One Sunday evening he made an almost casual
reference to the time when he first met Garfield,
then a candidate for the Presidency. ``I asked
Major McKinley, whom I had met in Washington,
and whose home was in northern Ohio, as was
that of Mr. Garfield, to go with me to Mr.
Garfield's home and introduce me. When we got
there, a neighbor had to find him. `Jim! Jim!'
he called. You see, Garfield was just plain Jim
to his old neighbors. It's hard to recognize a
hero over your back fence!'' He paused a mo-
ment for the appreciative ripple to subside, and
went on:
``We three talked there together''--what a
rare talking that must have been-McKinley,
Garfield, and Conwell--``we talked together, and
after a while we got to the subject of hymns, and
those two great men both told me how deeply
they loved the old hymn, `The Old-Time Religion.'
Garfield especially loved it, so he told
us, because the good old man who brought him
up as a boy and to whom he owed such gratitude,
used to sing it at the pasture bars outside of the
boy's window every morning, and young Jim
knew, whenever he heard that old tune, that it
meant it was time for him to get up.
Pages:
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134