Ohio History Journal

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226 Ohio Arch

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