and his president, asking that he should go into Congress and take up the study of national legislation. In less than two years he had attained his high position in the army, because he was a thorough student, patriot and man. Wherever he was, he was always great. And his greatness was so many-sided that people had only begun to know him when he was cut down by the bullet of the assassin.

CONGRESSMAN GARFIELD.

General Garfield went into Congress in December, 1863, after three years' service in the army; and went to Congress to begin in earnest a thorough study of political economy-especially finance, taxation, commerce, tariff, manufactures and international law. His study in Congress was intense, and here as elsewhere, he became a master. His powerful frame, massive head and manly voice commanded a place for him everywhere. In his state he was the youngest senator; in the army he was the youngest general; now he was the youngest member in the House. But he soon took his place among those most experienced and greatest, as their peer. He took high moral and patriotic grounds on all questions, and maintained them by great speeches.

In two years he was re-elected to Congress by a heavy majority. In the middle of his second term, President Lincoln was assassinated. The whole country was shocked and aroused. In New York city a great mob took possession of the streets. Two men were shot. "To the World, to the World!” cried some in the mob, and the surge of the maddened people went that way. Just then a strong man mounted some elevation and waved a small flag, as though to still the people. "Another telegram from Washington!" cried out several voices. Everybody stopped and listened. The strong man lifted reverently his eyes to heaven, and in clear, deep, strong tones, said: "Fellow citizens, clouds and darkness are around about Him. His pavilion are dark waters and thick clouds of the skies. Justice and judgment are the habitation of His throne. Mercy and truth shall go before His face. Fellow citizens, God reigns, and

the government at Washington still lives!" "The crowd stood riveted to the ground," writes one present, "with awe, gazing at the motionless orator and thinking of God and the security of the government in that hour."

The tumult of the people subsided. A mighty voice had stilled a mighty passion. General Garfield was the providential man who at that moment of danger lifted up his voice over the storm. It was a stroke of genius. Only a mighty master of men and eloquence can do such a thing. It stayed a mob bent on murder and fire.

The great storm of war, the great loss of the president, and the great work of reconstruction in the hands of Congress, only strengthened his powers for greater service. He studied harder than any other member, taking more books out of the congressional library, mostly on the subjects immediately in hand. He rose with the need of each hour, and put on new strength as dangers seemed to thicken. He went on in his work of national legislator through the administration of Presidents Johnson, Grant and Hayes, broadening and enriching his intelligence, holding a commanding position in Congress, and educating the nation in finance, taxation, commerce and international law, till the great republican convention of 1880, at Chicago, put him in nomination for the presidency. His great popularity made the canvass an ovation of popular affection for him.

PRESIDENT GARFIELD.

The nominating convention at Chicago, the enthusiastic popular canvass, the triumphant election, all indicated that no other man in this country had so large a place in the hearts of the people as General Garfield. His home at Mentor was a republican Mecca; his way to Washington was a triumphal journey; his inauguration was a red-letter day for popular government. Here was a great man, a good man, a kingly man, in person, mind and heart, who had risen from a cabin in the wilderness to the presidential mansion through all the steps of personal struggle and trial, of labor, study, religious devotion, patriotic endeavor, and national discipline and service,

to the highest honor the nation could give; and yet he had kept his common-folk simplicity, his humility, frankness, genuineness, heartiness, without seeming to know that he had come to be a great man, or to lose any of the fresh vital love of humanity which had always won him the warmest personal friendship. With his enthusiasms unabated, his noble ambitions yet pure and simple, he went to the office of the president to serve the country and promote the well-being of his kind.

A country that produces such men, that makes it possible for every man to rise as he did according to the measure of his powers, who will obey the conditions, is a country, the worth of which can never be properly estimated. No service rendered to men is better given, than that rendered such a country.

