Chapter II: Part 2

It is very true that letter-writing is not the chief business of life, not the only thing of importance in a counting-house, but it is an elegant accomplishment, and most desirable of attainment.

Let me say some words about shorthand writing. In this day of push and drive and hurry, when so many things must be done at once, there is an increasing demand for shorthand writers. In fact, business as now conducted cannot afford to do without this help. It often occurs that a principal in a business house cannot take the time to write long letters. Why should he? It does not pay to have one that is occupied in governing and controlling great interests, or in the receipt of a large salary, tied to a desk writing letters, or reports, or statements of any kind. He must _talk off_ these things; and he must be an educated man, whose mind is so disciplined to terse and accurate expression that his dictation may almost be taken to be final. He wants a clerk who can take down his words with literal accuracy, and who will be able to correct any errors that may have been spoken, and submit the complete paper to his chief for his signature. The demand for this kind of service is increasing every day, and some of you now listening to me will be so employed. See that you are ready for it when your opportunity comes.

If you get to be a clerk in a railroad office, or in an insurance company, or in a store, or in a bank, devote yourself to your particular duties, whatever they may be. And don’t be too particular as to what kind of work it is that falls to your lot. It may be work that you think belongs to the porter; no matter if it is, do it, and do it as well as the porter can, or even better.

Let none of you, therefore, think that anything you are likely to be called upon to do is beneath you. Do it, and do it in the best manner, and you may not have to do it for a long time.

Make yourself indispensable to your employer. You can do that; it is quite within your power, and it may be that you may get to be an employer yourself; indeed it is more than probable; but you must work for it.

If you get to be a book-keeper in any counting-house or public institution, remember that you are in a position of trust and responsibility. When you make errors do not erase the error; draw faint red or black lines through it and write correct characters over the error. Do not hide your errors of any kind. Do not misstate anything in language or figures. Everybody makes errors at some time or other, but everybody does not admit and apologize for them. The honest man is he who _does_ admit and apologize, and does so without waiting to be detected.

There have been of late some deplorable instances of betrayal of trust in our city. I may as well call it by its right name, stealing. The culprits are now suffering in prison the penalty for their crimes. While I am speaking to you there are men, young and _not_ young, in our city who are _now_ stealing, and who are falsifying their books in the vain hope that it may be kept secret; who are dreading the day when they will be caught; who cannot afford to take a holiday; who cannot afford to be sick, lest absence for a single day may disclose their guilt. What a horrible state of mind! They will go to their desks or their offices to-morrow morning, not knowing but it may be their last day in that place.

And the day will come, most surely, when _you_ will be tempted as these wretched ones have been tempted. In what shape the temptation may come, or when, no human being knows. The suggestion will be made, that by the use of a little money you may make a good deal; that the venture is perfectly safe; some one tells you so, and points to this one or that one who has tried it and made money. It is only a little thing; you can’t lose much; you _may_ make enough to pay for the cost of your summer holiday, or for your cigar bill, or your beer bill; or you will be able to smoke better cigars or drink better beer, or buy a gold watch, or a diamond ring, or anything else; _you can’t lose much_. You have no money of your own, it is true, but what is needed will not be missed if you take it out of the drawer. Shall you do it? No! Let nothing induce you to take the first dollar not your own. It is the _first_ step that counts.

But suppose you don’t care for this warning, or forget it. Suppose the time comes when you find that you _have_ taken something that was not yours, and that it is lost, and that you cannot repay it, what then? Why, go at once to your employer; tell him the whole story; keep back nothing; throw yourself upon his mercy, and ask forgiveness. Better now than later. You will assuredly be caught. There is no possibility of continuous concealment. Tell it now before you are detected, and, if you must be disgraced, the sooner the better.

Am I too earnest about this? Am I saying too much? Oh, boys, young men, if you knew the frightful danger that you may be in some day, the subtle temptations that will beset you, the many instances of weakness about you, the shipwrecks of character, the utter ruin that comes to sisters and to innocent wives and children by the crimes of brothers, husbands and fathers, as we who are older know, you would not wonder that I speak as I do.

Every case of breach of trust, every defalcation, weakens confidence in human character. For every such instance of wrong-doing is a stab at _your_ integrity if you are in a position of trust. Men of the fairest reputation, men who are trusted implicitly by their employers, men who are hedged about by the sacredness of domestic ties, on whom the happiness of helpless wives and innocent children depend, men who claim to be religious, go astray, step by step, little by little; they defraud, steal, lie, try to cover up their tracks, cannot do it long, are caught, tried, convicted, sentenced and imprisoned. Then the question may be asked about you or me: “How do we know that Mr. So-and-So is any better than those who have fallen?” Don’t you see that these culprits are enemies of the public confidence, enemies of society, _your_ enemies and _mine_?

