Daily Republican., 1881-09-27
The Last Naa Rites.

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The Last Baa Rites.
The last sad rites have been performed
and the remains of James A. Garfield
tho honored and loved President of th
United States, have been committed tt
their last resting place. Earth to earth
dust to dust, ashes to ashes, said tn,
preacher as amid sobbing thousands
the casket with hollow sound touched
the bottom of the sepulchre. Never
was there such funeral service,
marked with such grief and emotion.
Fifty millions of people stop suddenly
short in all the active business con-
Oerns of life to linger at the grave of
the lamented Garfield. With the ex-
ception of the noise of minute guns and
the incessant tolling of bells, the ma
tion was hushed into sad silence. 1t
had come to bury its dead out of its
sight. This great grief and marked re-
spect to the remains of the President of
the United States was not because of
the high official position which he held,
though that were enough to cause a
stop in the affairs of life for day, but
the people saw before them in the
form that was taken back to it's mother
earth the man who had patiently, he
roically and uncomplainingly suffered
with a bullet in his body for eleven
weeks, and the daily bulletins that
were issued kept the people advised of
his condition and brought them close
to his suffering bed side. He was the
centre of the Nations interest, the Ma
tion's thoughts, the Nations hopes. So
the pause and the hush and the rever-
ent silence of fit million of people
who do not merely magnify themselves
In paying these funeral honors to their
dead Chief, but they thus exhibit in
the grandeur of this great stiffness, the
deeper feeling that comes of personal
bereavement and loss. Presidents, He
roes and Chiefs have died before and
have been committed to the earth with
great solemn pomp and ceremonial, but
IN the last funeral rites of President
Garfield at Cleveland yesterday, there {
was something more, something so in
describably tender and touching that t
words can only weaken its expression, |
and for Want Of more sympathetic
language, we can only say "Si,ence
In the presence of God, the nation is
burying its dead" y
1t is all over, and to day the world,
which never fingers long at the grave,
pushes on sitting its great grief until it
shall slowly wear away. 1t will be
very long until the story of the striking
down Of President Garfield, his painful
illness, his patience, his meekness his
fortitude and above all the tenderness
and sweetness of his domestic relations
as brought out under the glare Of pub
iieity, which it was not possible to
avoid, will fail to draw tears from hui
man eyes. For the afflicted family the
healing force of time will work more
slowly. The family and the nation can II
hardly have but one thought to-day, p
and that is of the cruelty of the blow II
and of the irreparable loss that both 7
have sustained. In view of our own
personal grief we lose sight of the two r
essential facts Of our existence, that a
1t is only through agony and pain that n
ANY great thing comes about and that Fl II
after all death ends all. o.
Out of all this thick cloud of bereave- q
ment comes consultations, though they "
may not be Immediately present and ii
visible, but they are always sure to
come. There was grand recognition
of this fact last Friday, at Washing
ton, when with a visible thrill of emo :,
tiont, he brass bands sent out the thrill
ing strains of "Nearer my God to thee, "
nearer to thee. cen though it be a cross ",
that raiseth me. The thought is, that vi
Providence for our ultimate consolation ht
has bestowed upon us faith in future "
state OF bliss as the mitigation Of all be
pain. There is large consolation left tn
as in the life of the last few weeks of IN
1in who the Nation buried with tears ~
There is consolation for he W
'ereaved family in the circumstance, u
,ruel az it was, that took him out of II
heir presence, their life into the love 81
md affection Of great nation, the rev. II
rent regard Of the whole world, and ce
me OF the highest places in huaan his. q, "a
ory. There was an aspiration in his tb
question asked few days before he co
lied: "Do you think l will have a 10 10
place in histOry?" That question has hi
leen fully answered now. In the great be
sorrow that has fallen upon them the III
family may find comfort in the thought =. ps
that he. has entered into the historic ut
pages of National fame. The people, as ST
hey turn away from the grave of Gar W.
Held to pursue their usual avocations of
life, find that there is consolation in bu
the thought that their choice for Presi-
dent was fully vindicated. There are un Se!
further consultations in the temporary
cessation of the strife of politics; of the
elevation of mind and soul wrought by
the mingling of common sympathy ar
and participating in common grief ch
- %Inr ttufn nrft Il l,,,s ,r..I L;