ing day by
day. We learned what a noble history his was, and we were taught to
trace a career such as England before knew nothing of.'

"Among the innumerable testimonies to the purity and beauty of
Garfield's character," says Mr. Smalley, "this address of the Primate of
the English Church surely is one which all Americans may acknowledge
with grateful pride."

CHAPTER XXXV.

MR. DEPEW'S ESTIMATE OF GARFIELD.

My task is drawing near a close. I have, in different parts of this
volume, expressed my own estimate of our lamented President. No
character in our history, as it seems to me, furnishes a brighter or
more inspiring example to boys and young men. It is for this reason that
I have been induced to write the story of his life especially for
American boys, conceiving that in no way can I do them a greater
service.

But I am glad, in confirmation of my own estimate, to quote at length
the eloquent words of Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, in his address before the
Grand Army of the Republic. He says of Garfield:

"In America and Europe he is recognized as an illustrious example of the
results of free institutions. His career shows what can be accomplished
where all avenues are open and exertion is untrammeled. Our annals
afford no such incentive to youth as does his life, and it will become
one of the republic's household stories. No boy in poverty almost
hopeless, thirsting for knowledge, meets an obstacle which Garfield did
not experience and overcome. No youth despairing in darkness feels a
gloom which he did not dispel. No young man filled with honorable
ambition can encounter a difficulty which he did not meet and surmount.
For centuries to come great men will trace their rise from humble
origins to the inspirations of that lad who learned to read by the light
of a pine-knot in a log-cabin; who, ragged and barefooted, trudged along
the tow-path of the canal, and without money or affluent relations,
without friends or assistance, by faith in himself and in God, became
the most scholarly and best equipped statesman of his time, one of the
foremost soldiers of his country, the best debater in the strongest of
deliberative bodies, the leader of his party, and the Chief Magistrate
of fifty millions of people before he was fifty years of age.

"We are not here to question the ways of Providence. Our prayers were
not answered as we desired, though the volume and fervor of our
importunity seemed resistless; but al