If the names of those who are now serving out their sentences in the public prisons for stealing, not petty theft, but stealing and defrauding in larger sums, could be published in to-morrow morning’s papers, what a sad record it would be of dishonored names and blighted lives and ruined homes, and how the memory would recall some whom we knew in early youth, the pride of their parents, or the idol of fond wives and lovely children; and we should turn away with sickening horror from the record! But, if there should appear in the same papers the names of those who are _now engaged in stealing and defrauding_ and _falsifying entries_, who are not yet caught, but who may, before this year is out, be caught and convicted and punished, what a horrible revelation _that_ would be!

* * * * *

I close abruptly, for I cannot keep you longer.

But do not think that it is for your future in _this_ life only that I am concerned. Life does not end here, though it may seem to do so. Our life in this world is a mere _beginning_ of existence. It is the _future_, the _endless_ life before us, that we should prepare for; and no preparation is worth the name except that of a pure, an upright and honorable life, that depends for its support on the love and the fear of God. You must accept him as your Father, you must honor him and obey him, and so consecrating your young lives to his service, trust him to care for you with his infinite love and care.

ON THE DEATH OF WILLIAM WELSH,
_First President of the Board of City Trusts_.

February 22, 1878.

When I spoke to you last from this desk I tried to persuade you to adopt the thought so aptly set forth by one of the old Hebrew kings, Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. I little thought then that Mr. Welsh, who was one of the most conspicuous examples of working with all his might, and so much of whose work was done for you, whom you so often saw standing where I now stand, I little thought that his work on earth was so nearly done. Last Sunday he addressed you here. One, two, three services he conducted for the boys of this college, one in the infirmary, one in the refectory for the new boys, and one in this chapel. I venture to say from my knowledge of his method of doing things that these services were all conducted in the best manner possible to him; that he did not spare his strength; that there was nothing weak or undecided in his acts or speech, but that he took hold of his subject with a firm grasp, and did not let go until the service was finished. It is very natural that we should desire to know as much as we can about a life that has come so close to us as the life of Mr. Welsh, and to learn, if we may, what it was that made him the man that he was. The thousands of people that gathered in and about St. Luke’s Church on the day of the funeral, as many of you saw; the very large number of citizens of the highest distinction who united in the solemn services; the profound interest manifested everywhere among all classes of society; the closing of places of business at the hour of these services; the flags at half-mast, all these circumstances, so unusual, so impressive, assured us that no common man had gone from among us. What was it that made him no common man? What was there in his life and character that lifted him above the ordinarily successful merchant? In other places, and by those most competent to speak, will the complete picture of his life be drawn, but what was there in his life which particularly interests you college boys? It will surprise you probably when I tell you that his early education――the education of the schools――was very limited. He was not a college-bred man. At a very early age (as early as fourteen, I believe) he left school and went into his father’s store. You know that he could not have had much education at that age. And he went into the store, not to be a gentleman clerk to sit in the counting-house and copy letters and invoices, and do the bank business and lounge about in fine clothing, but he went to do anything that came to hand, rough and smooth, hard and easy, dirty and clean, for in those days the duties of a junior clerk differed from those of a porter only in this, that the young clerk’s work was not so heavy as the robust porter’s. And even when he grew older and stronger he would go down into the hold of a vessel and vie with the strong stevedore in the shifting and placing of cargoes. And the days were long then: there were no office hours from nine to three o’clock, but merchants and their clerks dined near the middle of the day, and were back at their stores, their warehouses, in the afternoon and stayed and worked until the day was done. So this young clerk worked all day, and went home at night tired and hungry, to rest, to sleep and to go through the next day and the next in the same manner. But not only to rest and sleep. The body was tired enough with the long day’s work, but the mind was not tired. He early knew the importance of mental discipline, of mental cultivation. He knew that a half-educated man is no match for one thoroughly equipped, and so he set himself to the task of making up, as far as he could, for that deficiency of systematic education which his early withdrawal from school made him regret so much. What definite means or methods he resorted to to accomplish this I cannot tell you, for I have not learned; but the fact that he did very largely overcome this most serious disadvantage is apparent to all who have ever met him. He was a cultivated gentleman, thoroughly at ease in circles where men must be well informed or be very uncomfortable. As the President of this Board of Trustees, having for his associates gentlemen of the highest professional and general culture, he was quite equal to any exigency which ever arose. All this you must know was the result of education, not that which was imparted to him in the schools, but that which he acquired himself after his school life. He was careful about his associates. Then, as now, the streets were alive with boys and young men of more than questionable character. And the thought which has come up in many a boy’s mind after his day’s work was done, must have come up in his mind: “Why should I not stroll about the streets with companions of my own age and have a good time? Why should I be so strict while others have more freedom and enjoy themselves so much more?” I have no doubt that he had his enjoyments, and that he was a free, hearty boy in them all, but I cannot suppose, for his after life gave no evidence of it, his general good health, his muscular wiry frame forbade the thought, I cannot suppose his youthful pleasures passed beyond that line which separates the good from the bad, the pure from the impure. Few evils are so great as that of evil companions.

