505. Were the Prayers for President Garfield a Failure

Were the Prayers for President Garfield a Failure

2Co_12:8-9 : ’93I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me, And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee.’94

There was something the matter with Paul in the text. He spoke of something that irritated him, or annoyed him or hurt him or mortified him, under the figure of a ’93thorn in the flesh.’94 Some think it was a crooked back. Others think it was a stuttering tongue. More persons think, and among them the learned Kitto and Dr. John Brown, the Scotch essayist, that it was diseased eyes, amounting almost to total blindness. They think this because he almost always wrote by the hand of an amanuensis, once mentioning it as a rare occurrence that he had written a large letter with his own hand; and they think this also because he was always accompanied wherever he went, although he was much of the time a poor man and could not have paid attendants; and also because he seems to refer to his trouble with his eyes when, in describing the enthusiastic love of the Galatians he says: ’93ye would have plucked out your own eyes and have given them to me.’94 In other words, ’93you love me so much you would have been willing to trade off your good eyes for my poor eyes.’94 Those lands always have been afflicted with ophthalmia, and damaged eyesight was as common there and then as good eyesight here and now. But whatever may have been the trouble, Paul prayed to have it cured. I suppose he prayed hundreds of times on this matter, but he made three agonizing prayers. Did God answer those prayers? He did, by giving something better than Paul asked for. Not by straightening the back, or by unloosing the tongue, or by curing the disordered eyesight, but by giving him grace to turn into glorious advantage that which had been an irritating detriment. Instead of curing the physical misfortune, he sanctified that trouble until Paul became the greatest apostle of the Gentiles, the greatest and the grandest Christian of all the centuries. ’93I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee.’94 So it was then’97so it is now. In the six thousand years of the world’92s existence there have not been one hundred right-hearted prayers unanswered. Nor fifty, nor ten, nor five, nor has there been one. If there had in six thousand years been just one right-hearted prayer unanswered, it would have impeached the character of God. If there be any truth well set forth in the Bible it is that God answers prayers. God gives you what you ask for always, or something better; and there is no exception.

During the eleven painful weeks of our President’92s suffering, all good people prayed for his recovery. The Sabbaths were full of supplication. Days were set forth for special fasting and prayer. There never was so much prayer offered on any one subject in any eleven weeks since the world by the wings of the Almighty was brooded out of chaos. And yet the body of President Garfield lies in the Lakeview Cemetery at Cleveland. ’93Your prayers were a dead failure,’94 says the sceptic. ’93Your prayers were a dead failure,’94 think a thousand men who do not just like to say so. ’93You wasted your breath. The laws of nature had their way. Don’92t hereafter mix theology and medicine.’94 But I will undertake to show you this morning that all the right-hearted prayers made in behalf of the President may be divided into two classes’97those which have been answered, and those which will be answered. Every right-hearted prayer in that direction had two ideas’97the President’92s welfare and the best interests of this nation. Has the first half of your prolonged prayer of eleven weeks in behalf of the President’92s welfare been answered?

The autopsy declares if he had been continued in life he would have been a paralytic’97that he never again could have walked’97that he would have been incompetent for the work of his high office. But suppose a miracle had been performed and he had come forth in entire health? Could he have met the expectations aroused in regard to him? Not if he had been an angel from heaven, with the power of a hundred Garfields. Could he in a prolonged administration, in which thousands of questions would arise, have pleased everybody? Oh, no, no! Suppose that, during that prolonged administration, a question had arisen as between the Democratic party and the Republican party, both of which parties were equally sympathetic and equally eulogistic and equally helpful in all those eleven weeks of sickness, he certainly would have had to decide against one of the parties. Then that party, in remembrance of its sympathy during the weeks of sickness, would have pronounced him an ingrate, and there would have been a vehemence against him that has never been witnessed within our memory. They would say, ’93Here, this is the pay we get for all our sympathy for you, and all our kindness for you, and all our prayers for you;’94 and he would have been in an awful plight as between the two great parties. Suppose a question during the three coming years had arisen as between monopoly and anti-monopoly, as it will arise, how could he have met those questions? On the one side, leading anti-monopolists of the country, during all those eleven weeks of sickness, especially kind, especially sympathetic, especially helpful, especially eulogistic; while on the other hand, among the monopolists, was the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, that had given him the free rail-train to Long Branch, and extended the railroad when it was not long enough; and among those monopolists many in New York and throughout the country who had subscribed their five hundred dollars and their one thousand dollars and their five thousand dollars to Mrs. Garfield, and if you think that she did not tell him all about it in his better moments it is because you have never been married. Suppose he had been restored to health, how could he have met the expectations of monopolists and anti-monopolists? Suppose a question of international right had arisen, as between England and the United States. In the memory of the fact that from the first day of his wounding, the Queen and the Court and the mighty men and women of England had been bending over his suffering couch in sympathy’97how could he have adjusted questions as between England and the United States? How could he have been impartial? How could he have acted at all?

