226 Ohio Arch. and Hist.
Society Publications.
JANUARIUS ALOYSIUS MACGAHAN.
Eulogy by William A. Taylor.
Many years ago, when a boy attending
Dist. No. 6 school
in Harrison township, I was deeply, but
not then favorably, im-
pressed by this sentence in Kirkham's
Grammar: "The evil that
men do lives after them; the good is
often interred with their
bones," which I was called on to
parse, analyse and expatiate on
generally, by my teacher Philander H.
Binckley, student, phil-
osopher, literary writer and profound
scholar, well-known to
many, and heard of by all of you.
For a long it seemed to me that this
assigned greater prom-
inence and power to evil than to good.
Else why should evil
survive uninterruptedly, and good be
buried at least for a great
portion of the time, with the bones of
the doers?
But the lapse of time and a continuity
of observation, con-
vinced me that the ancient axiom-maker
was not mistaken, that
the evil that men do lives after them,
not to honor their memory
but to reproach it, and warn the
oncoming generations not to
erect their monuments of misshapen deeds
of evil, crowned with
stinging thistles and rankling brambles.
True enough, the good
that men do is often buried with them,
but "often" is only a
small fraction of "always,"
and it is the surviving good that
not only stands as a monument of
approbation, but borders the
highways, on the right and the left,
with glorious flowers and
stately palms, cooling springs,
winnowing zephyrs, whispering of
both the past and the yet to be, and
crowning all the beckoning
vistas of the far beyond -the
Ultima Thule of life and effort
and activity and self-abnegation. To
attain this high altitude,
is, as it should be, the true aim of
life, in whatever sphere of
activity our mission and our labors lie.
None are too exalted
to fire our ambition; none too humble to
deserve our fullest ef-
fort. This was the spirit which animated
the men whose name
and fame and achievements are here to
commemorate and dedi-
cate to posterity, the predestined
custodian of terrestrial fame.
Here among the rugged and versatile
beauties of his native
county, he was the child of nature and
the student of that history,
which marks the alternating eras of
progress and decadence of