William Welsh was not afraid of work. I mean by that he was not lazy. A large part of the failures in life are attributable to the love of ease. We choose the soft things; we turn away from those which are hard. We are deterred by the abstruse, the obscure; we are attracted by the simple, the plain. A really strong character will grapple with any subject; a weak one shrinks from a struggle. A character naturally weak may be developed by culture and discipline into one of real strength, but the process is very slow and very discouraging. A life that is worth anything at all, that impresses itself on other lives, on society, must have these struggles, this training. I do not know minutely the characteristics of Mr. Welsh’s early life in this particular, but I infer most emphatically that his strong character was formed by continuous, laborious, exacting self-application.

I would now speak of that quality which is so valuable (I will not say so rare), so conspicuously and so immeasurably important, personal integrity. Mr. Welsh possessed this in the highest degree. He was most emphatically an honest man. No thought of anything other than this could ever have entered into the mind of any one who knew him. All men knew that public or private trusts committed to him were safe. Mistakes in judgment all are liable to, but of conscious deflection from the right path in this respect he was incapable. His high position as President of the Board of City Trusts, which includes, among other large properties, the great estate left by Mr. Girard to the city of Philadelphia, proves the confidence this community had in his personal character. His private fortune was used as if he were a trustee. He recognized the hand of God in his grand success as a merchant, and he felt himself accountable to God for a proper expenditure. If he enjoyed a generous mode of living for himself and his family――a manner of life required by his position in the community――he more than equalized it by his gifts to objects of benevolence. He was conscientious and liberal (rare combination) in his benefactions, for he felt that he held his personal property in trust.

Such are a few of the traits in the character of the man whose life on earth was so suddenly closed on Monday last. Under Providence, by which I mean the blessing of God, that blessing which is just as much within your reach as his, these are some of the conditions of his extraordinary success. His self-culture, the choice of his companions his persistent industry, his integrity, his religion, made the man what he was. I cannot here speak of his work in that church which he loved so much. I do not speak with absolute certainty, but I have reason to believe that, next to his own family, his affections were placed on you. He could never look into your faces without having his feelings stirred to their profoundest depths. He loved you――in the best, the truest sense, he loved you. He was willing to give any amount of his time, his thought, his care, to you. The time he spent in the chapel was a very small part of the time he gave to his work for you. You were upon his heart constantly. I do not know――no one can know――but if it be possible for the spirits of just men made perfect to revisit the scenes of earth――to come back and look upon those they loved so much when in the flesh――I am sure his spirit is here to-day――this, his first Sabbath in Heaven――looking into your faces, as he often did when he went in and out among you, and wishing that all of you may make such use of your grand opportunity here as will insure your success in the life which is before you when you leave these college walls, and especially as will insure your entering into the everlasting life. Such was his life, full of activity, generosity, self-denial, eminently religious, in the best sense successful. He was never at rest; his heart was always open to human sympathy; he denied nothing except to himself. He wanted everybody to be religious. He died in the harness; no time to take it off; no wish to take it off. But in the front, on the advance, not in retreat. He never turned his back on anything that was right. His eye was not dim; his natural force was not abated. Death came so swiftly that it seemed only stepping from one room in his Father’s house to another. We are reminded of the beautiful words in which Mr. Thackeray describes the death of Colonel Newcome in the hospital of the Charter House School, after a life spent in fighting the enemies of his country abroad, and the enemies of the good in society at home. “At the usual evening hour the chapel bell began to toll and Thomas Newcome’s hands outside the bed feebly beat time. And just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face. He lifted up his head a little and quickly said _Adsum_, and fell back. It was the word they used at school when names were called, and lo, he, whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name and stood in the presence of ‘The Master.’”

BAD ASSOCIATES.

November 11, 1888.

I wish to speak to you to-day about the danger of evil company, a danger to which you will necessarily be exposed when you go out from this college to make your way in life.

The desire for companionship sometimes leads people, and especially young people, into bad company. A boy finds himself associated with a schoolmate, a fellow-apprentice or fellow-clerk, who is attractive in manners, full of fun, but who is not what he ought to be in character.

No one is entirely bad; almost all persons old or young have some points that are not repulsive, and sometimes the very bad are attractive in some respects. A comparatively innocent boy is thrown into such company, and, at first, he sees nothing in the conduct of his new friends which is particularly out of the way. The conversation is somewhat guarded, the jokes and stories are not specially bad, and, for a time, nothing occurs to shock his feelings; but, after a while, the mask is thrown off and the true character is revealed. Then very soon the mind of the pure, innocent boy receives impressions that corrupt and defile it. All that is polluting in talk and story and song is poured out. Books and papers, so vile that it is a breach of law to sell them, are read and quoted without bringing a blush to the cheek, and, before his parents are aware of the danger, the mind and heart of their son are so polluted and depraved that no human power can save him.

I very well remember a boy older than myself who, early in life, gave himself up to vile company and vile books and vile habits, and who, long ago――almost as soon as he reached an early manhood――sunk, under the weight of his sinful habits, into a dishonored grave, but not until he had defiled and depraved many a boy who came under his influence. Better would it have been for his companions if their daily walks and playgrounds had been infested with venomous serpents, to bite and sting their bare feet, than to associate with a boy whose heart was full of all uncleanness.

It is dangerous to make such friendships. Circumstances may throw us among them; the providence of God may send us there, but we ought never to _seek_ such company, except for good purposes. What I mean is that we ought not to seek such associates, however agreeable they may be in other respects, and not to remain among them except for their good.

There are wicked people in every community, of all ages. We cannot altogether avoid contact with them. We find them among our schoolmates and in the walks of business.

Many a young man, many a boy, has been forever ruined by evil companions. A corrupt literature is bad enough, but evil companions are more numerous and, if possible, more fatal. Bad books and papers have slain their thousands; bad companions have slain their ten thousands. I can recall the names of many who were led away, step by step, down the broad road that leads to destruction, by companions genial, attractive, but corrupt.

There are some companions from whom you cannot separate yourselves. They are with you continually; at home and abroad, in school or at play, by day and by night, asleep and awake, they are always with you. There is no solitude so deep that they cannot find you, no crowd so great that they will ever lose you. No matter who else is with you, they will not――cannot――be kept away. I mean _your own thoughts_, your bosom companions. Shall they be EVIL companions or GOOD? Ah! you know who, and who only, can answer this question.

I once went through a monastery in the old city of Florence, in Italy. It was a retreat for men who were tired of the world, or who felt so unequal to the strife and conflict of life in the world that they believed peace could be found only in retirement. The house was of the order of St. Francis. One of the monks took me into his cell, and I sat down and talked with him. It was a very small room――one door, one window, bare walls, a small table, two wooden chairs, a few books, a crucifix, a washstand, and some pieces of crockery; and that was all. In this room he lived, never to leave it except to go to the chapel, just across the corridor, and to walk in the cloisters for exercise; here he expected to die. It seemed very dreary and lonely to me. But I thought, if this were a certain and sure way of escaping from evil thoughts, and the only way, men may well submit to the confinement, the solitude, the monotony, the dreariness of this way of life. But, alas! it is not so. No close and narrow cell, no iron doors, no bolts and bars, can shut out our thoughts, for they are a part of ourselves: they _are_ ourselves; for, “as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

Some years ago a country lad left his home to seek his fortune in the city. His mother was dead and his father broken in health and in fortune. The boy reached the city full of high hopes, promising his father that he would do his best to succeed in whatever fell to his lot to do. He was tall, strong and good-looking. A place was soon found for him, and until he was better able to support himself he found a home with some friends. He was a boy of good mind but with a very imperfect education, and he seemed inclined to make up for this in part by reading during his leisure hours. The situation found for him was in a large commercial house, where everything was conducted in the best manner and on the highest principles. Here he made rapid progress and was soon able to contribute to the support of those he had left at home in the country. He became interested in serious things, united with the Sunday-school, and after a while made a profession of religion. Everything went well with him for several years, until he fell in with some boys near his own age, who had been brought up under very different circumstances. Two or three of these were inclined towards skepticism in religious things, and their reading was quite unlike that to which this boy had been accustomed. Some fascination of manner about them attracted the lad to their society, and he grew less and less fond of his truest and best friends. He became irregular in his attendance at the Sunday-school, and when remonstrated with by his teacher and friends had no candid and manly answer for them. After a while he ceased going to church entirely, spending his time at his lodgings reading profane and immoral books or in the society of his new companions. Then he found his way with these friends (so he called them, but they were really his greatest enemies) to taverns and even to worse places, reading a corrupt literature and thinking he was strengthening his mind and broadening his views. A little further on and his habits grew worse, and became the subject of observation and remark. His early friends interposed, talked kindly with him and received his promise to turn away from his evil associates (who had well-nigh ruined him) and to lead a better life. He promised well, and for a time things with him were better. But after a while he fell away again into his old ways and with his old tempters, and before his friends were aware of it he disappeared and went abroad. Then letters were received from him. He was without means; he found it hard to get employment; he had no references, and the people among whom he found himself were distrustful of strangers.

One of his friends to whom he wrote for a letter of recommendation replied something like this:

“It is impossible for me to give you a letter of recommendation except with qualification. If you are seeking employment it is your duty to make a candid statement of your condition. Make a clean breast of it. Keep nothing back. Say that you had a good situation; that you were growing with the growth of your employers; that your salary had been advanced twice within the year; that one of the partners was your friend; that he had stood by you in your earlier youth; that he had extricated you from embarrassment and would have helped you again when needed, and that in an evil hour you forgot this, and your duty to him and to the house which sustained you; that you left your place without your father’s knowledge and well-nigh or quite broke his heart, and that all this grew out of your love of bad associates and your love of drink, and that while under this infatuation you went astray with bad women; and that in very despair of your ability to save yourself, and ashamed to meet your employers, you sought other scenes in the hope that in a new field and with new associates you could reform.

“If you say this or something like this to a Christian man, little as you affect to think of Christianity, his heart will open to you and you can then look him frankly in the face, and have no concealments from him. Any other course than this will only prolong your agony, and in the end plunge you in deeper shame and disgrace. If you will take this advice, you may yet make a man of yourself, and no one will be more rejoiced than myself or more ready to help you. Read the parable of the prodigal son every day; don’t think so much of your fancied mental ability; get down off your stilts and be a man, a humble, penitent man, and make your father’s last days cheerful, instead of blasting his life.

“You see that I am in earnest and that I feel a deep interest in you, else I would have thrown your letter to me into the fire.”

I believe that this young man’s fall was due entirely to the influence of his foolish, bad companions. And I know that this sad history is the record of many others; in fact, that the same experience awaits all who think it a light matter what company they keep, and who drift on the current with no purpose except to find pleasure, without regard to their duty to God. When I see, as I so often do, young men standing at the corners of the streets, or lounging against lamp-posts, and catch a word as I pass, very often profane or indecent, I know very well that a work of ruin is going on there, which, if unchecked, will certainly lead to destruction. And I wonder whether these boys and young men have parents or sisters, who love them and who yet allow them to pass unwarned down the road that leads to death.

But there are other companions, foolish, bad companions, besides those that appear to us in bodily form. They confront us in the printed page. You read a book or a pamphlet or paper which is full of dialogue. Such books are often more attractive than a plain narrative with little conversation. You enter fully, even if unconsciously, into the spirit of the story. The characters are real to you. You seem to see the forms before you; you make a picture of each in your mind, so that if you were an artist you could paint the portrait of each one. Sometimes the dialogue is full of profanity, and though you make no sound as you read, you are really pronouncing each word in your mind. And every time you say a bad word, in your mind, you defile your heart. You are in effect listening to bad words not spoken by other people merely, but spoken by yourself, and before you are aware of it you will be in the habit of thinking oaths when you are afraid to speak them out. It is even worse, if possible, when the language is obscene. Now do you ever think that when you are reading such wretched stuff you are in effect associating with the characters whose talk you are listening to, and without rebuke? They are thieves, pirates, burglars, dissolute, the very worst of society, even murderers. You may not have the courage to rebuke those who are defiling the very air with their foul talk; you may be too cowardly even to turn away from such company lest they sneer at you; but what do you say of a boy who deliberately, and after being warned, reads by stealth such stuff as I have described? Is there any one here who would be guilty of such conduct?

