New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-10-16
TILL Use or LII ILL.


Perhaps there is not a reader of THE TRIBUNE
this morning who would not 90 70 his work for
the next week or month or the rest of his life
with more zeal, and a defined purpose, if hc
were only quite sure that the world is really
controlled by any bencfceut Power. OF course
he believes there is a God who hears prayer
especially on Sundays and who answers it, rs
far as il concerns the condition Of mems souls
He will make us more humble or dcvout If
we ask it but rs for temporal affairs one is not
so sure that He knows anything mt all about
them. That great firm which went down last
week. running the fortunes of hundreds Of poor
women; that mother who died leaving her
children unprotected; this disappointment OF
that loss IN our own livcs-what are all these
things but unmitgated evil God knows
nothing of them, or He is asleep or gone upon
a journey, and will not hear, cry we ever SO
loudly. That is the secret feeling OF many
good folk their relations with God lie simply
between their souls and Him. but the great
currents of human life, health, business, poll
tics. are a muddlc over which there is no more
potent oversight than the common sense of
men. When Guitcaus bullet struck down the
| President this class of dOubtcrS promptly
pointed out that nothing but disaster could re-
| suit from his death. The rcns of government
| were now in the hands of an honest man who
! would check the corruption which was destroy
ING us as n Nation. His death would he an
error of the Omnipotent Ruler, an irrcparablc
step backward for the whole Nation. Yet al
ready they begin to see that the heroic death OF
| Garfield subscrved higher purposes than ms
| life could have done. At best alive he could
4. 4 4.
or three individual Bosses; bat dead, he
reused the hatred of their corruption and tyr
amy in the whole Nation that had hitherto
| bent its head to their yoke. The blood of the
| martyrs is always the seed of liberty and hon
| esty among all people. The American people
standing uncovered by Gariield's coffin. saw, as
| they never have done before, the system by
which they have been ruled for the last twenty
years, and its results. Nothing that the
Bosses" can DO hereafter will ever bring Them
under the halter again.
Another lasting result of his death is the
| sudden consciousness of brotherhood which it
| awoke among all English-speaking people
Never since the colonies first broke from the
mother country have they claSpcd hands with
| the same perception of the fact that it was the
same blood which flowed in their veins
| 'FOreignr how absurd the word sounds ap-
piled to our brothers yondcri" cried a leading
| London paper. The flowers laid by the Queen
| on that coffin the other day, the wisps of Grape
| which English labOrers wore, will cover over
| the bitterness and grudges which a century has
| not suficed 10 hide. Above and beyond these
| results of his death was its effect as a simple
| personal drama upon all people. We remom-
oil Of
honest man herOically dying because he had
| tried tOserye his.country-the faithful wife, the
! children by his bedside, the old mother who
had reared him through EXTREMIST poverty,
watching all day by her gaze for tidings of him
went like an electric fash about the world,
| bringing the higher nature of every man to life
| How many million men find it easier to-day to
I live honestly and nobly for that sight of James
| Garfield dying!
| But even here our doubters find ground of
protest. Why should this man be chosen from
| a whole people for this great success Thou
sands of men as honorable in purpose as brill
| liant in intellect, have gone down into obscure
| graves. Their honesty its ends served only in
| a town, village, shop; his was clarion call
| to all English-speaking peoples to come uD to
| higher ground. The home which was opened
| to the sight of the world was but one of q
myriad in America. How many tens of thou
| sands of devoted women watch with high faith
| and breaking hearts over dying beds, OF turn to
| struggle ON alone to the end Yet no Queens
offer sympathy and the world does not pay
| homage to their grief. Our sceptic finds an
| enormous overplus of wasted virtue, unre-
] warded effort unrecOgnized talent in the