President Garfield's Election And Death

( Originally Published 1885 )

IT is just one year today since Gen. Garfield was elected President by the votes of the electoral colleges in the various states. That was a momentous day. It was one of the sublimest spectacles the sun ever shone upon. If a sublimer can be found it was that which preceded it. Thirty-eight states, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the lakes to the gulf, had upon one day selected by ballot these electors. With them lay the power of choosing the chief magistrate of a great nation for the next four years. The ruler who was to bear sway over fifty million people was elected as quietly and with as little excitement as the most commonplace and unimportant affair. The several colleges of electors came together, recorded their votes, made out and signed their certificates, sent one to Washington by mail, placed a second in the hands of a special messenger selected by themselves, gave the third into the keeping of the United States District Judge, and returned to their homes. Their stay together was not necessarily an hour, and their act was really but an executive one, or possibly it might be called merely a clerical one. The people had pronounced their judgment, and they had but to record the decision. Yet how sublime their duty ! They gave forth their votes, which selected a man who had risen from poverty and obscurity, who by his own powers had become one of the leaders in the land; they had selected him and placed him in the position of the fore-most man of the world. He now was to occupy the most conspicuous post among the rulers of the nations ; the highest, the most enviable position among men.

Three months must intervene to give him time to mature his policy, select his cabinet, and prepare to enter upon his high duties. Quickly these three months pass by. Four months in the discharge of the duties of his office follow them. His plans and his policy foreshadowed satisfy the people to a remarkable degree. Evidently he is worthy the place which he is called to fill, and equal to the duties he is to perform. Familiar with the wants of the country, versed in affairs of the government, vigorous in thought, decided in purpose, bold in execution, he will discharge the duties of his position regardless of the selfishness of political demagogues and shallow place seekers. He is not to carry on the government to reward friends, nor is he to be deterred by fear of enemies.

But, alas I "Man proposes, God disposes." The cowardly assassin, piqued because not appointed to the position he craves, with a morbid and half-insane desire to win notoriety in some way, yet not insane enough to abridge or in the least interfere with his moral responsibility, coming up behind him, fires the fatal shot which is to cause such prolonged suffering, and finally the death of our good President.

Then followed an experience the world had never before received. By means of the telegraph over the lands and under the seas, the condition of the suffering President became the household talk of the civilized world. At the breakfast-table, on change, in the marts of travel, the tramway carriage or the railway coach ; the English people, the French, Spanish, Italian, Cossack, Turk, or Austrian ; in Jerusalem, Mecca, Constantinople, Paris, London, or Berlin ; as friend met friend, the first salutation, by common impulse, was, "How is the President? Will he live? God grant that his life may be spared ! "

Never before, probably, in the history of the wide world was there manifested by all nations so general a sympathy, such cordial good-will, such earnest, heartfelt desires, from Christian, Jew, or Mohammedan, that the life of any one man might be preserved, as was manifest for the recovery of President Garfield. Among all Christians, not merely in this land, but elsewhere, wherever men worship the one God and implore blessings through his Son, Jesus Christ, prayers were sent up to heaven for the Me of Garfield. No such unanimity of Christian purpose and desire was ever observed.

Many men, good, pious souls, trembled, being weak in the faith, lest God should not grant a favorable answer to their prayers; and so the infidel would scoff, and the unbeliever taunt, and say, "What good in prayer ? "

In ancient times Uzzah was very zealous for the safety of the ark of God:

" And when they came to Nachor's threshing floor, Uzzah put forth his hand and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah ; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God."

These good people were very much afraid the oxen would stumble and overturn the ark. They must put forth their profane hands lest God's ark should receive injury. The impulse appears good, but the purpose is neither wise nor reverent.

God knows. Man is ignorant. Let God do as seemeth him good. This should be the spirit of all true prayer. In an age given up to psychological speculation and material philosophy, is it to be supposed that the great God who presides over all the world, and who rules in all ages, shall bend his purposes to suit the short-sighted whims of finite man? Yet God heard every prayer, and his answers were full of tender love and pitying mercy.

President Garfield died Sept. 19, after eleven weeks of intense pain and suffering.

A FEW days after President Garfield's death, I read in one of the daily papers a paper whose circulation is not broad, and whose management is scarcely equal to its circulation — that " undoubtedly the death of President Garfield would prove a severe blow to the Christian religion." The same day I met a man, a lamplighter, who belonged to that denomination of Christians of which the President was a member. Like President Garfield, also, he was a preacher. He was a good Christian man, modest and quiet in his work, and in the absence of a regular minister he was in the habit of conducting the worship in the little chapel which had the words " CHURCH OF CHRIST " over the door. This good man was sincerely lamenting the death of the beloved President. "Why," said he, "should he be taken who had the capacity and the opportunity in his high station and with his good heart and brilliant intellect to do such a world of good, while I, who am nothing and can do nothing, am kept alive ? I would willingly have died in his place ; but he has been taken and I am left. I cannot understand it." And the tear would obtrude itself, and did trickle down his hard cheek.

I left him and walked away homeward, musing. The great orb of the sun was gently settling down towards the western hills ; all nature was quiet and contemplative. " Ah !" thought I, "how little short sighted man can comprehend the plans of the great God ! " God is our father, we are his children. We may always rest assured that he is ever the true, loving, kind, and wise Father toward us. If we are true, loving, and obedient to him, and trust him with filial confidence, then all right motived requests which go up to him from our loving hearts will receive careful attention from him and they will surely be answered. But is it true that all requests, right-minded requests, from the loving and obedient child, which are well received by the parent, and which the parent's love impels him to respond to, are answered always in the very terms of the petition? And if not thus answered, are they, therefore, not answered at all? Every one will say, " By no manner of means." The child's request is often short-sighted, the granting of which by the parent would inevitably bring pain and disaster. Yet, in such cases the parent may hear the request with pleasure, approve the motive that prompted it, and though, by his superior knowledge of cause and effect, prohibited from granting it specifically, yet he may show in a far greater degree his love and his acceptance of the request by bestowing another and a greater blessing, which goes further and does more than the mere granting of the particular favor asked for would have done.

A child desires a small sum of money, say twenty five cents, to purchase some useful and necessary article ; he knows that his father has just that amount in his pocket. He begs that the father shall give him that particular piece of money. His father does not at once answer his request. He repeatedly importunes him for the gift. The father is sensible that the child's object is a good one ; his request is moderate. Had he asked for a much larger sum the father would not have deemed it at all improper, since it would have been paid away for important and useful articles. But the father finally says,

"No, my child, for good reasons I cannot grant your request." Yet within a short time he gives him a five-dollar gold piece, saying, "I know your necessities, and you may have this money which will buy what you need. The quarter-dollar which you wanted was a gift to me from a dear friend. I did not want to part with it." Can any one say that the child's request was not cordially and joyfully received by the parent, that it was not approved, or that it was not granted ? He wanted the money for what it would buy. He got more than he asked for. He thought the quarter-dollar all the money the father had. The father was richer than he thought. The result aimed at was what the money would buy. The result was attained solely by the importunity of the child.

The Christians of this country prayed for the life of President Garfield, because, primarily, it seemed needful for the country's well-being. Has not God in a remarkable manner showered his blessings upon this country and the world, by and through the death of the beloved President, and in a manner superior to and beyond anything that Garfield could have done for it? And has not this been done in direct answer to the loving and devout spirit of prayer which Christians manifested during those sad weeks of suspense? Of what value is that broad and generous sympathy awakened by his assassination, sickness, and death, over the wide world ? It is of more force than standing armies. Its power is superior to tons of tracts from the press of the Peace Society. It has accomplished and is destined to accomplish what president's messages and congressional action and diplomacy could never have achieved. The ties which bind the nations together have been strengthened as never before by all human instrumentalities.

How was our country rent by political feuds and factions ! How have they been silenced, and in fact annihilated, by the dumb lips of the dead President ! The war of the Rebellion left gaping wounds and sectional strifes which, as it has appeared during the past twenty years, ages and new generations of men only could heal. The "South-ern policy" of President Johnson was a failure ; scarcely less so was that of Gen. Grant ; and not much more could be said of that adopted by his successor, President Hayes. What might have been done by Garfield, living, we cannot know, but what has been done by him, dead, is known and read of all men. But few Northern states voted against Gen. Garfield for President, and but few Southern states voted for him. Yet, during those terrible weeks all Northern people and papers were accustomed to speak of him as "the President." But in an extended tour through the Southern states, while President Garfield was buffering, I observed everywhere, from newspapers and people, the tenderest expressions about "our President." I hazard nothing in saying that the "Answerer of prayer," He who is properly called a "prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God," has heard and has answered abundantly the prayer of his people, albeit in a way they had not dreamed of; though it is now evident to all that the answer is far more advantageous to the country than the simple and direct granting of the request would have been.

And now what answer shall we make to our worthy friend and brother, the lamp-lighter? Let us say to him : " Dear sir, God lives and he reigns. He doeth his will and not ours. 'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.' President Garfield in his death, through the kind providence of our God, as we sincerely believe, in answer to prayer, has accomplished not only more than in his life, but more than he ever could have accomplished by the longest life that our good wishes could have assigned to him. And as for thee, thou good lamplighter, what shouldst thou do but light thy lamps just the same as before. 'In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand ; for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.' Light thy lamps, and leave not one in darkness. How knowest thou but this very night the light thou causest to stream out from some one lamp, over the highway, may prevent an accident and thereby save the life of some lad who in the after years will be a man of more importance to this land and the world than even President Garfield was ? Do not, I beseech thee, let a single lamp be dim, but bright and burning ; and, withal, so let thy 'light shine before men that they may see thy good works and glorify thy Father which is in Heaven."

"At eventide there shall be light."

" God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform."

"Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain."