"FELLOW CITIZENS:--In arising to address you on this occasion I feel my own inability to do the subject justice; and the hollow impotence of human language to express the sentiment of national woe. We have assembled to honor the memory, to revere the character, and recount the living virtues of a fallen patriot and statesman. James A. Garfield, the popular idol of the nation, is no more. His spirit has passed the bourne from whence there is no return. We have, in time of our greatest need, lost one of our greatest statesmen and purest patriots. In the mid-day of his manhood, in the midst of his usefulness, just as hope became steady, and faith reliant and sure, Mr. Garfield descended to the grave. His sun of life has set forever. It fell from its meridian splendor, as falls a star from the blazing galaxy of heaven. No twilight obscured its setting. "As the sun of the physical world--the brightest and grandest of all of the luminaries of the firmament sinks to rest, tingeing the clouds that stretch along the horizon with the golden glories of its declining rays, so Garfield, the sun-intellect of this nation, has gone to his repose, reflecting the light of his noble deeds and unfaltering patriotism, tingeing the breaking clouds of dissention with the beauty and effulgence of hope and peace. "When the telegraph flashed over a hopeful nation the mournful news of James A. Garfield's death, with the previous knowledge of the cowardly means by which it was effected, the great popular and patriotic heart momentarily ceased its pulsations, and the life-current of a nation, stood still for a moment, until the energies of patriotic vitality gathered new force to repel the effect of the stunning shock. Unbelief and astonishment were succeeded by wordless sorrow, and this was mingled with emotions of patriotic vengeance. Patriots in this mournful hour can brook no sympathy for the damning deed--can bear no manifestation of joy for the bloody work of the assassin. "James A. Garfield was the popular representative of American patriotism. As President he possessed no powers but those freely delegated to him by his fellow-citizens. His highest duty under the Constitution, and by the delegation of the people, was to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and Government established by the Revolutionary Fathers. In the faithful discharge of these duties, he was suddenly struck down by an assassin. The blow struck not the President alone; it reached in its rebound the popular heart of America. The shot meant the annihilation of delegated power, and as such reached the fountains of popular vitality.