The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1881-09-30
DEATH OF THE PRESIDENT.
ITS NATIONAL LESSONS.

a Sermon Preached ut tho Presbyterian,
Church Mt MankatO. September 25th,
by Ksv. Daniel Rice. ID. ID.
II SAMUEL, 3: Stand the king said unto
| his servants, Know yc not that there Is u
prince and great man fallen this day IN
| Israel p
Thirty-iive minutes past ten, on last
Monday evening, after a heroic
struggle of so days with an assassin s
bullet, tho aided by the untiring devo.
ton of the best medical skill the M.
ton could furnish, by the most
watchful and gentle nursing of a
deathless affection and the cheering
sympathy of the civilized world,
james a. Garfield, the President of
the American Union, at length, com.
pletely exhausted, drew his last
breath. For 50 days the telegraplie
wires were burdened with daily mes:
sages carried to the very boundaries
of christendOm and beyond, to be
posted OH bulletin boards or scattered
by the millions of copies of the daily
press, for the hundreds of millions of
eager readers, who thus became deep
ly interested witnesses of the progress
of the struggle, so that it may be
said to have ineffaceably stamped the
impress of its great lessons upon the
heart of the world.
Those same wires have been steadi-
ly bringing back their responses from
generals and from statesmen, from
colleges and from churches. from re
publics and from empires, rendering
heart homage to the moral worth of
the wounded sufferer, but breathing
IN indignant contempt of the vie as
sassin. Never perhaps have so many
|suppliants offered 50 many earnest
prayers to the great Hearer of prayer
for the Divine interpositiOn in the
preservation Of any one human life.
And yet all could not avail to save
him. And yet he died. InsOmuch
that his physician in charge is said
to have uttered his agony in the
words "Was there mercy above or
here OH earth not a bit. We have
done all that could be done and yet he
is dying land added" is it not com.
ment upon our modern christianity
unanswerable pa very hasty and
superficial Judgment, born of Il very
bitter disappointment. as we shall see.
On the morrom, after the Geographic
announcement of this sad event,
wherever you might he travelling in
this broad land, in every small town,
you might see every flag lowered to
half mast with its badge of Grape and
in every great city all the public
buildings and palatial mansions
sombre and gloomy in their garb of
mourning, the very engines the ma
tons fiery steeds moving on their
solemn errands with their faces yelled
in black. The prolonged tolling of
bells made the ear deaf to all other
music. The marts OF business were
silent as the grave; even in Wall
street the mallet Of the auctiOneer was
hushed to silence, and the exchange
of London the capital of the world
responded in sympathy. Giddy
pleasure bought back her theater
tickets for the evening and the revel-
ry of the dance was stayed. The
loaded columns of the daily paper
were bordered with the broad dark
shadows of some awful calamity.
The heart of the nation thrObbed
heavily as if it might cease to beat
and the nation felt weak us did David
after the death of Abner, and for the
same reason, because it knew through
all its borders, a great man had fallen
in the nation, and there is no gift to
Il nation greater than the gift Of great
men, and no loss to nation greater
than the loss of great men. Like
Abner also, he had died rs the fool
dieth, treacherously and maliciOusly
assassinated by fools bullet, and
like Abner while striving to cOnsoli.
date the unity of the nation. There
fore fitting are the words of the text
To strike the key note of our great
national bereavement. And though
because of the pressure Of other en-
gagements, l have not been able to
| take the time for that thoughtful
preparation that BELTS the theme,
yet have felt that the Providence of
God have so placed it in the fore.
ground of the nations heart to-day,
that its lessons are also crowded into
the foreground of the national wor-
ship, to wit: the lessons of the life,
and the lessons Of the death that have
awakened the nations homage and
crushed the nations hopes.
First then let us seek to read the
lessons God has taught us by the
life of him the nation delights to
honor. Second, the lessons He is
teaching us by the death of him the
nation so deeply mourns.
or the incidents of his early life, l
have neither time nor need to make
mention. They are already more or
less familiar to you all. l shall only
in the briefest way, turn your atten-
ton to the sources Of the greatness of
his life, in order that l may more
fully dwell on the lessons of his
death.
And lst. The germ of his greatness
as of that Of all truly great men, was
EMBODIED in his ideal of life. This
seems to have been from his early
boyhoOd, the fullest development and
most diligent training of all his fac.
ulties of the sOul-power which had
come to him as his inheritance. His
first work was a work of self.educa.
ton with all the external helps he
could summon to his aid. This was
his primal creed. "Education in its
widest sense is the business of every
life the end and aim of all human
endeavor. Iflife has any significance
at all, it is the process of education,
the education of the individual
and through the individual of the
race" The souls developed power