DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Duke University Libraries https://archive.org/details/lifepublicservic01brow THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES OF TWENTIETH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. INCLUDING FULL AND ACCURATE DETAILS OF HIS EVENTFUL ADMINISTRATION, ASSASSINATION, LAST BOUTS, DEATH, Etc. TOGETHER WITH NOTABLE EXTRACTS FROM HIS SPEECHES AND LETTERS. By E. E. BROWN. BOSTON D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY 32 FRANKLIN STRFET Copyright, 18S1, Bt D. Lothrop & Co. ^^./72 6^2 / /g£> DEDICATION. To one who joined with us in sorrow true, And bowed lier crowned head above our slain . 53 INTRODUCTION. BY KEY. 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 Greyloek Moun- tain, 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 Massa- chusetts 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 l-ead 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 jjrinciple to take that stand even in such a com- pany. 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 Chris- tian man has had his religious testimony smothered amid the stifling and vitiated air of party politics, till ojl / i vi INTRODUCTION'. 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 lias been in contact for years with the corrupting influences of political life. Let us see where he stands now. In the great Repub- lican 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 fac- tions 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 con- tending factions and the tumult of conflicting interests, there is one politician that heard the Word of God sounding in his ear: u Six days shall thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work.” And, at the bidding of the Divine command, his con- science 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 INTRODUCTION. vii 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 ivas 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 Men- tor, 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 Wash- ington 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 meet- ings 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 deliv- ering a brief eulogy on some deceased Senator — I 6