"The Christian character of Gen. Garfield can not, with propriety, be omitted in a glance, however brief, at his remarkable career. Those who knew him best in the midst of his ambition and his worldly hopes will not fail now at his tomb to bear their testimony to his faith in God and his love for the teachings of the blessed Nazarene.
"It seems but yesterday that I saw him last, and parted from him in all the glory of his physical and mental manhood. His eye was full of light, his tread elastic and strong, and the world lay bright before him. He talked freely of public men and public affairs. His resentments were like sparks from the flint. He cherished them not for a moment. Speaking of one who, he thought, had wronged him, he said to me, that, sooner or later, he intended to pour coals of fire on his head by acts of kindness to some of his kindred. He did not live to do so, but the purpose of his heart has been placed to his credit in the book of eternal life"
A correspondent of the New York Tribune suggests that the following lines, from Pollok's "Course of Time," apply with remarkable fitness to his glorious career:
"Illustrious, too, that morning stood the man
Exalted by the people to the throne
Of government, established on the base
Of justice, liberty, and equal right;
Who, in his countenance sublime, expressed
A nation's majesty, and yet was meek
And humble; and in royal palace gave