Besides that, during his illness, he was put under obligation to a great multitude of people’97some in one way and some in another way, and the hotels in Washington, and a new line of hotels encircling the city of Washington would not have held the people who would come to get reward for their favors. ’93I gave you an invalid chair; give me a consulship.’94 ’93I manufactured the cooling apparatus; give me a post-office.’94 ’93I subscribed five thousand dollars to Mrs. Garfield; recognize my services.’94 ’93I wrote the mightiest editorials of sympathy during your sickness; send me to Belgium.’94 ’93I got the Washington malaria waiting on your case as a newspaper correspondent; send me to some place within reach of the air that blows off the Alps.’94 The kindnesses and sympathies of those eleven weeks would have surrounded his administration with embarrassments mountain high; and in his inability to reward his benefactors, and in his adoption of an independent policy, he would have aroused feelings different from those which now exist; and instead of being the centre of the nation’92s admiration and the object almost of its idolatry, he would, during the three coming years, have been more denounced and more caricatured and more hated than any man that ever occupied the Presidential chair. He will have escaped during the next three years enough calumny to have covered up these continents with vituperative newspapers from Baffin’92s Bay to Terra del Fuego. If Washington and Adams and Monroe and Jefferson and Lincoln could not escape, much less could Garfield have escaped; for there were larger and more unreasonable expectations excited in regard to him than in regard to any of his predecessors. If, therefore, the first half of your prolonged prayers of eleven weeks meant the President’92s welfare, your prayers have been answered, completely answered, grandly answered, gloriously answered, triumphantly answered, forever answered, and could have been answered in no other way. His body never rested so well as now in the cemetery of Ohio. His soul never rested so well as now in the bosom of his God. Your prayers have been answered. Quod erat demonstrandum.

But has the last half of your prolonged prayer of eleven weeks been answered’97the part of the prayer that pertained to the welfare of the nation? I remark, in the first place: the nation has never been so sanctified under trial and trouble as it is this very moment. When Booth shot Lincoln, the nation had been for four years drunk on war and massacre and blood, and that assassination seemed only another paragraph in a book of horrors. Before that time I never could endure to look upon a scene of suffering, and since that time I have never for a long while been able to continue looking upon a scene of suffering; and yet I went down to Sharpsburg during the conflict and preached to fifty Federals shattered and dying, and in a barn to a hundred Confederates shattered and dying, and somehow I got through the discourse. You say it was especial grace. Ah! yes, but I think the whole nation, constantly standing in the presence of blood and bruises and wounds and death, got hardened. But this last assassination comes at a time of peace, and the nation falls prostrate and sick under the calamity. The nation was never so chastened, never so gentle, never so sympathetic, never so worshipful as now. Blasphemers have gone down on their knees before God, and men who had not prayed since they knelt at the trundle-bed in childhood have formulated appropriate petition. While the nation’92s heart is far from what it ought to be, it is a better nation today than it has ever been. So that section of your player has been answered.

