Whether there is any truth in these stories or not, it is true, nevertheless, that the Garfields were distinguished. for their great physical strength, their generosity, and unquestioned courage. Neither were they dolts intellectually. While not renowned for their mental achievements, they were generally possessed of a sturdy good sense, and of mental power sufficient for all the practical purposes of life. Very few of them ever received a college education, perhaps only two, of whom General Garfield was one.

Thus is traced the ancestral line on the father's side. The mother's name was Eliza Ballou. She was the daughter of James Ballou and Mehetabel Ingalls. She was born in Richmond, Chester County, New Hampshire, on the 21st of September, 1801. It was in this same town where Hosea Ballou was born, who afterwards became distinguished in the annals of Universalism.

The Ballous were of Huguenot origin, and in the line of direct descent from Maturin Ballou, who, about the year 1685, fled from France upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and settled in Cumberland, Rhode Island. Here he joined the company of Roger Williams, which had adopted, as a principle in its guidance, "In civil matters, law; in religious matters, liberty."

At Cumberland he built a "meeting-house," which is still standing, and known as the "Elder Ballou Meetinghouse." Here, through a long life, he taught the purest tenets of the French Reformation, with a fervid eloquence that was not unworthy of the great French Reformers. For generation after generation the descendants of this man were eloquent preachers, and preached from the same pulpit. The old "meeting-house" is not now used as a place for regular worship. Another says: "It has become a sort of Mecca, to which the Ballous from all parts of the country yearly come to inscribe their names in the ancient

book still kept in the weather-beaten church, and to talk of the glory of their ancestors. This old church is a genuine curiosity. It is of wood, shingled on the outside, and its pews and gallery are of oak, hewn from the solid log, and put together with wooden pins. When it was built there were no saw-mills in the country, and no nails could be procured, so that even its floor was hewn by hand, and fastened down with wooden pins. It is still in excellent preservation, and looks as if it might still outlast the storms of another two centuries."

More than half a score of this remarkable family have preached from the pulpit of this old church. "Father and son, and grandson, and great-grandson, even to the tenth generation, have impressed their high thoughts, their lofty aspirations, and their loving hearts, upon its old walls, till it would seem to be all impregnated with their living breath-a part of the pure and holy lives they have left as a legacy to their remotest descendants."

The Ballous were a race of preachers. One of them, himself a preacher, had four sons who were ministers of the gospel, and one of these had three sons who were preachers, and one of these had a son and a grandson who were preachers.

All accounts agree that they were men of powerful intellects, thorough culture, and splendid characters. Their force of character has never been disputed.

Perhaps the best known member of the family is Rev. Hosea Ballou, the founder and first apostle of Universalism in America; and so far as a religious system may properly enshrine the name of any merely human being the Universalists of this country have no reason to be ashamed of their illustrious leader.

Of the father of Hosea Ballou it is said that he was conscientiously opposed to receiving pay for his ministrations;

and yet he was so poor that his son, in learning to write, was compelled to use birch bark instead of paper, and charcoal instead of pen and ink.

While the Ballous have been distinguished as preachers, they have also furnished to the country lawyers, teachers, politicians, and soldiers of more or less celebrity.

Thus looking backward for nearly two hundred and fifty years, and digging deep into the quarries of ancestry, we find the granite rock on which the towering shaft of an almost matchless human character is built. The character we are considering is, indeed, more than a shaft-it is a splendid temple whose outward proportions are symmetrical and majestic, and whose inner glories will never grow dim "while the races of mankind endure," or spotless integrity, indomitable energy, profound convictions, eloquent gifts, resistless courage, and Christian character are regarded, admired, and loved by men.

If every character is the "joint product of nature and nurture," no one will dispute the proposition that James A. Garfield's character, so far as "nature" is concerned, was founded on a rock. His hereditary preparation was complete. From his father's side came the splendid body, the large head, the heritage of profound convictions, manly courage and exhaustless patience.

From his mother's side came the energetic temperament, the love of books, the capacity for ideas, the eloquent tongue, the desire for culture, the religious trend, and the tireless energy.

Deeper than the judgment, deeper than the feelings, back of the culture which moulds and adorns, lies the seat of human character, in that which is the mystery of all beings, and all things, in what we call their "nature, without knowing where it lies, what it is, or how it wields or asserts its power.

What we do know is, that it does exert a power over external circumstances, bending them all in its own direction, or breaking its instruments against that which it cannot bend.

The nature of an acorn turns dews, air, soils and sunbeams to oak; and though circumstances or environments may check its growth or destroy its symmetry, they cannot make it anything else than oak while it survives. It defies earth, and man, and beast, and sky to make it produce anything else than oak. Cultivation may affect its quality, and training its form, but there is no force from without that can change its nature. So it is in the case before us. With such a foundation, and such a union of elements, it was impossible to produce a weak man; and with the added culture of his own life, nothing else could be the result than a character "as grand and as simple as a colossal pillar of chiseled granite."

CHAPTER III.

BIRTH AND BOYHOOD.

There is no force in all the world so mighty as a man. The red thunderbolt may split the giant oak, but with that its power is exhausted. But a man can turn the oak into an instrument of commerce, and send it to sea in the gallant ships. He can command the lightning, and bid it carry his words around the world. Man is not simply a part of the furniture of this planet, nor the highest merely in the scale of creatures. He is lord of all; sun, moon, and stars, and all the visible creation borrowing all their worth and their significance from the relations wherein they stand to him. Birth and death are the two extremes in his earth history, and boyhood, and manhood level up. the valley that lies between. Birth introduces him into the world of being and of action. Childhood and manhood disclose the quality of the heart, the capacity of the intellect, and death completes the assay, and brings out into the sunlight, in their true and full proportions, the goodness, and greatness, and symmetry of the life.

The 19th of November is a day marked in the calendar of every year; but the 19th of November, 1831, is one of the eventful days of American history; for on that day was born in the woods of Orange, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD.