appalling! but I would rather a thousand times have been on that train that dark night, and taken that awful leap and met my God as I believe Mr. and Mrs. Bliss have met Him, than to have the wealth of worlds and die without God and hope! Oh, if you are not ready, make ready just now! I think a great many tears should be shed for the sins of the past year. If you take my advice you will not go out of this tabernacle this night until you have tasted repentance and the joy of sins forgiven. Go into the inquiry-room and ask some of the Christian people to tell you the way of life, to tell you what to do to be saved. Say "I want to be ready to meet my God to-night, for I don't know the day or the hour He may summon me."

I may be speaking to some this afternoon who are hearing me for the last time. In a few days I will be gone. My friends, to you I want to lift up my warning voice once again. I want to speak as to brethren beloved, hastening on to judgment: "Prepare to meet thy God." I beg of you, I beseech of you, this moment, don't let the closing hours, these closing moments of '76 pass, until you are born of God-born of the Spirit, born from death. This day, if you scek God, you shall find Him. This day if you, turn from sin and repent, God is ready to receive you. Let me say He never will be more willing than to-day and you'll never have more power than to-day. If you are ready, He is ready now to receive and bless you forever! Oh, may the God of our fathers have compassion upon every soul assembled here! May our eyes be opened, and all flee from the wrath to come! May the Divine warnings take hold on every soul! May we profit by this sad calamity, and may many be raised up in eternity to thank God that this meeting was ever held!

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,
J. A. GARFIELD.

DEATH IN THE SIGHT OF ALL THE PEOPLE.

WM. M. TAYLOR, D.D.

IN BROADWAY TABERNACLE NEW YORK.

They went up into Mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation. And Moses stripped Aaron of his garments, and put them on Eleazar his son; and Aaron died there in the top of the Mount.— NUMBERS XX: 27, 28.

THAT

HAT is an old history; but in some of its main features, it has just been repeated in the experience of this nation; and so I have turned to it to find comfort and instruction in our hour of sorrow. Of our beloved President, too, it may be truly said that he has ascended the hill in the sight of all the people. His life has been a constant climb. From the log-cabin in the forest he went "still upward," until he reached the highest office which can be attained among us; and although, while he was patiently and heroically threading his way up the earliest slopes, he was unseen, by the multitudes, yet the misroscopic inspection of his antecedents at the time of his nomination to the Presidency has made even the youngest among us familiar with his career from his earliest boyhood until the night when amid the tolling of bells and the tears of the nation, the sad words passed from mouth to mouth among usThe president is dead!"

We have followed him from the cabin to the schoolhouse; from the school-house to the carpenter's shop; from the carpenter's shop to the canal barge; from the canal barge to the academy; from the academy to the college-first as a student and afterward as a professor;

from the college to the battle-field; from the battlefield to the halls of legislature: from the halls of legislature to the White House; and from the White House to that cottage by the sea, wherein the long alternation between relapse and recovery terminated in his dissolution. No Hebrew in all the host that day when Aaron went up Mount Hor watched the progress of the ascending high-priest with more interest than that with which we have scanned the history of Mr. Garfield; and we had all a glow of honest, thankful satisfaction when we saw in the Presidential chair a man who might be regarded as a typical representative of the best elements of the American character. But alas! like Aaron, he reached the summit only to die; and his death also was in the sight of all the people. The nation-nay, the world was admitted to his sick-chamber. For all these weeks each hand among us was upon his pulse, and each car among us was at his heart. It was as if each of us had a beloved patient in his home. The "fierce light" which usually "beats upon a throne" is nothing to the radiant publicity into which the affection of the citizens insisted upon putting the incidents of that chamber of suspense; and in coming years there shall yet be made in song and story many a pathetic mention of his heroic sayings and his thoughtful solicitude for those who were most dear to him.

Now it is in the effects which this very publicity of his history and sufferings has produced, and is, I believe, destined in still larger measure yet to produce among us, that I find some of the richest elements of consolation under our sore trial.

I. For, in the first place, that publicity has elevated into the view of the community a character every way worthy to become an example and an inspiration to us all.

And in speaking thus, I refer not so much to the

perseverance and indomitable pluck by which he was distinguished, as to the moral and spiritual qualities which in him were so conspicuous. He was from the first characterized by conscience. From the day when on the canal barge he refused to take by stratagem or trick from another boat, the right of way to which it was fairly entitled, on to that of the Convention in which he stood unyieldingly up for a principle which he believed to be "everlastingly right," he was unflinching in his adherence to that which in his view was just.

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And this conscience in him, I rejoice to add, was thoroughly Christianized. In his early youth he became on deliberate conviction, a disciple of the Lord Jesus; and in every sphere he filled, it might be said of him that he was not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ." There was, indeed, no ostentatious parade of his devotion. He said little because he acted so much. His piety was that of principle rather than emotion; and it was too much occupied in conduct to have any energy to spare for display. He was more ambitious for excellence than for position. The only place he ever asked for he did not get, and every office which he filled was one to which he was called by others without any seeking of his own. And surely I am not wrong in saying that in the elevation and glorification of such a character by such a death we have an element of comfort which is well-nigh incalculable. We cannot mourn for him; for, being such a man as he was, we know right well whither he has gone-and we may be thankful that such a carcer has been so prominently brought before the eyes of the rising generation among us.

Young men, let it fire you with the noblest of all ambitions. Seek rather to be than to get. Labor not for office, but for character; and, to that end, cultivate through faith in Christ a conscience that shall spurn

from it every thought of wrong; for in conscience is the maiu-spring of character, and as you act concerning it, will become either a hero or a coward.

you

But it is not only in its public aspects that the history of our nation's second martyr is fraught with benefit There was a domesticity about him which strikingly illustrated the fifth commandment; and, in a day when some believe that our home-life in America is degenerating, I am thankful that he who has gone set such a noble example in this regard. What devotion he showed to his venerable mother? Who can recall without emotion that scene with his fellow students when, camping out with them, he took out his Bible and said: "Boys, I promised my mother to read a portion of the Scriptures every night, and I am going to read it now-shall I read it aloud ?" and then, with their concurrence, not only read a chapter, but led them in prayer to the throne of the heavenly grace? Who can speak without pleasure of the kiss which he imprinted on his mother's lips immediately after he had taken the oath of office on his installation day? And who can read without tears the letter-the only one he wrote during his weeks of languishing to the venerable woman, that he might, with his own hand, give her as much hope of his recovery as possible? What an example for the sons and daughters of the land! Oh, ye poor, paltry puppets, who, in the day of your prosperity, turn your backs upon your parents and think of them only as a burden and a disgrace-look at these beautiful indications of his filial devotion and go hide your heads for shame! That installation kiss! let it stand out in our history forever as an enforcement of the holy law-" Honor thy father and thy mother"-and let it serve to lift up the family among us to its ancient elevation.

But he was no less tender as a husband than he was