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President Garfield's position had its difficulties. His party was not at agreement as to methods. There was a close corporation" so to speak, within the party, which was managed by a few party leaders, for the most part honored men, who had lost popularity with the other and larger element of the party, who thought this "machine" within the party was a corrupting thing. It was the president's purpose, if possible, to unite these elements in his administration, and at the same time abate the prevailing influence of the "machine" methods. There is but little doubt that he would have succeeded, had not the bullet of the assassin closed his noble career.

ASSASSINATION.

On the morning of July 2, 1881, the president had arranged to visit New England for a little rest. His wife being at Long Branch, and was to meet him at New York. Senator Blaine, after breakfast, drove to the White House and took the president into his carriage, and took him to the depot. Reaching the station nearly half an hour before train time, they sat in the carriage till a railroad official told them the train was about to start. They left the carriage and went in through the ladies' waiting room which was nearly empty. As they were passing through the room, arm in arm, a strange, thin, wiry-looking man, small and quick, darted up behind them and fired at the

back of the president. Recocking his pistol, he fired again in an instant. The president sank to the floor. Mr. Blaine sprang to the assassin who offered little resistance. The woman in charge of the room, ran immediately to the fallen president and held up his head. A physician was summoned, a mattress provided and he was taken to the White House. His wife was summoned and then followed long days of pain and anxiety.

The country was shocked. Sympathy and sorrow were everywhere. Indignation at the wretch who, in dastardly conceit of personal importance, sought to restore a political faction to power, by assassinating the president, made it difficult to keep him from the avenging hands of the populace. No Fourth of July was ever so mournful in this country. All nations sympathized with our suffering president, his family and people. Early in September he was moved to Long Branch; where he lingered till the nineteenth of September, when he died at 10:35 o'clock P.M., 1881.

He was,

No words can express the sorrow of the people. indeed, one of the greatest and noblest of American men. It is painful to try to tell the story of so great a life in so short a space.

THE GRAVE OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD.

After the death of President Garfield, at Long Branch, his body was taken to Washington and laid in state for two days, and then borne to Cleveland and deposited in the Scofield tomb, in Lake View cemetery. Mr. Garfield's home had always been near Cleveland; many of his early neighborhood and school friends were there; Mentor, his chosen country residence, was but one hour's ride by rail from there; some of his strongest political friends had helped to build up the Forest City; he had always watched its growth with the greatest interest; so that Cleveland was more his home than any other city. It was understood among his friends that he had contemplated Lake View cemetery as the final resting place of his mortal remains.

Lake View cemetery is one of the most interesting of the many beautiful cemeteries of the country. It is comparatively new, and is rapidly growing into a delightful resting place of human mortality. It is five and a quarter miles east of the center of Cleveland, on Euclid avenue, one of the finest city streets in the world; three quarters of a mile east of Adelbert college and the Case school of applied science; half a mile southeast of Wade Park, on the side of which, next to the cemetery, is reserved a site for another educational institution. The city already reaches to within a short distance of the cemetery, and will soon enclose it on three sides. The Nickelplate railroad runs along the north side of it. It is already in the midst of that life and enterprise in which Mr. Garfield felt such an enthusiastic interest. It will soon be in the very presence of great educational institutions, such as he had given much of his life to promote. Education, business, travel, and the homes of the people, are about his resting place. In death, as in life, he is in the midst of the world's great interests, which he loved.

Lake Erie is about two and a half miles from the cemetery, and is visible from all the high part of it. It is an irregular tract of three hundred acres of uneven land-hill and dale—with a pleasant stream of water running through it from the south. The soil is light and gravelly, and the general aspect of the scenery agreeable in every respect.

The Scofield vault, in which the president's body now reposes, is a beautiful Gothic structure of gray sandstone built into the slope of an undulating hill, and facing the stream that runs through the grounds, which just here broadens out into a

little lakelet.

Four small granite pillars, two dark and two red, on the front, support the ornamental work of the roof.

The tomb is about fifteen feet wide, and about the same height and depth.

The door is some five or six feet wide. The president's casket is just inside and across the door, on supports about two feet high. It is of bronze, and was sealed at the time his body was