful forms of speech. In his best moods he threw off passages of rare charm, not surpassed, if equaled, anywhere in the vast field of American journalism.

It was not the splendor of his intellect, the marvelous grace of his diction, or the unc qualed mastery of scintillant and forceful words, that bound John Edwards to his friends, but his greatness of heart, his sweet, gentle and unselfish nature. In a long intercourse with men of all ranks and conditions, professions and trades, I have met no man so free from all ignoble and selfish impulses. His wide influence was never used for his own gain or personal advancement, but always for that of others. Those debtor to John Edwards in this regard may be counted by hundreds. A journalist, and now a State official said to me years ago," he asks for himself, never; for others, always.' A great, loyal, loving and unselfish heart was his. God rarely makes a man like him. Fitly might the Recording Angel write of him, Abou Ben Adhem's prayer, "write me as one that loves his fellow men.

Whatever the infirmities of gentle and gifted John Edwards, there was in him a strong religious sentiment. I do not mean religious as defined by books, or as formulated in creeds, but in the acceptance and reverent holding of those great truths that lie behind all formulated systems and of which organized religions are the product. That Infinite Being, forming the primary religious concept of primitive peoples, the Jehovah of the Hebrew records, the "Heaven-Father" of the Vedic hymns, which Max Muller says formed humanity's first poem and first articulate prayer, and as exalted by the great Master in that universal prayer: "Our Father who art in Heaven," he recognized and looked up to with the trust of a child. In addition to this as a necessary sequence, he accepted unfalteringly the doctrine of the soul's immortality as the sole basis of a hope that can gladden and sweeten the labor of stricken men. Once as I sat by his bedside at the McCarty House, late in the night, turning suddenly to me after a lull in our talk, he asked: "Do you ever go down to the great river that flows near your home, and sitting beneath

the midnight stars listen to the solemn swish of the onsweeping mysterious stream, and think of the vast things that lie beyond the river and beyond the stars?" From this we drifted into a discussion of the largest problems with which the soul has to do; the questions of action and destiny. Then, more than ever before or after, John Edwards revealed to me the secrets of his immost life. He felt as the Laureate sings:

My own dim-life should teach me this,
That life shall live forever more,
Else earth is darkness at the core,
And dust and ashes all that is.

This round of green, this orb of flame,
Fantastic beauty, such as lurks
In some wild poet as he works
Without a conscience or an aim.

To-day, from every part of the great Southwest, the scarred veterans of the "lost cause," will turn with tearful eyes to this village graveyard, where we reverently and lovingly lay their old companion in arms, so brilliant in intellect, so noble in heart, so gentle and generous, so pure and chivalrous in every impulse. May the smile of God rest upon this village grave as a perpetual benedic

tion.

*

In the quiet, quaint little village of Dover, whose people removed, "Far from the maddening crowd's ignoble strife," pursue the even tenor of their way, on a gentle declivity leaning to the kiss of southern suns, a sheltered, sequestered spot, fit place of rest after life's "fitful fever,” lies the village graveyard. Here:

'The sacred calm that reigns around,

Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease;

In still small accents whispering from the ground

A grateful earnest of eternal peace."

In this retired spot reverent hands laid all that remained of gifted John Edwards. The voice, that oft within the "battle's red rim," shouted, "Steady, Men," is hushed. The eye that flashed with steely glitter, as it saw the setting and onset of squadrons, but so gently limpid in repose, is closed forever. The blare of bugles, the cannon's roar, the rush of armed fleet and the voice of love are now alike

unheard. The fearless soldier, the brilliant journalist, the loyal friend, the dreamer of sweet dreams, by his own request lies quietly among the village dead, apart from the stress of enterprise and the coldness of greed. Above the narrow, dreamless abode of the great heart now pulseless, the leaves shimmer in soft light, the fragrance of flowers lingers above the turf lovingly, and the sweet May stars distill their dews to keep the grasses green. In his own words, written of "Prince" John B. Magruder's lone Texas grave, we may say, "If roses are the tear drops of angels as the beautiful Arab belief puts forth in poetry, then is this lowly mound a hallowed spot, and needs not the sculptured stone, the fretted column and the obelisk." Few men have been so admired, or so mourned. At his grave, old, scarred soldiers, unused to tears wept like girls. Friends, kindred, his children grieved, but a larger grief was hers, whom he wooed and won with knightly devotion in the summer days long ago. She, sitting within the mysterious shadow of the "Spheral Change, by men called death," can only sing with Dante Rossetti, in mournful questioning:

"O nearest, furthest! Can there be

At length some hard-earned, heart-won home,
Where exile changed for sanctuary:

Our lot may fill indeed its sum,

And you may wait and I may come."

TWENTY YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP.

BY MORRISON MUNFORD.

IN September, 1868, I came over from Seneca, Kansas, where I had been sojourning on business, for a visit to Kansas City, the then questionable metropolis of the Missouri Valley. I stopped at the Sheridan Hotel, the first-class hostelry of the town. After supper I went by devious ways without sidewalks to the Times office. I was in search of Col. John C. Moore, a cousin, and the only man I knew within the city limits. I found him in his den, the autocratic editor of the Times, on the second story of what is now 813 Main street, opposite the present Times office. He welcomed me as one disfranchised Confederate would another in those days, and during the evening introduced me to some of his associates and visitors. Among the latter I recollect Major Wholegan, Colonel Crafton and Colonel Branch. Later on he made me acquainted with a man apparently of about my own age, who came in with some matter which he submitted, and who was mentioned to me as Major Edwards, of Shelby's command, and associate editor of the Times. It happened that his work was about over for the night, and an hour's conversation was the result of our introduction. That hour's talk with John Edwards that night made an indelible impression upon my mind. It was in the midst of the Seymour and Blair campaign, and politics was at fever heat. I had come down from intolerant Kansas, where an ex-Confederate soldier barely had the right of existence. I wanted consolation and comfort, and I got both from John Edwards that September night in 1868.

This was our first acquaintance, which was renewed,

from time to time, until my removal to Kansas City in May, 1869, soon after which we became room-mates, and so continued until we sought other partners for life.

The memory of my bachelor days twenty years ago, with John Edwards as my chum, lingers as a sweet unction. I was then in a business that required no night work, but nearly every night would find me seeking the Times office, and together, after the paper had gone to press, we would wander homeward to our bachelor quarters. The communings we then had, the confidences we mutually bestowed, the castles in the air we then built are all, all a glorious recollection. The friendship then established between us continued unbroken to the day of his death.

In 1871 I became manager of the Times, with John N. Edwards as editor. This relation lasted for some three years, and never was one more congenial and satisfactory. Then, against my positive judgment and advice he went to St Louis on the Times with Stilson Hutchins, who aspired to be the dictator of Missouri politics. The golden promises held out to John Edwards turned to worse than ashes, and his consecutive drifting from point to point in new ventures in Missouri journalism was the consequence.

During these many years I had personally, and by letters, advised and entreated him to return to his first love, telling him there was always a place for him on the Times staff. In the fall of 1886 he wrote me from St. Joseph that he would come, and in January, 1887, he came. His contributions since then to the Times need no mention at my hands. Treating every topic, political, social, scientific, historical, literary, whatever he touched bore evidence of his splendid genius. What he did in these last years of his life as it appears on the surface-in his writings is known to the world, but how much of effort and endeavor, of strife and contention he had to endure, and the fierce contest he waged against his only enemy day and night, no one can know, except those who knew him as I intimately knew him during these later