By the Golden Gate | Page 3

buildings, illuminated with
electricity furnished by the power-house at Niagara's thundering
cataract, looked like palaces of gold. The flood of light was a brilliant
yellow. The main avenue was broad and attractive. The tower, with the
fountains and cascade, appealed wonderfully to the imagination.
Machinery, Agricultural, and the Electrical buildings, had an air of
grandeur. Music Hall, where the members of Weber's Orchestra from
Cincinnati were giving a concert before an audience of three hundred
persons, had a melancholy interest for me. It was here, only a short
time before, that President McKinley, at a public reception, was
stricken down by the hand of an assassin; and the exact spot was
pointed out to me by a policeman. In that late hour of the evening, as I
stood there rapt in contemplation over the tragic scene which deprived
a nation of one of the wisest and best of rulers, I seemed to hear his
voice uplifted as in the moment when he was smitten, pleading
earnestly with the horrified citizens and officers around him, to have
mercy on his murderer,--"Let no one do him harm!" It was Christian,

like the Protomartyr; it was the spirit of the Divine Master, Who
teaches us to pray for our persecutors and enemies! Happy the nation
with such an example before it!
In travelling westward one meets now and then with original and
striking characters. They are interesting, too, and you can learn lessons
of practical wisdom from them if you will. They will be friendly and
communicative if you encourage them. Answering this description was
a Mr. H.W. Coffman, a dealer in Short Horn cattle, who was travelling
from Buffalo on the Erie road to Chicago. He lives at Willow Grove
Stock Farm, a hundred miles west of Chicago on the Great Western
Railway, one mile South of German Valley. Naturally we talked about
cows, and we discussed the different breeds of cattle, especially the
Buffalo cows of the present-day Egypt, and the Apis of four thousand
years ago, which according to the representations, on the monuments,
was more like the Devon breed than the Buffalo. The names which he
gave to his cows were somewhat poetic. One, for example, was named
"Gold Bud;" and another, called "Sweet Violet," owing to her fine build,
was sold for $3,705. As the conversation drifted, sometimes into things
serious, and then into a lighter vein, Mr. Coffman told a story about a
man who had three fine calves. One of them died, and, when his
foreman told him, he said he was sorry, but no doubt it was "all for the
best." "Skin him," said he, "and sell his hide." Another one died, and he
said the same thing. When the last and the best died, his wife said to
him, "Now the Lord is punishing you for your meanness!" His reply
was, "If the Lord will take it out in calves it is not so bad." I could not
but moralise that the Divine judgments on us, for our sins, are not as
severe as they might be, and that few of us get what we deserve in the
way of punishment or chastening. I also met a horse dealer, who said
that he shipped some sixty horses every week to a commission
merchant in Buffalo. The latter made three dollars per head for selling
them. They brought about $60 a piece. When shipped at New York, by
English buyers, for France, South Africa, and elsewhere, they cost
about $190 a head. The farmers of Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin,
are getting rich from horse culture and the raising of cattle. He said that
fifteen years ago, the farmers, in many instances, had heavy notes
discounted in the banks. Now they have no such indebtedness. When

formerly he entered a town he would go to a bank and find out from the
cashier who had notes there; and then he would go and buy the horses
of such men at reduced rates. All is different now. The European
demand has helped the American farmer.
At Akron, Ohio, the energetic and successful Rector of St. Paul's
Church, the Rev. James H.W. Blake, accompanied by his wife and
Miss Graham, his parishioner, boarded the train; and I found them most
agreeable travelling companions to San Francisco. In Chicago, in the
Rock Island Station, I was met by tourist agent Donaldson, in the
employ of the Rock Island Railway Company, and during all the
journey he was most courteous and helpful. Here also I found my old
classmate in the General Theological Seminary, Rev. Dr. Alfred Brittin
Baker, Rector of Trinity Church, Princeton, N.J., Rev. Dr. Henry L.
Jones, of Wilkesbarre, Pa., Rev. Dr. A.S. Woodle, of Altoona, Pa., the
Rev. Henry S. Foster, of Green Bay, Wis., and the