West Virginia freeman. (Parkersburg, W. Va.) 1881-1886, 1882-03-08

mans, which book had been the
subject of careful study with Gar
field during all his religious life. He
was greatly impressed by the elocu-
ton of the preacher and declared
that it had impaired a new and
deeper meaning to the majestic ut
terances of St. Paul. He referred
often in after years to that memoir
able service, and dwelt with exalta-
tion of feeling upon the radiant
promise and assured hope with
which the great apostle of the Gen
tiles was persuaded that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor powers, nor
things present, nor things to come,
nor height, nor depth, nor any 9TH
er creature, shall be able to separate
us from the love of God, which is in
Christ Jesus our Lord"
The browning characteristic of
General Garfield's religious opin-
ions, as indeed, of all his opinions,
was his liberality. In all things he
had charity. Tolerance was of his
nature. He respected in others the
qualities which he possessed him.
self-since1lty of conviction and
frankness of expression. With him
the inquiry was not so much what
man believes, but does he believe
it? The lines of his friendship and
his confidence encircled men of
every creed and men of no creed,
and to the end of his life, on his
ever-lengthening list of friends,
were to be found the names of a pi-
Gus Catholic priest and of an hon
est-minded and generous-hearted
free thinker.
On the morning of Saturday,
July 2, the President was a con-
tented and happy man-not in an
ordinary degree, but joyfully, al
most boyishly happy. On his way
to the railroad station, to which he
drove slowly, in conscious enjoy
ment Of the beautiful morning,
with an unwonted sense of leisure
and keen anticipation of pleasure,
his talk was all in the grateful and
gratulatory vein. He felt that
after four months of trial his adj
ministration was strong in it's grasp
of affairs, strong in popular favor
and destined to grow stronger that
grave difficulties confronting him
at his Inauguration had been safely
passed that trouble lay behind
him and not before him that he
was soon to meet the wife whom he
loved, now recovering from an i'll
ness which had but lately disquiet-
ed 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 greet
ings 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 country
men.
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 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 peace
fully 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 surprising
ly 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 worlds interest, from
its hopes, its aspirations, it's victo-
ries, 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, but through days of
deadly languor, through weeks of
agony, that was not less agony be-
cause silently borne, with clear
sight and calm courage, he looked