Another consideration: after what you know of our late Chief Magistrate, you must know that the paragraph in his inaugural which spoke against Mormonism was the most earnest paragraph in it. That institution is an insult to every home in America. James A. Garfield felt ordained of God, not only as President of the United States, but as a husband and a father, to annihilate that abomination. Within one year the lightning would have struck it. By an enactment of Congress the President would have proclaimed that that institution of Mormonism is at war with our best interests as a government, and while the polygamist, considering the present complications, might have remained in the possession of his numerous wives, it would have been understood by law that after that any one who attempted to select more marital companionship than is allowed in other States would go to prison and be denied his vote. Just back of Salt Lake City is the United States military encampment, with guns that could rake that Sodom into ashes, in one forenoon; and that regiment, aided by other regiments, could have enforced the law. You say President Buchanan failed to do the work. I know he did. Great and good man, but he was a bachelor, and it needed a father and a husband like Garfield, understanding the value of a Christian home, to annihilate that abomination of Mormonism. But perhaps the time had not quite come. Perhaps it was necessary that the indignation of this nation should be aroused to a greater pitch against Mormonism before the work should be thoroughly attempted, and the death of Garfield under these circumstances ought to arouse the nation. Do you know that while all good people throughout the world were praying for our President’92s recovery, the Mormons were praying for his death? In Utah, in Wyoming, in Arizona, in New Mexico, praying for his death!’97some of their papers utterly ignoring the whole subject, or else slily congratulatory at the prospect of our President’92s early decease. Why? Mormonism decreed long ago that its potent enemies should perish, if not in one way, then in another; and the whole work should be done in the name of the Lord! Brigham Young declared in his church, in a sermon which I could show you, that he who destroys the life of an anti-Mormon does God a service. Mountain Meadow massacre, where-in hundreds of men, women, children, and the little babes had their throats cut, and then were left unburied for the ravens and the wolves’97that was all done in the name of the Lord! Dr. Robinson and Almand Babbitt and the Parishes all butchered by the Mormons, they said, in the name of the Lord! The assassins Hickman and Brigham Young, and that group of men called ’93Destroying Angels,’94 because their only work is assassination’97they did all their work in the name of the Lord. Now I will not say that Guiteau was a Mormon, nor will I dare to say that he was not a paid emissary. He says he shot Garfield in the name of the Lord. Everything he has said and written on the subject implies that it was done by divine commission, and in the name of the Lord. I will not say that he was a Mormon, but he has all the Mormon theories. He was a member of the Oneida Community, the chief doctrine of which is that it is right to have a profusion of wives. He had the ugliness of a Mormon, the licentiousness of a Mormon, the cruelty of a Mormon, the murderous spirit of a Mormon, the infernalism of a Mormon. Why, he says he sat in the park opposite the President’92s house, in the name of the Lord, and he went to the Baltimore depot on the second of July, and aimed at the heart of our beloved Chief Magistrate, and fired in the name of the Lord! I say there is an ugly sound in that cry when a man goes out to do the work of darkness in the name of the Lord.

I suppose that his crime originally started from his revenge at not getting a consulship; but I should not wonder if, in the great day when all secret things are revealed, it should be found that he was a paid agent of that old hag of hell which sits, making mouths at high heaven, between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. If the death of Garfield shall arouse the nation to more hatred of that institution of Mormonism, which was Garfield’92s especial disgust, he will not have died in Vain, and another section of your prayer is answered.

Again I remark: your prayers have been answered in the sanctification of the home circle. Husband, wife, son, daughter, brother, sister were beautiful names before; but they never meant so much in this country as they do now. What an example we have had in the White House of a model Christian home! There have been Christian homes in the White House before this, but this by circumstances was more conspicuous as a Christian home. Well, you see as a nation we need toning up on that subject. For the last twenty-five years the country has been filled with trash about free-lovism and elective affinity, and divorce made easy. There has nothing happened in your day or mine that has done so much for the homes of America as that beautiful and overwhelming example we have recently had in the White House.

Where are things going? I suppose New England is as good a part of the country as any other’97perhaps better. In 1878, in the State of Maine, there were four hundred and seventy-eight divorces; in the State of Connecticut, four hundred and one divorces; in New Hampshire, two hundred and forty-one divorces; in Rhode Island, one hundred and ninety-six divorces; in Massachusetts, six hundred divorces, making an aggregate of two thousand one hundred and thirteen divorces, in 1878 in New England. In Cook County, Illinois, last year, eight hundred and thirty divorce cases began. We need toning up on the subject of the family relation. You know that in some circles it gives a little piquancy to a man’92s character if he is said to be a little loose in his morals. Right in this time, when the nation needs so much instruction in the right direction on this important theme, we have this revelation of a Christian home circle. God grant that that influence may be potent for all years that are to come. The influence already felt in every home of this congregation, in every home of America, proves that your prayers have been answered.

Again, I want you to understand, my friends, that, in addition to the prayers which have already attained a blessing, from your prayers and from the prayers of the nation during the last few months, there will be born blessings for a thousand years to come, if American institutions stand so long. The astronomer tells us that worlds ages ago created have just reached us with their light, and so there are blessings which are a thousand years in flight. God gathers up all these prayers. He gathers them from the north and from the south; he gathers them from this side of the sea and the other side of the sea, from this side of the Atlantic and from the other side of the Atlantic; he gathers them all up in a reservoir at the foot of the throne’97a great suspended blessing, a flood made up of the tears of many generations, and then at his own good time, from that reservoir of divine remembrance the streams of blessings will pour down upon the nations, and their harvests will be richer, and their schools will be better, and their institutions will be more prospered, and the Christian religion will be more triumphant. I should not wonder if it took God many centuries fully to answer the three hundred million hearted prayers of two hemispheres. The sins of the nation cry to heaven for vengeance; but the prayers of the nation cry to heaven for mercy; and the latter are going to overbalance the former. Does not the Psalmist intimate that God takes the tears of one of his children and puts them in a bottle, and then am I far out of the way when I suppose that God gathers up the tears of nations in a reservoir?

