lay behind him and not before him; that he was soon to meet the wife whom he loved, now recovering from an illness which had but lately disquieted, and, at times, almost unnerved him; that he was going to his Alma Mater to renew the most cherished associations of his young manhood, and to exchange greetings with those whose deepening interest had followed every step of his upward progress from the day he entered upon his college course until he had attained the loftiest elevation in the gift of his countrymen.

"Surely, if happiness can ever come from the honors or triumphs of this world, on that quiet July morning James A. Garfield may well have been a happy man. No foreboding of evil haunted him; no slightest premonition of danger clouded his sky. His terrible fate was upon him in an instant. One moment he stood erect, strong, con, fident in the years stretching peacefully out before him. The next he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless, doomed to weary weeks of torture, to silence, and the grave.

"Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. For no cause, in the very frenzy of wantonness and wickedness, by the red hand of murder, he was thrust from the full tide of this world's interest, from its hopes, its aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of death-and he did not quail. Not alone, for the one short moment in which, stunned and dazed, he could

give up life, hardly aware of its relinquishment, but through days of deadly languor, through weeks of agony, that was not less agony because silently borne, with clear sight and calm courage, he looked into his open grave. What blight and ruin met his anguished eyes, whose lips may tell— what brilliant, broken plans, what baffled, high ambitions, what sundering of strong, warm, manhood's friendships, what bitter rending of sweet household ties! Behind him a proud, expectant nation, a great host of sustaining friends, a cherished and happy mother, wearing the full, rich honors of her early toil and tears; the wife of his youth, whose whole life lay in his; the little boys not yet emerged from childhood's day of frolic; the fair young daughter; the sturdy sons just springing into closest companionship, claiming every day and every day rewarding a father's love and care; and in his heart the eager, rejoicing power to meet all demand. Before him, desolation and great darkness! And his soul was not shaken, His countrymen were thrilled with instant, profound, and universal universal sympathy. Masterful in his mortal weakness, he became the centre of a nation's love, enshrined in the prayers of a world. But all the love and all the sympathy could not share with him his suffering. He trod the wine-press alone. With unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailing tenderness he took leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the

assassin's bullet he heard the voice of God. With simple resignation he bowed to the divine decree.

"As the end drew near, his early craving for the sea returned. The stately mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of pain, and he begged to be taken from its prison walls, from its oppressive, stifling air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God should will, within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked out wistfully upon the oceans changing wonders; on its far sails, whitening in the morning light; on its restless waves, rolling shoreward to break and die beneath the noonday sun; on the red clouds of evening, arching low to the horizon; on the serene and shining pathway of the stars. Let us think that his dying eyes read a mystic meaning which only the rapt and parting soul may know. Let us believe that in the silence of the receding world he heard the great waves breaking on a farther shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow the breath of the eternal morning."

There is nothing simpler or more feeling in the English language. New beauties will be found in it as it is read over and over again.

As an example of Mr. Blaine's directness, force and condensation in his public utterances, the following is given, and a stronger platform of principles could not well be formulated. Mr. Buchanan, after he was nominated for the Presidency, wrote: "I am no longer James Buchanan, but the Cincinnati platform." Mr. Blaine, however, did not hesitate-long in advance-to give his political creed, thus: "The mighty power of a republic of fifty millions of people," said he, "with a continent for their possession, can only be wielded permanently by being wielded honestly. In a fair and generous struggle for partisan power let us not forget those issues and those ends which are above party. Organized wrong will ultimately be met by organized resistance. The sensitive and dangerous point is in the casting and the counting of free ballots. Impartial suffrage is our theory. It must become our practice. Any party of American citizens can bear to be defeated. No party of American citizens will bear to be defrauded. The men who are interested in a dishonest count are units. The men who are interested in an honest count are millions. I wish to speak for the millions of all political parties, and in their name to declare that the Republic must be strong enough, and shall be strong enough, to protect the weakest of its citizens in all their rights."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE BRILLIANT SPEAKER.

THE period of the Speakership, from 1869 to 1875, was, all things considered, the most brilliant of Mr. Blaine's brilliant career up to the present. The office is legally the third greatest in the government of the United States, and in the hands of a man of genius it easily becomes the second, if not the first, in importance. Although the House of Representatives may not have the same "omnipotence" that is ascribed to the English House of Commons, it has the same control over the money-power, and its presiding officer wields an influence out of all comparison to that of his English compeer. The British Speaker is almost a machine, and to him the satirical description aimed by the well-known humorist, Mr. Donn Piatt, at Mr. Blaine, is more truly applicable, "twothirds parliamentary law, and one-third gavel." Mr. Peel, like his predecessors for centuries, is not subject to the mutation of politics, but expects to hold his place like a judge on the bench, during good behavior, or until retired after twenty years with a title and pension.

The American Speaker occupies a position at