Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

and I am certain I will have my vindication in the coming years."

He had talent, a wealth of mental endowment, more than equal to any strain ever made upon it. He had ambition—“ a just, laudable, and beneficent ambition." And he had energy which knew no "night nor weariness."

His character was beautiful in its symmetry. In the language of Bishop Charles E. Cheney: "He was an orator, swaying vast crowds by the magic of his voice; a lawyer, fully perfect in his profession; a parliamentarian, wielding great power in the halls of Congress; a politician, the idol of his party; and, better than all, an outspoken, brave, and earnest Christian. He was as ready to confess his God as he was to ride amid the shot and shell upon the blood-stained field of Chickamauga."

To the young men of the world he left the record of a a pure life and stainless integrity. There was no stain of intemperance, sensuality, or vice resting upon his character, to cause a blush of shame to the mother that bore him, or to the wife that watched for his coming.

He incarnated character, and his own life was a grander lesson than the pages of a thousand books.

Undoubtedly, the distant view, the future estimate, will lessen in vividness some of the features of his life and character which appear large to those who now stand so near to him. But when time has had full sweep over his life, and related facts have fastened together in eternal cohesion, and relentless criticism has diminished, as far as possible, the pillars of his greatness; still, in all the world, but especially in this land, of which he was so large a part, will his figure remain forever beautiful, symmetrical, colossal.

27

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE TRIBUTE OF FRIENDSHIP.

[ocr errors]

Friendship," says Cicero, "is the only thing in the world concerning the use of which all mankind are agreed." And it is almost the only thing in the world before whose expression words are powerless. True friendship is born of the holiest, purest love; and it were as hopeless a task to report sunbeams as to describe love in words.

Damon's friendship for Pythias was in deed, and not in word. The friendship of David and Jonathan is not seen so much in the beautiful elegy which David chanted above his fallen companion, as in the deeds of love which cemented their hearts.

The best tribute which true friendship can pay to the memory of the great man whose eventful life has been, with some degree of fulness, sketched on the pages of this book, is to succeed, so far as he can have a successor, to the heritage of the grand ideas which he projected with new force on the world, concerning friendship, home and family, and wife and mother, and Nation and God. So far as friendship for him is concerned, he has passed beyond the influence of any deeds or words. We are only permitted to take up, here and there, as we may bear it, the work which he has left undone, and carry it on in our lives to its completeness.

The people have sorrowed over the loss of this man as

they never sorrowed before. In homely phrase, and in gilded rhetoric, men have spoken of their personal bereavement. Poets have sent their thoughts through the "crucible of song" to explain, if possible, the secret of the heart's sorrow. One of them has said:

GREAT was our chieftain, noble and true,
With wisdom to plan and courage to do,
Sadly we miss him as time goes by,
And speak of our loss with a tender sigh.

AMBITIOUS, he climbed step by step the rough way
Till he reached the top round just at life's noonday,
And stood all unsullied and calm in his might,
Conscious of never having sacrificed right.

ROYAL in bearing and noble in face,

He bore all his honor with meekness and grace,
Nature made him a King; we made him ours-

The nation has crowned him with love's fadeless flowers.

FEARLESS and firm he stood by his trust,

"Afraid to do wrong," not afraid to be just,
Faithful to friends, courteous even to foes,
The power of religion this noble life shows.

INDEPENDENT in thought, he led in the race

Till he won in the contest the most honored place;

The honor unsought brought a burden of care

No motive but duty inspired him to bear.

EARNEST and eloquent, he wielded a power

That shielded the nation in a perilous hour;

Stayed the arm of the mob, stilled the tempest of wrath
That was spreading destruction and woe in its path.

LOYAL and brave, he entered the strife,

Enduring the hardships of stern soldier life,

But greater the soldier during Autumn's hot breath,
Who lay by the seaside and battled with death.

DEAD is our chieftain? No, living to-day

In the bright upper world where sin has no sway;
To his great loving heart no more trouble shall come;
He has ended the conflict and is resting at home.

And on the day of his burial another sings:
From where the Atlantic surges break on the rocks of Maine
To where the prairie stretches its miles of golden grain,
From where the forests of the north sigh in their silent gloom
To where the Southern flowers in summer's beauty bloom,

The solemn bells are tolling for the nation's bitter woe
And fifty million mourners are bowed beneath one blow;

Through silent crowds and scattered flowers the funeral train moves past,
And after his long agony, our hero rests at last.

Call him not dead, forever shall live that noble name,
High on the roll of honor, Columbia guards his fame.
With pride and love and pity we give the dust to dust,
In the hope of life eternal with the God in whom we trust.

From beyond the restless ocean come the words of England's Queen,
Who has known the same sad parting-the same bitter grief has seen
And our kindred in the old home, clasping hands across the wave,
Tell us that we still are brothers, by our Garfield's open grave.

From the snows of mighty Russia, from Australia's far-off land,
From France, our ancient ally, from the Roman Pontiff's hand,
From Germany's great monarch, from the sunny fields of Spain,
From all come mournful greeting, all weep our hero slain.

But the friend's heart never falters, and his faith not once grows dim;
He had reached earth's highest honor, and the Father called to him;
He had fought the fight and conquered; he had won the golden crown;
And to wear that wreath immortal, he this earthly life laid down.

Personal friends, out of the fulness of their wealth, have contributed their heartfelt tributes to the abiding friendship of their friend. At the request of the author, Mr. E. B. Wakefield gracefully and tenderly says:

"My acquaintance with General Garfield began in 1863, while I was a student at Hiram. Making my home, as I did, for a considerable part of my Hiram life, at Mr. Rudolph's, I had opportunity to meet him on his home visits, and to keep constantly posted as to his movements.

"Adopting at once the intimacy which his friends felt with me, he treated me with a kindness that was at once simple in its unostentation, and yet chivalric in its regardfullness, till the sun went down.

"In January, 1865, when our army corps was transferred from Tennessee to North Carolina, we stopped briefly at Washington, and one day I looked down from the gallery of the House upon a young representative who was evidently happily adjusting himself to a new order of life. He looked, at that time, more than I ever before or since saw him, a business man. Speaking years after of having seen him then, he inquired why I had not come to him. In reply I spoke of my ludicrously dilapidated uniform as making me unfit for his presence in that place. The remark seemed to hurt him. 'I must tell you,' he said, 'that it would have helped me to see you just then, and you deprived me of a privilege I ought to have had.' That was always his way of putting things. Friends who had everything to take, and nothing, save love, to give, were mightily helpful to him!

"A long and valuable chapter might be written concerning Garfield's life at Hiram after he became representative in Congress. Older students always speak with enthusiasm of his work in the ante-war days. Later students, although they felt his touch less, may speak in the same way. When at home the college always felt his presence. In brief chapel lectures he would show that life's work consisted of Repression and Expression;' or he would show how a Maydole made a great success in life by simply making a good hammer.

"Boys desiring help upon a debate were always welcomed to his study; and I have known of hours given away with an almost boyish enthusiasm to a subject, that came into the house seemingly unimportant, and went away glorified.

"Often he would drop into the class-room, and he would always rouse the class to a new enthusiasm. As an illustration, he one day stepped into a class reciting in Greek, and some word translated by the English 'understand' came up. Stepping to the blackboard he drew a circle, and under it he wrote the word understand, against it the German verstebe, around it the French comprendre, and over it the Greek word, which has now escaped me. He spoke of language as showing the habit, the altitude of mind of a people. Let the circle represent a given truth;

« ÎnapoiContinuă »