These evils of which I am speaking, and I do so most reluctantly, for these are not pleasant subjects――are not mere theories. They are sad realities. It was my ill fortune in my boyhood to know some boys who were essentially corrupt. Their minds were cages of unclean birds. They were inexpressibly vile. And it is this fear of the evil that one sinner may do among young boys that leads me to say what I do on this most painful subject. Oh, boys, if I can persuade you to turn away from foolish company, from bad associates, I shall feel that I am doing indeed a blessed work. For what is the object, the purpose of all this that is said to you? It is to make men of you and to give you grace and strength to assert your manhood. It is to build you up on the foundation of a substantial education, and so prepare you for the life that is before you here and for that life which is beyond. But the education of text-books illustrated by the best instructors is not enough; it is not all you need for the great work of your lives. You must be ready when you are equipped not only to take care of yourselves, but to help those who may be dependent upon you, for you are not to live for yourselves. And you cannot be fully equipped unless you have the blessing of Almighty God on your work and on your life.

I want you to be successful men, and no man can be a successful man, in the highest and best sense, unless he is a religious man. How can one expect to make his way in life as he ought, without the blessing of God? And how can one expect the blessing of God who does not ask God for his blessing? Prayers in the church are not enough; the reading of the Scriptures in the church is not enough; you must read the Scriptures for yourselves; you must pray for yourselves and each one for himself, as well as for others.

ON THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD.

September 25, 1881.

I wish to lead your thoughts to one of the strangest things――one of the most difficult things to understand, which has ever occurred. On the second day of July last the President of the United States, when about to step into a railway train which was to carry him North, where he was to attend a college commencement, at the college where he was graduated, was shot down by an assassin.

I say it is one of the strangest things, because the President did not know the assassin, and had never injured him nor any of his friends. There was absolutely no motive for the hideous deed.

I say it is most difficult to understand, because we believe that Divine Providence overrules all events, holds all power, and we wonder why He permitted the wretch to do so deplorable a deed.

President Garfield was no ordinary man. He was emphatically a man of the people. He was born in a log-cabin which his father had built with his own hands. It was a very small house, twenty feet by thirty. When James was two years old, his father died, late in the autumn, and this boy with three other children were all dependent upon their mother for a support. How the lone widow passed that winter we do not know; but when the spring came there was a debt to be paid, and part of the farm had to go to pay it. About thirty acres of the clearing were left, and this little farm was worked by the mother and her oldest son. Only those who have lived on a farm in the country know how hard the work is. When James was five years old he was sent to school, a mile and a half away, and as this was a very long walk for so young a boy, his sister often carried the little boy on her back.

After a while the boy tried to learn the carpenter’s trade, and in this effort he spent two years or so, going to school at intervals and studying at spare hours at home. So he mastered grammar, arithmetic and geography. After that he became a sort of general help and book-keeper for a manufacturer in the neighborhood at $14 per month “and found,” and this was to him a very great advance. But not being well treated there, he soon left and took to chopping wood――at one time cutting about twenty-five cords for some $7. Then having read some tales of the sea, sailors’ stories, such as you have often read, he wanted to be a sailor; but when he applied for a place on the great lake, he looked so like a landsman from the country that no captain would engage him. So he went to the canal, and found employment in leading or driving horses or mules on the tow-path. But he was soon promoted to be a deck-hand and steersman, and often falling into the water (once almost being drowned) and meeting some other mishaps, he concluded that “following the water” was not his forte, and he abandoned it. By this time he had saved some money, and his brother Thomas lent him some more, and with another young man and a cousin he went to a neighboring town to the academy. These young fellows rented a room, borrowed some simple cooking utensils, a table and some chairs, made beds and filled them with straw, and set up house-keeping, and went to the academy.

Young Garfield spent three years at this academy, doing odd jobs of carpenter work when he could, and so eking out a living. Then he went to an eclectic institute, and paid his way in part by doing the janitor’s work of sweeping the floor and making the fires. Here he prepared himself to enter the junior class in a higher college, and, after some delay, he entered that class in Williams College, Massachusetts.

While pursuing his college course at Williams he filled his vacations by teaching in district schools in the neighborhood until his graduation, in 1856, at twenty-five years of age――quite advanced, you see, in years for a college graduate.

