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THE

LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES

OF

JAMES A. GARFIELD,

TWENTIETH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

INCLUDING

_FULL AND ACCURATE DETAILS OF HIS EVENTFUL ADMINISTRATION,
ASSASSINATION, LAST HOURS, DEATH, Etc._

TOGETHER WITH

NOTABLE EXTRACTS FROM HIS SPEECHES AND LETTERS

BY E. E. BROWN.

BOSTON

D. LOTHROP COMPANY

32 FRANKLIN STREET


COPYRIGHT, 1881,
BY D. LOTHROP & CO.




DEDICATION.


    "To one who joined with us in sorrow true,
    And bowed her crowned head above our slain."




INTRODUCTION.

BY REV. A. J. GORDON, D. D.


More eloquent voices for Christ and the gospel have never come from the
grave of a dead President than those which we hear from the tomb of our
lamented chief magistrate.

Twenty six years ago this summer a company of college students had gone
to the top of Greylock Mountain, in Western Massachusetts, to spend the
night. A very wide outlook can be gained from that summit. But if you
will stand there with that little company to-day, you can see farther
than the bounds of Massachusetts or the bounds of New England, or the
bounds of the Union. James A. Garfield is one of that band of students,
and as the evening shades gather, he rises up among the group and says,
"Classmates, it is my habit to read a portion of God's Word before
retiring to rest. Will you permit me to read aloud?" And then taking in
his hand a pocket Testament, he reads in that clear, strong voice a
chapter of Holy Writ, and calls upon a brother student to offer prayer.
"How far the little candle throws its beams!" It required real principle
to take that stand even in such a company. Was that candle of the Lord
afterward put out amid the dampening and unfriendly influences of a long
political life? It would not be strange. Many a Christian man has had
his religious testimony smothered amid the stifling and vitiated air of
party politics, till instead of a clear light, it has given out only
the flicker and foulness of a "smoking wick."

But pass on for a quarter of a century. The young student has become a
man. He has been in contact for years with the corrupting influences of
political life. Let us see where he stands now. In the great Republican
Convention at Chicago he is a leading figure. The meetings have been
attended with unprecedented excitement through the week. Sunday has
come, and such is the strain of rivalry between contending factions that
most of the politicians spend the entire day in pushing the interests of
their favorite candidates. But on that Lord's day morning Mr. Garfield
is seen quietly wending his way to the house of God. His absence being
remarked upon to him next day, he said, in reply, "I have more
confidence in the prayers to God which ascended in the churches
yesterday, than in all the caucusing which went on in the hotels."

He had great interests at stake as the promoter of the nomination of a
favorite candidate When so much was pending, might he not be allowed to
use the Sunday for defending his interest? So many would have reasoned
But no! amid the clash of contending factions and the tumult of
conflicting interests, there is one politician that heard the Word of
God sounding in his ear "_Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy
work_, but the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, in it thou
shall not do any work." And, at the bidding of the Divine command, his
conscience marches him away to the house of God. Not, indeed, to enjoy
the luxury of hearing some famous preacher, or of listening to some
superb singing, but he goes to one of the obscurest and humblest
churches in the city, because there is where he belongs, and that is
the church which he has covenanted to walk with, as a disciple of Jesus
Christ. "How far" again "that little candle threw its beams!" It was a
little thing, but it was the index of a principle, an index that pointed
the whole American people upward when they heard of it. Here was a man
who did not carry a pocket conscience--a bundle of portable convictions
tied up with a thread of expediency. Nay! here was a man whose
conscience carried him--his master, not his menial, his sovereign, not
his servant.

And when, during the last days in his home at Mentor, just before going
to Washington to assume his office, he was entertaining some political
friends at tea, he did not forego evening prayers, for fear he might be
charged with cant, but, according to his custom, drew his family
together and opened the Scriptures and bowed in prayer in the midst of
his guests. And his was a religious principle that found expression in
action as well as in prayer. A lady residing in Washington told us that
while a member of the House of Representatives, he was accustomed to
work faithfully in the Sunday school, and that among his last acts was
the recruiting of a class of young men and teaching them in the Bible.
We know from his pastor that he was not too busy to be found often in
the social meetings of the church, nor too great to be above praying and
exhorting in the little group of Christians with whom he met. A
practical Christian, did we say? He must have been a spiritual Christian
also. There is one address of his in Congress that made a great
impression on our mind as we read it. He was delivering a brief eulogy
on some deceased Senator--I think it was Senator Ferry. He spoke of him
as a Christian, not a formalist, but a devout and godly disciple of
Christ. And then he spoke of the rest into