car "Sweden," on the Erie Railway, to Chicago, to visit the
Pan-American Exposition grounds. The scene, at night, as I approached,
was very impressive. The 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