AN IMPRESSIVE PROGRESS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 32, 7 August 1923, Page 7

AN IMPRESSIVE PROGRESS

MARRED BY HEAVY STORMS

NOTABLE RELIGIOUS OBSERV-

ANCES.

fUNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPTRICHT.)

(AUSTRALIAN - NEW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.)

NEW YORK, sth August.

While the late President Harding's funeral train was crossing the half-way mark on its transcontinental journey, in every church of every creed throughout the country a special mourning service was held. The occasion was particularly marked by the Baptist denomination, of which Mr. Harding was a member. All the preachers stressed the late President's kindness and his devotion, to a task of unparalleled difficulty. All deplored the relentless regimen under which the President must labour. One preacher characterised Mr. Harding as a martyr who had been assassinated by a twenty-four-hour working day.. In the churches everywhere the hymns, " Lead, Kindly Light/ and " Abide With Me," of which Mr. Harding was specially fond, were played.

At Cheyenne, Nebraska, a remarkable tribute was paid to the late President Harding as the funeral train stopped in the city during a violent electric storm. Mute, bareheaded citizens stood for half an hour at reverent attention, unmindful j? the thunder's rumblings, the flashing lightning, and the torrential rain.