Then he went back as a teacher to his eclectic institute, became a professor of Greek and Latin, and then at twenty-eight years of age became a Senator in the Ohio Legislature. When the war broke out in 1861, while still a member of the State Senate, the Government commissioned him as colonel of a regiment, and he did good service in the State of Kentucky in driving out the rebels. In a few months he was promoted to be brigadier-general. So he went on distinguishing himself wherever he was placed, and, having been assigned for duty to the Army of the Cumberland, fighting his last battle at Chickamauga, his gallantry was so conspicuous and so successful that within a fortnight he was made a major-general.

While in the army he was elected representative to Congress, and on December 5, 1863, he took his seat in the House, the youngest member of Congress.

Some time after this, the war still going on, he wished to rejoin the army, but President Lincoln would not permit it, on the ground that his military knowledge would be invaluable to the government. After serving seventeen years in the House of Representatives, at times Chairman of most important committees, he was elected to the Senate, but before he took his seat he was nominated for the Presidency, and last November was elected by a large majority to that high office.

On the 4th of March last he was inaugurated, and four months afterwards (July 2d) he fell by the hand of an assassin.

You know how during this long, dry, hot summer he has been lying in Washington until the last two weeks, hanging between life and death; and you know how tenderly and lovingly he has been nursed; how gently he was removed to the sea, in the hope that a change of air and scene would do what the best surgical and medical skill had failed to do; and you know how last Monday night, while you were sleeping soundly in your beds, the bells of our city and all over the land were tolling the tidings of his death.

He was a good man――in many respects as well qualified to fill the Presidential chair as any man who has ever sat in it. So I say it is most difficult to understand why he was taken away.

Like all of you he lost his father by death at an early age; as is the case with all of you his mother was poor. He struggled hard for an education, and he acquired it, who knows at what a cost! He was never satisfied with present attainments; he was always on the advance. At an early age he gave himself to the Lord, joining the church; and as that branch of the church does not believe in the necessity of ordination for the ministry he preached the Gospel as a layman, as the great Faraday preached in London and as Christian laymen preach the same truths to you, and it was my purpose, formed when he was elected in November last, to persuade him, some time when he might be passing through Philadelphia, to come to this chapel and address you boys. This, alas, now can never be.

President Garfield loved his mother. No more touching incident was ever witnessed than that which hundreds of people saw on inauguration day, when, after taking the oath of his high office, he turned immediately to his dear old mother and kissed her.

Our great sorrow is not felt by us alone. All nations mourn with us. The Queen of Great Britain with her own hand sends messages of the sweetest, the most touching sympathy. She, too, is a widow and her children are fatherless. She sends flowers for Mrs. Garfield and puts her court in mourning, a compliment never extended before except in the case of death in a royal family. Other European and Asiatic and African governments send their sympathy――they all feel it――they all deplore it. Emblems of mourning are displayed in every street in our city, and every heart is sad. The people mourn.

Boys, you may not be Presidents――probably not one here will ever be at the head of this nation; nor is this of any moment; but remember it was not only as President of the United States that General Garfield was wise and good――it was in every place where he was put; whether in school, in college, in teaching, in the army, in Congress, in the President’s chair, in his family and on his sick and dying bed, languishing and suffering, wasting and burning with fever, exhausted by wounds cruel and undeserved, he was always the same brave, true, real man.

Some of you know with what profound and tender interest people gathered in places of prayer that Tuesday morning to ask that the journey from Washington to Long Branch might be safe and prosperous, and how the hope was expressed, almost to assurance, that the Saviour would meet his disciple by the sea. The prayer was granted. The Lord did meet his disciple, not, as was so much desired, with gifts of healing; nothing short of a miracle could do that, but by a more complete preparation of the people for the final issue. It came at last. And while many of us were sleeping quietly, telegraphic messages were flashing the sad intelligence everywhere that, at last, he was at rest.

Now that we know that he is taken away, we stand in awe and amazement. We cannot yet understand it.

Shall we gather a few lessons from his life? Some of the most apparent may be mentioned very briefly.

The simplicity of his character is most interesting. Conscious as he must have been of the possession of no ordinary mental force, he was never obtrusive nor self-assertive. What seemed to be his duty he did, with purpose and completeness. And his associates often placed him in positions of high trust and responsibility.

He was an accomplished scholar. Even while engrossed in Congressional duties, to a degree which left him little or no time for recreation, he did not fail to keep himself fresh in classic literature. It is said that a friend returning from Europe, and desiring to bring him some little present, could think of nothing more acceptable than a few volumes of the Latin poets.

