approbation I should have bad companionship."

Only one higher honour could now fall to the lot of a citizen of the
United States. The presidency was the single post to which Garfield's
ambition could still aspire. That honour came upon him, like all the
others, without his seeking; and it came, too, quite unexpectedly. Five
months later, in the summer of 1880, the National Republican Convention
met to select a candidate for their party at the forthcoming
presidential election. Every four years, before the election, each party
thus meets to decide upon the man to whom its votes will be given at the
final choice. After one or two ineffectual attempts to secure unanimity
in favour of other and more prominent politicians, the Convention with
one accord chose James Garfield for its candidate--a nomination which
was quite as great a surprise to Garfield himself as to all the rest of
the world. He was elected President of the United States in November,
1880.

It was a marvellous rise for the poor canal boy, the struggling student,
the obscure schoolmaster, thus to find himself placed at the head of one
among the greatest nations of the earth. He was still less than fifty,
and he might reasonably have looked forward to many years of a happy,
useful, and honourable life. Nevertheless, it is impossible to feel that
Garfield's death was other than a noble and enviable one. He was cut off
suddenly in the very moment of his brightest success, before the cares
and disappointments of office had begun to dim the pleasure of his first
unexpected triumph. He died a martyr to a good and honest cause, and his
death-bed was cheered and alleviated by the hushed sorrow and sympathy
of an entire nation--one might almost truthfully add, of the whole
civilized world.