THE POWER OF ELOQUENCE.



THE following story, taken from the Little Star, possesses peculiar interest at this date. Says the writer: "I shall never forget the first time I saw Gen. Garfield. It was the morning after President Lincoln's assassination. The country was excited to its utmost tension, and New York City seemed ready for the scenes of the French Revolution. The intelligence of Lincoln's murder had been flashed by the wires over the whole land. Fear took possession of men's minds as to the fate of the government. Posters were stuck up everywhere, in great black letters, calling upon the loyal citizens of New York, Brooklyn, Jersey City, and neighboring places to meet around the Wall Street Exchange and give expression to their sentiments. It was a dark and terrible hour. What might come next no one could tell, and men spoke with bated breath. The wrath of the workingmen was simply uncontrollable, and revolvers and knives were in the hands of thousands of Lincoln's friends, ready, at the first opportunity, to take the law into their own hands, and avenge the death of the martyred President upon any who dared utter a word against him. Eleven o'clock, A. M., was the hour set for the rendezvous. Fifty thousand people crowded around the Exchange building, cramming and jamming the streets, wedged in tight as men could stand together." Two men lay bleeding on one of the side streets, the one dead, the other next to dying; one on the pavement, the other in the gutter. They had said, a moment before, that 'Lincoln ought to have been shot long ago!' Suddenly the shout rose, “The World! The office of the World." and a movement of perhaps 8,000 or 10,000, turning their faces in the direction of that building, began to be executed. It was a critical moment. 

Just then a man stepped forward, with a small flag in his hand, and beckoned to the crowd. 'Another telegram from Washington!' And then, in the awful stillness of the crisis, taking advantage of the hesitation of the crowd, whose steps had been arrested a moment, a right arm was lifted sky-ward, and a voice, clear and steady, loud and distinct, spoke out: 'Fellow-citizens! Clouds and darkness are round about Him! His pavilion is dark waters and thick clouds of the skies! Justice and judgment are the establishment of his throne! Mercy and truth shall go before his face! Fellow-citizens. God reigns, and the government at Washington still lives!'

The effect was tremendous. The crowd stood riveted to the ground in awe, gazing at the motionless orator. 

As the boiling wave subsides and settles to the sea when some strong wind beats it down, so the tumult of the people sank, and became still. All took it as a divine omen. It was a triumph of eloquence, inspired by the moment, such as falls to the lot of few men, and that but once in a century. 

What might have happened, had the surging, maddened mob been let loose, none can tell. The man for the crisis was on the spot. I inquired what was his name. The answer came in a low whisper: 'It is General Garfield, of Ohio!'"

The words, which thus stilled the excited mob seem a fit watch-word for the present trying hour: "God reigns, and the government still lives."