When his life comes to be written by impartial hands, it will be found that along with his great simplicity and his high culture there will be most prominent his devotion to principle. This was his great characteristic. I have no time, and this is not the place, to speak of his adherence, under strong adverse influences, to his sound views on the great currency question which has occupied so much the attention of Congress.

In a not very remote sense his death is to be attributed to his devotion to principle. That great and most discreditable contest at Albany might have been settled weeks before it was, although in a very different manner, if the President could have yielded his convictions. He did not yield, and he was slain.

The funeral services in the capitol are over and the men whom Mrs. Garfield chose as the bearers of her husband’s coffin were not members of the cabinet, nor senators, nor judges of the Supreme Court, any of whom would have been honored by such a service, but they were plain men, of names unknown to us, members of his own little church.

They are gone. They have taken his worn and wasted and mutilated form, all that remains in this world of the strong, pure life that was not yet fifty years old, to the beautiful city by the lake, and there within sight and almost within sound of the waves of the great inland sea, they will to-morrow lay him to rest until the morning of the resurrection.

* * * * *

What use shall we make of this deplorable calamity? Shall our faith in the prevalence of prayer be weakened? God forbid that we should so distort his teachings. “Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?”

Our prayers are answered, not as we wished, and almost insisted, but in softening the hearts of the people and drawing them as they have never before been drawn towards the Great Ruler of the universe, and in uniting the people, and also in promoting a better feeling between the different sections of our country than has been known for half a century. And if, in addition to this, the people would only learn to abate that passion for office which has been so fatal to peace, and would be content to allow fitness for office to be the only rule of appointment, then a true civil service would be a heritage for the securing of which even the sacrifice of a President would seem not too great a price.

“And the archers shot at King Josiah, and the king said to his
servants, Have me away for I am sore wounded. His servants
therefore took him out of that chariot, and put him in the
second chariot that he had, and they brought him to Jerusalem,
and he died and was buried. And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned
for Josiah.” 2 Chron. xxxv. 23, 24.

THE CASE OF THE UNEDUCATED EMPLOYED.

March 25, 1888.

A distinguished lawyer of our city delivered an address before one of the societies in the venerable University of Harvard on this subject: “The Case of the Educated Unemployed.” With an intimate knowledge of his subject, and with rare felicity of thought and expression, he set before his audience, most of whom were either in the learned professions or preparing to enter them, the overcrowded condition of those professions, especially that of the law, a preparation for which is supposed to imply a more or less thorough academic or collegiate education.

I have a different task; for I would show the importance of education to the workers with the hand, whether in the mills, the shops, or among the various trades and occupations. By education I do not mean that of the colleges, or of the common schools merely, but also that which is acquired sometimes without the advantage of any schools. And I particularly desire to show that an uneducated worker, whatever be his work, is at an immense disadvantage with one who is engaged in the same kind of work, and who is more or less educated.

A mechanic may be well trained; may have more than his share of brains; may be highly successful in his business; indeed, may have acquired a large property, and have very high credit, and may hardly know how to write his name. A man may have scores or hundreds of men in his employment, and be conducting business on a very large scale, indeed, and yet be so ignorant of accounts that he is entirely at the mercy of his book-keeper, and may be so defrauded as to be on the very brink of ruin and not know it until it is almost too late. In the course of a long business life more than one such case has come under my observation. A man may be partially educated, able to cast up accounts, able to keep books by double entry (and no other kind of book-keeping is worthy of the name), and yet not be able to write a simple agreement in good English, nor understand clearly the meaning of such a paper when written by another.

Very many of the business failures that occur are due to the fact that the person or firm did not know how to keep accounts. This is not confined to people of small business. How often after a failure are we told “that the man was very much surprised at his condition; he thought he was all right; he could not account for his failure, and that in a short time he would have his books in such a shape that he would be able to make a statement to his creditors and ask their advice. It would require ten days or so, however, before he could tell how he stood.” Why, if the man had been an educated business man, and an honest man, he would have known in twenty-four hours how he stood.

The great majority of people who are employed are not educated. They do not know how to do in the best manner, that which they have to do. Perhaps a good definition of education, as the word is applied to a working man, may be that he knows how to do that which he has to do, in the very best way.

Education may be of three kinds, viz.:

That of the _schools_.

_Self-education._

That of _trade_ or _business_.

_That of the schools._ And this is the best of all; for the whole of one’s time is given to it; and if you are so inclined you may go through the whole course, as provided in this school. And all this with text-books, instruments and other appliances, absolutely free of cost. A boy, therefore, who passes through the entire course of study here, has superior opportunities of acquiring a most substantial education.