Through its parting folds the thin veil has admitted another "martyr president to the company of the dead heroes of the Republic." Shall not the whispers of God be heard by the children of men? Awe-stricken by His voice, shall not the American people again "kneel in tearful reverence and make a solemn covenant with Him and with each other that this nation shall be saved from its enemies, and the temples of freedom and justice built upon foundations that shall survive forever?" Upon the birthday of Lincoln, February 12th, 1878, when Carpenter's painting of "The Emancipation" was presented to Congress by Mrs. Thompson, Garfield delivered another memorial oration, from which we quote the following beautiful passages:-- "The representatives of the nation have opened the doors of this Chamber to receive at her hands a sacred trust. In coming hither, these living representatives have passed under the dome and through that beautiful and venerable hall, which, on another occasion, I have ventured to call the third House of American Representatives, that silent assembly whose members have received their high credentials at the impartial hand of history. Year by year, we see the circle of its immortal membership enlarging; year by year, we see the elect of their country, in eloquent silence, taking their places in this American pantheon, bringing within its sacred precincts the wealth of those immortal memories which made their lives illustrious; and year by year, that august assembly is teaching deeper and grander lessons to those who serve in these more ephemeral Houses of Congress. "Abraham Lincoln" (and may we not say the same of James Abram Garfield?) "was one of the few great rulers whose wisdom increased with his power, and whose spirit grew gentler and tenderer as his triumphs were multiplied. "His character is aptly described in the words of England's great laureate--written thirty years ago--in which he traces the upward steps of some 'Divinely gifted man, Whose life in low estate began, And on a simple village green; 'Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And breasts the blow of circumstance, And grapples with his evil star; 'Who makes by force his merit known, And lives to clutch the golden keys, To mould a mighty State's decrees. And shape the whisper of the throne; 'And moving up from high to higher, Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope, The pillar of a people's hope, The centre of a world's desire.' "Such a life and character will be treasured forever as the sacred possession of the American people and of mankind." Again, in Garfield's eulogy upon Senator Morton of Indiana, how truly the words apply to himself:--