President Garfield's Maxim.

Auckland Star, Volume XII, Issue 3546, 17 December 1881, Page 3 (Supplement)

President Garfield's Maxim.

In illustration of the late President's intellectual character, the following extracts have been taken from a work published at Philadelphia, by Mr Wra. X, Balch, containing a collection of General GarJield's maxims, rules of conduct, and. judgments on society: I would rather be beaten in right than, succeed in wrong. I feel a profoundcr reverence for a boy than lor. a man. I never meet a ragged boy iii the street without feeling that I may owe him a salute, for I know not what possibilities may be buttoned up tinder his coat.

Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can. testify; but nine times out of ten the best tiling that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim for himself. In all my acquaintance I never knew a man to be drowned who was worth the saving. If tho power to do hard work 13 not talent, it is tho best possible substitute for it.

We cannot study nature profoundly without bringing ourselves into communion with the spirit of art, which pervades and fills tho universe.

If there be one thing upon this earth that mankind lov* and admire better than an« other it is a brave mail—it is a man who cares to look the devil in the face and tell him he is a devil.

It is one of the precious mysteries of, sorrow that it finds solace in unselfish thought. ■Every chmacter is tho joint product o£ nature and nurture.

It lias been fortunate that most of our greatest men have left no descendants to shine in the borrowed lustre of a great name.

An uncertain currency, lhat_ goes up and down, hits tho labourer, and hits him hard. It helps him last and hurts him first. We no longer attribute the untimely death of infants to the sin of Adam, but Jto bad nursing and ignorance. The granite hills are not so changeless and .abiding as the restless sea. In their struggle with the forces of nature, the ability to labour was the richest patriniony of the colonists. Coercion is the basis of every law in the universe—human or Divine. A law is no law without coercion behind it. For the noblest man who lives there still remains a conflict. We hold reunions, not for the dead, for there is nothing on all the earth that you and I can do for the dead. They are past our help and past our praise. We can add to them no glory ; we can give to them no immortality. They do not need us, but for ever and for evermore we need them.

Throughout the whole web of national existence we trace the golden thread of human progress toward a higher and better estate.

Heroes did not make our liberties, but they rcilected and illustrated them.

The life and light of a nation are inseparable.

After all, territory is but the body of a nation. The people who inhabit its lulls and valleys are its soul, its Bpirit, its life. In them dwells its hope of immortality. Among them, if anywhere, are to be found its chief elements of destruction.

It matters little what may he the forms of national institutions-if the life, freedom, and growth of society are secured. Finally, our great hope for the future— our great safeguard against danger—is to be found in the general and thorough education of our people, and in the virtue which accompanies such education. The germ of our political institutions, the primary cell from which they were evolved, was in the New England town, and the vital force', the informing soul of the town, was the town meeting, which, for all local concerns, was King, Lords, and Commons in all. It is as much the duty of all good men to protect and' defend the reputation of worthy public servants as to detect public rascals* J3e fit for more than the tiling you are now doing. ■ If you arc not too large for the place you are too small for it. Young men talk of trusting to the spur of the occasion. That trust is vain. Occasions cannot make spurs. If you expect to make spurs you must win them. If > you wish to use them you must buckle them to your own heels before you go into the fight. Greek is perhaps the most perfect instru* ment of thought ever invented by man, and its literature has never been equalled iv purity of style and boldness of expression. Great ideas travel slowly and for a time noiselessly, as the gods whose feet were shod Avithwool. What the arts are to the world of niatter, literature is. to the world of mind. ... History is but the unrolled scroll of prophecy. ■'■'~..' c The world's history is a divine-noern. Of which the history of every nation is a canto, and every man a word. Its strains have been pealing along down the centu* ries, and though there have been mingled the discords of warring cannon and dying men, yet to the Christian philosopher and historian-the humble listener—there haa been a divine melody running through the song, which speaks of hope and halcyon days to come. . ; Light itself is a great corrective. A thousand wrongs and abuses that are grown in darkness disappear like owls and bats before the light of day. Liberty can be safe only when suffrage la illuminated by education. , Parties have an organic life and spirit or their own, an individuality and character which outlive the men who compose them, and the spirit and traditions of a party should be considered in determimninc: their fitness for managing the affairs of tne nation., '~,.. .. - ■