Memorial Day

Ou Monday, the 27tli, business was I suspended in Washington, and heads I of departments, senators, congressmen, I and all who had hope of obtaining 1 trance to the Capítol, were on the alert I to obtain an eligible sitting. Among the noted men sat the historian Bancroft, while Cyrus Field of New York, was seated next to President Arthur. I Af ter the reading of the resolutions and prayer, Vice-President Davis introduced the orator of the day, retary Blaine. THE ABDKESS Opened with a brief genesis of the Garfield family, reviewing the early life of the late President, his educational advantages, army record, conaressional career, etc. As to intellect I real growth and development as an orator, Mr. Blaine said Mr. GarQeld held I very high rank. More, perhaps, than any man with whom he was associated in Dublic Ufe, he gave caref ui and tematic study to public questions and i he carne to every discussion in which 1 he took part with elabórate and complete preparation. He was a steady and indefatigable worker. Those who imagine that talent or genius can supply the place or achieve the results of labor will flnd no encouragement in Garfleld's life. In preliminary work he was apt, rapid, and skillful. He possessed in a high degree the power of readily absorbing ideas and facts, and, like Dr. Johnson, had the art of getting f rom a book all that was of value in it by a reading apparently so quick and cursory that it seemed like a mere glance at the table of contents. Comparing Garfield with the th re e great parliamentarians, Clay, Douglas ana Stevens, Mr. Blaine said: Trom these three great men Gariïeld differed radically, differed in the quality of his mind, in temperament, in the form and nhase of ambition. He could not do what they did, but he could do what they could not, and in the breadth of his congressional work he left that which vvill longer exert a potential fluence among men, and wlnch, measurecl by the severe test of posthumous criticism, will secure :i more enduring and more enviable fame. DEALT WITII IDEAS. Upon bis entrance upon executive life President GarQeld said: "I have been dealing all these years with ideas, and herel am dealing only witfe persons. I have been heretofore treating of the fundamental principies of government and here I am considering all day whether A or B shall be appointed to this or tliat office." He was earnestly seeking some practical way of Qorrecting the evils arising from the tion of overgrown and unwieldy patronage -evils always appreciated and of ten discussed by him, but whose magnitude had been more deeply impressed upon his mind since his aecession to the presideney. liad he Hved, a compreheusive improvement in the mode of appointment and in the tenure of office would have been propc 'd by him, and vsith the aid of congrers no doubt perfeted. Garüeld's ambition for the success of his administration was high. With strong caution and couservatism in his nature, he was in nodangerof attempting rash experimenta or of resorting to the enipiricism of statesmahship. But he believed that rene wed andcloser attention should be given to questions affecting the material interests and commercial prospecta of 50,000,000 of neople. He was au American in all bis aspirations, and he looked to the destiny and influence of the United States with the philosophic composure of Jefferson and the demonstrative confldence of John Adams. THE rOLITICAL DISÏURBANCE. The political events which disturbed the Presidentas serenity for many weeks before the fatal day in July, form an important chapter in his career, and in his own judgment, involved questions of principie and of right which are itally essen tial totheconstitutional administration of the federal government. Detail is not needful, and personal antagonisni sliall not be kindlcd by any word uttered to-day. The motives of those opposing him are not to be here adverseiy interpreted nor their course harshly characterized. But of the dead President this is to be said, and said because his own speech ia forever silenced and he can be no more heard except through the fldelity and love of surviving friends: From the beginning to the end of the controversy he so much deplored, the President was never for one moment actuated by any motive of gain to himself or of loss to others. Least of all men did he harbor revenge, rarely did he even show resentment, and malice was not in his nature. There was not an hour from the beginning of the trouble till the fatal shot entered his body, when the President would not gladly, for the sake of restoring harmony, have retraced any step he had taken if such retracing had merely involved consequences personal to himself. But af ter most anxious deliberation and the coolest survey of all the circumstances, he solemnly believed that the true preiogatives of the executive were involved in the issue which had been raised, and that he would beunfaithf ui to his supreme obligation if he failed to maintain, in all their vigor, the constituI tional rights and lignities of his great office. THE END. The speaker referred to the assassination and weary weeks of pain and suffering, closing his address in the following classic language: As the end drew near, his early craving for the sea returned. The stately mansion of power had been to him the weary hospital of pain, and he begged to be taken from its prison walls, from its oppresive, stifling air, from its homelessaess and its hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the great sufferer to the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God should will, within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face, tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked out wistfully upon the ocean's changing v, ouders ; on its far sails, whitening in the morning light ; on its restless waves, rushing shoreward to break and die beneath the noonday sun ; on the red clouds of evening, arching low to the horizon ; on the serene and shining stars. Let us think that his dying eyes read a mystic meaning which inly the rapt and parting soul may know. Let us believe that in the silence of the receding world he heard the great waves breaking on a further shore, and feit already upon his wasted brow, the breath of the eternal morning. Abraham Lincoln was good at telling anecdotes; but bere is one told of him, by his old f'riend and 1 bor, Rev. Dr. Mincr, long pastor of' j the Baptist cliurch in Hpringfield, which does credit both to Lincoln's I heart, as a maD, aml to his heatl as a I lawver: "lie told me tliat lie would never take a case unless lie believed that there was Bomething in it. He 1 queatly advised people not to go to I law, but to leave ttieir difticulties to I 1 arbitration. A larmeroncesa'ütome: 'Do you know why it is that I, who I have been a Democrat all my life, am I I going to vote for Mr. Lincoln? I will j 1 tell you. I once had got into difiiculty I I with a neighbor about the line between I our farms. I went to Mr. liincoln to secure him. Mr. L. said, 'Now i f you 1 go on with this, it will cost bothof you your farms, and will entail au enmity that will last for fenerations, and, perhaps lead to muraer. The other man has just been here to eugage me. Now I want you two to sit down in my oflice while I am gone to dioner, and talk it over and try to settle ït. Ana to secure you from any interruption, I will lockthe door.' He did so, and he did ! not return all the af ternoon. We two 1 men, fmdingourselvesshut up together, I began to laugh. This put us in a good humor, and, Dy the time Mr. L. returnI ed, the matter was settled.' "