“_Mr. President_: You have called me to a duty at once most sad and most sacred. At every step of my preparation for its performance, I have encountered troops of thronging memories that swept across the field of the last twenty-five years of my life, and so filled my heart with the lights and shadows of their joy and sorrow that I have hardly been able to marshal them into order or give them coherent voice. I have lived over again the life of this place. I have seen again the groups of young and joyous students, ascending these green slopes, dwelling for a time on this peaceful height in happy and workful companionship, and then, with firmer step, and with more serious and thoughtful faces, marching away to their posts in the battle of life. “And still nearer and clearer have come back the memories of that smaller band of friends, the leaders and guides of those who encamped on this training-ground. On my journey to this assembly, it has seemed that they, too, were coming, and that I should once more meet and greet them. And I have not yet been able to realize that Almeda Booth will not be with us. After our great loss, how shall we gather up the fragments of the life we lived in this place? We are mariners, treading the lonely shore in search of our surviving comrades and the fragments of our good ship, wrecked by the tempest. To her, indeed, it is no wreck. She has landed in safety, and ascended the immortal heights beyond our vision.” The death of Michael C. Kerr having made necessary the selection of a new Speaker, the Democratic majority in the House elected Samuel J. Randall, and the complimentary vote of the Republicans went to General Garfield. He was also their candidate in the two succeeding Congresses. He had divided the honor of leadership pretty evenly with Mr. Blaine, until, in 1877, the latter gentleman went to the Senate, and left Garfield without a rival. Fourteen years of able and faithful service had done their work grandly for his power and his fame. On February 12, 1878, Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson, of New York City, presented to Congress that great painting of Carpenter, “Lincoln and Emancipation.” At her request the presentation address was made by General Garfield.