"Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this law." After the creed, Nicholson walked to the pulpit. He climbed its steps, and for a few moments only his clasped hands were visible as he knelt inside. Then rising, he took his stole from the pulpit rail, kissed the cross embroidered at the top of the stole, and put it on. "In the Book of Ecclesiastes," he began, "in the ninth chapter and the second verse, it is written: "’All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good, and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not.’" Nicholson’s face was earnest. It was at once stern and irradiated, the face of an ascetic turned seer. "And in the General Epistle of St. James," he proceeded, "in the second chapter and the twenty-second verse: "’Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?’" Nicholson spoke without notes, but without hesitation. "A great man," he said, "has just died. We have heard evil report of him, and good report. We have heard whispers against him, and we have seen good that he has done; but his greatness no man questioned. To-day he has passed to his last account. To-day the dead man stands before his Eternal Judge. One of those events that happen to the rich and poor alike has happened to him. With what he has done that is over, the Court of Heaven now alone, in all its boundless mercy, has to deal. We that remain here on earth may not judge of that. We that remain on earth must consider the things that he has done and are not over, the things he has left behind; we must concern ourselves only with what concerns us; it is our duty to remember him by the works that he has made his monument." The preacher dwelt upon the dead man’s rise from poverty to vast riches, a hopeful lesson in the reward of thrift and wisdom to every poor boy in a republic that grants equal opportunity to all. He spoke with an admiration of the genius that had carved its way to power until its will was felt in the uttermost corners of the earth. As he proceeded, Nicholson seemed to forget his admonition against the judgment of things over and done with. He made direct reference to Luke’s Cooper Union speech, and he looked full in Luke’s face as he made it. "Not long ago," he said, "while this man was tottering upon the brink of eternity, another man, a sincere, but misguided man, made terrible charges against him, charges that reflected, however veiled, upon the character and motives not only of the man now dead, but a whole group of people eminent in public and business life. And what was the result? Nothing that lent the least credit to the accuser’s intelligence or appreciation of the value of evidence, for nothing at all was proven, nothing even corroborated."