His general character, at the same time, was always good. Those who stood nearest to him in his public life, and who knew him best, have ever united in bearing the most favorable testimony to what he was in this view. He has been known and spoken of on all sides as a true gentleman of the old school, distinguished for his personal integrity, a man of honorable spirit, upright in his deportment, and beyond the common measure virtuous in his manners. He was unquestionably one of the purest in mind, and most exemplary in life, belonging to the generation of public men, which has now come to a close in his death. It is, indeed, something wonderful, that in his peculiar circumstances he should have been able to pass through such a long life of exposure to all forms of corruption and sin, so generally unscathed as he seems to have been by the fiery ordeal. In this respect, he is worthy of lasting admiration, and may well be held up as an example for the study and imitation of younger candidates for political distinction coming after his day. When will all our public men lay to heart, as they ought, that true oracle of the olden time: “The memory of the just is blessed; but the name of the wicked shall rot?”
All this, however, Mr. Buchanan himself very well knew, fell short of what was required to make him a Christian in the full sense of the term; and as he advanced in life accordingly, he seems to have turned his mind more and more seriously to the necessity of becoming a follower of the Saviour in a more inward and strict way. This practical discipleship he believed himself to have reached in some measure years before he withdrew from political life. Yet, he made then no open profession of his faith, in the way of what is commonly called joining the church, under the idea that there was some reason for postponing it in the peculiar circumstances in which he stood as a public man. That idea, of course, was a serious mistake, as he himself acknowledged it to be afterwards, when earnestly spoken with on the subject. He ought to have joined the church sooner, he said, and especially before he left Washington. As it was, he took this important step in due course of time, subsequently, after full serious consideration, by connecting himself in form with the Presbyterian church of Lancaster, which had been his regular place of worship previously, where he continued to worship afterwards, and in communion with which he has now departed this life, “looking for the general resurrection in the last day, and the life of the world to come.”
It was my privilege to converse with him frequently on religious subjects, during these his last years, and I can say his mind seemed to be always clear and remarkably firm, as well as consistent, in the apprehension of Christianity, under its simplest and most commonly acknowledged evangelical form. He had studied carefully, I may be allowed to state, the Heidelberg Catechism (that most œcumenical, and in some respects most genial of all the Reformed Protestant Confessions), and he was accustomed to speak highly of it at all times, as being a summary of religious truth, to which he could cordially subscribe as the full expression of his theological faith.[[189]]
More particularly, however, it was during the last summer, that I had the opportunity of coming to the most intimate knowledge of his Christian views and hopes, on the occasion of his returning home from Cape May, under an attack of a strange sickness which threatened at the time to carry him to the grave. The sickness was attended with but little bodily pain, and it left his mind perfectly clear and free, while yet it was of such a character as to produce in his own mind the strong impression that it would end in his death. In these solemn circumstances, I had interviews with him day after day for some time, in which I talked with him, and prayed with him, as a dying man; and in which he talked also most freely himself with regard to his own condition, giving utterance to his views and feelings in a way which furnished the most satisfactory and pleasing evidence that religion had become with him, indeed, a deeply-settled principle in the soul, and such a conviction of faith as could not be shaken by the powers either of earth or hell. Let it be sufficient here to say, that he was able to resign himself with full filial confidence and trust into the hands of God as a faithful Creator and Saviour, and that he found Him an all sufficient help in his time of need. At the same time, his faith was far more than a vague trust merely in God’s general goodness and mercy. It was most explicitly the humble, penitent reliance of one who knew himself to be a sinner, on the mercy of God secured to men through His Son Jesus Christ. At this time, especially, more than before, he was brought to see and feel the importance of simply looking to Jesus (in the spirit of St. John’s gospel and of the Apostle’s Creed), as being Himself the sum and substance of the whole Christian salvation. His mind fastened with peculiar interest on the text: “Lord to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that Thou art that Christ the Son of the living God.”[[190]]
Altogether it was a death-bed experience, full of tranquil light and peace, the calm evening sunset of a long life, which seemed to be itself but the brightening promise of a new and far better life beyond the grave.
His late sickness, which has now terminated in his death, was more prostrating for him throughout, both in body and in mind, than that of which I have just spoken. Through it all, however, his views and feelings in regard to religion he declared to be, in the prospect of quitting the world, just what he had over and over again witnessed them to be before. He bowed with entire submission to his Heavenly Father’s will. His last intelligible word, indeed, whispered in the ear of anxious affection bending over him, as he was turned somewhat painfully upon his bed, and felt, no doubt, that the end had come—after which he fell away into the gentle sleep that some hours later closed the scene—was the short Christian prayer: “O Lord, God Almighty, as Thou wilt!” Thus he passed away. His trust was in Christ crucified and risen from the dead, and in Christ alone. He died in the full faith of the gospel, and in the joyful hope of having part at last in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.
He sleeps in Jesus. Be this his epitaph; the last and crowning honor of his long, illustrious life; the richest ornament of his public, no less than of his private memory and name. Be this also the consolation of his sorrowful friends as they look upon that venerable majestic form here lying in state before us, and are called now to follow it in slow melancholy procession to the grave. We sorrow not as others, which have no hope; for if Jesus died and rose again, them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. The aged statesman has been gathered to his fathers full of years, like a shock of corn fully ripe and laden with fruit; he has served his country well, and enjoyed its honors largely, in his generation; he has left behind him a fair example of justice, benevolence, integrity and truth, a bright record indeed, of honorable and virtuous character in all respects. In all this we find matter for thankful satisfaction, and occasion for bowing in meek submission to the Divine will, which has now at last removed him from our sight. But, through all this, at the same time, we triumph and rejoice most of all, as Christians, in what we know to have been his Christian death, and in the assurance that we have, therefore, of his being still with us, and near to us, in Christ.
To Whom, now let us offer our united and unfeigned thanks for that victory over death and the grave, which he has obtained for us and for all who sleep in Him; while we pray also for power to follow the faith of those who have gone before us, “that we may enter at death into their joy, and so abide with them in rest and peace, till both they and we shall reach our common consummation of redemption and bliss in the glorious resurrection of the last day.” Amen.
The remains of James Buchanan lie in a beautiful rural cemetery near the city of Lancaster, beneath a simple monument, which records only the date of his birth and of his death, and the fact that he was the fifteenth President of the United States. It is well that the soil of Pennsylvania holds his ashes, for he was the most eminent statesman yet given by that great commonwealth to the service of the country since the Constitution of the United States was established.