I am very glad that God does not answer all the prayers in our time. I am not so anxious about our present condition as a nation as I am anxiously concerned about the future. You and I can get along very well during the few years of our allotted time on earth, even if we do not like American politics. But how about the generations following? There are forces of darkness struggling to get possession of this continent, and I want some great storehouse of prayer filled for that exigency. Only the first wheel, as it were, has begun to turn in our manufacturing capacity. We have gathered only the first sheaf of agricultural resources, we have picked up only the first lump of coal or iron or copper or silver or gold of our American mining. What will be the condition of this country when the last arable acre is doing its very best, and when all our rivers are pulling their utmost at the factory bands, and when Nevada and Colorado and California and Arizona shall have disgorged all their treasures, and from ocean to ocean the continent shall be fully peopled? During the next twenty-five years there will be one hundred million people on this continent. During the next century, at the close of a century from now, there will be at least three hundred million people in the United States. What is to be the character of that population? You cannot shirk the responsibility, nor can I shirk it. Your prayers this morning and your prayers during those eleven weeks, and the prayers of all your past time, and your patriotic prayers for the future, and the prayers of the good of all ages, will help decide that question. Columbus, two hours before midnight, said to Pedro Gutierrez, of the king’92s wardrobe, ’93Look, look! see the light on the shore; that must be a continent!’94 But gladder will be the man who two hours before the daybreak of national purification shall hail the morning of regenerated America. I tell you the signs are most encouraging. The prayers of God’92s people are going to hand over this continent. I am just as certain of it as that I stand here and you sit there. Have you noticed the rapidly increasing momentum? During the first fifty years of this century, in our country there were three million converts added to the evangelical churches. There have been as many added to the evangelical churches in America during the last ten years. In other words, the last ten years have been equal to the first fifty years of this century. Clear the track for the Lord’92s chariot. The white horses that draw the chariot started on a slow walk. For the last few years they have been upon a gallop. They will soon be down to full run.

’93Oh!’94 say you, ’93I can’92t see how my poor prayers are going to have any effect upon that grand result.’94 Well, rivers might as well, when the mist rises and is drawn up and floats away into the heavens, say: ’93That moisture will never be heard of again.’94 God would say: ’93Be patient;’94 and when the earth wanted rain then this despised mist would take the form of an angel of the shower and would float down through the air, and from the silver chalice of a cloud would dip the water and baptize all the valleys, while the mountains stood up as sponsor. So the Sun of righteousness exhales our prayers, and so they come back again in gracious distillation. Your prayers have been answered, your prayers will be answered.

It is something like this: I say God answers prayer, if not giving just what you want, giving something greater. It is as though a son should say: ’93Father, give me five thousand dollars,’94 and the father should say: ’93I hear your request; I will do better than that; I will put that five thousand dollars into an education, and then it will be worth to you ten times five thousand dollars.’94 It is as though a wayward son had come home and found his mother dying, and he should kneel by the bedside and pray for her recovery, and God should say to that wayward young man, ’93I hear your prayer, but I will do better than what you ask for. I will, by your mother’92s death, give you reformation, and give you an eternal home with her in heaven.’94 So I meet this question differently from the way it is usually met. I declare now, and it is beyond all controversion, God always gives what you ask for in a right spirit, or gives something better. In all theologies it is believed that every individual has a guardian angel sent forth to protect, to defend and to foster. The Jewish rabbins say that Adam’92s guardian angel was named Razaiel, and that Abraham’92s guardian angel was Zakiel, and that Isaac’92s guardian angel was Raphael, and that Jacob’92s guardian angel was Peniel. If every individual has a guardian angel, shall not a Christian nation have guardian angels? Who shall they be? Those who never knew us? Those who never fought in behalf of our institutions? Those who never suffered for our land? No, no! Descend, ye spirits of the martyr Presidents, and ye mighty men of the councils of the past, ye who defended our country on land and sea. Descend, ye who preached and prayed as well as ye who fought! Mighty spirits of departed patriots, descend’97come down out of the ineffable light into the shadows of earth, and lead the way. Washington and Everett, and Sumner and Garfield, and Lincoln and Burnside, and Lyon and Witherspoon, and Mason and Channing’97descend, descend! Speak with lips once quieted. Strike with arms once palsied. Ride down into this fight in which earth and hell and heaven are in battle array. Thou mighty God of our fathers and brothers who fell at Lexington and Yorktown, and South Mountain, and Gettysburg, descend and strike back national evil, and bring national good, and prove thyself the same God who answered the prayers of Hezekiah, and of Elijah, and of Deborah, and of Joshua. Thine, O Lord, is the Kingdom!

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage