ules when he
died. There were some men appointed to attend his memorial services in
Indianapolis on November 30, 1885, whom I advised to stay away, and to
employ their hours in reviewing those old campaign speeches, in which
they had tried to make a scoundrel out of this man. They were not among
those who could make a dead saint of him. Mr. Hendricks was a Christian,
which made him invulnerable to violent attack. For many years he was a
Presbyterian, afterwards he became associated with the Episcopal Church.
His life began as a farmer's boy at Shelbyville, his hands on the
plough. He was a man who hated show, a man whose counsel in Church
affairs was often sought. Men go through life, usually, with so many
unconsidered ideals in its course, so many big moments in their lives
that the world has never understood.

I remember I was in one of the western cities when the telegram
announcing the death of Cornelius Vanderbilt came, and the appalling
anxiety on all sides, for two days, was something unique in our national
history. It was an event that proved more than anything in my lifetime
the financial convalescence of the nation. When it was found that no
financial crash followed the departure of the wealthiest man in America,
all sensible people agreed that our recuperating prosperity as a nation
was built on a rock. It had been a fictitious state of things before
this. It was an event, which, years before, would have closed one half
of the banks, and suspended hundreds of business firms. The passing of
$200,000,000 from one hand to another, at an earlier period in our
history would have shaken the continent with panic and disaster.

In watching where this $200,000,000 went to, we lost sight of the
million dollars bequeathed by Mr. Vanderbilt to charity. Its destiny is
worth recalling. $100,000 went to the Home and Foreign Missionary
Society; $100,000 to a hospital; $100,000 to the Young Men's Christian
Association; $50,000 to the General Theological Seminary; $50,000 for
Bibles and Prayer-Books; $50,000 to the Home for Incurables; $50,000 to
the missionary societies for seamen; $50,000 to the Home for
Intemperates; $50,000 to the Missionary Society of New York; $50,000 to
the Museum of Art; $50,000 to the Museum of Natural History; and
$100,000 to the Moravian Church. While the world at large was curious
about the money Mr. Vanderbilt did not give to charity, I celebrate his
memory for this one consecrated million.

He