Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President

Candice Millard

This is a surprisingly good biography.  I say surprisingly good because James Garfield is not a well-known president.  He only served a few months before a deranged assassin shot him, leading to his death about two months later.  He is not well-known to history, but he was much loved at the time, and in general, quite a remarkable man.

His father died when he was only an infant, and his widowed mother raised Garfield and his siblings in poverty.  But he rose above the poverty, getting an education and learning everything he could.  He was a voracious reader and an indefatigable learner.  He quickly became a professor in college and then the president of a college before entering politics.

He rose to a prominent position in the US congress and to his surprise, to everyone’s surprise, he became the Republican nominee for president in 1880.  He did not want the presidency and did not seek it, but nonetheless he was nominated and then elected.

He did not serve long enough to have any notable achievement, but under the right circumstances he could have been a great president.  Perhaps one of the best. 

Moreover, he was a good man.  He was big-hearted, a man of character and integrity, a devoted husband and father, warm and fun-loving.

When he was shot, the entire nation was grief-stricken.  In fact, his assassination in some ways united the country that had been ravaged by the Civil War, for all the country mourned for him not as northerners and southerners, but as Americans.

His early death led to several other changes also.  For one thing it transformed the weak Vice President, Chester Arthur, into a strong man of character and fortitude.  Also his death led to the failed career of New York’s powerful political boss Roscoe Conkling, who dominated the Democratic Party at the time and was behind the corrupt spoils system of government.  Arthur and Congress passed legislation to reform the spoils system by which political favors were passed down.

Garfield’s death could have been prevented if his doctors and surgeons would have accepted the early work of Dr. Joseph Lister, a British surgeon who called for antiseptic surgery to prevent infection by the unseen germs.  Lister’s ideas were scoffed at by many doctors at the time, but became widely accepted after Garfield’s death.

A final interesting note of this biography is the role that Alexander Graham Bell would play.  The young Bell had already invented the telephone and had become world famous.  With the shooting of Garfield, he worked non-stop to invent a machine that could locate a bullet.  Though this did not lead to Garfield’s recovery, his machine, essentially a metal detector for finding bullets in a body, was used until the invention of x-ray decades later.

Candice Millard has written niche history books on two other figures:  Theodore Roosevelt’s journey down the river in the Amazon, and the young Winston Churchill’s escape during the Boer War.  This is her first full-length biography and it is excellent.

The Attributes of God

A.W. Tozer

This book is a compilation of 10 sermons that Tozer gave on the attributes of God.  The book was simply fine.  Nothing special.

By contrast, his book of 23 chapters on the attributes of God, entitled The Knowledge of the Holy, is superb.  Every sentence of that book is weighty.  But not this one.

Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret

Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor

This is my fourth time through Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret.  Some books deserve rereading. 

Hudson Taylor was born in 1832 in England and he died in 1905 in China.  He is widely considered one of the greatest missionaries ever, and was the founder of the China Inland Mission.  This Mission focused on sending missionaries to the interior of China, when previously, missionaries were only at the ports on the coast.

What do we learn from Hudson Taylor’s life?

1.     He was a man who lived by faith.  He trusted God for big things, for tough things.  He never asked for money and God provided faithfully, year after year, for an evergrowing ministry.  Sometimes the provisions were remarkable.  Taylor exemplifies what it means to live by faith.

2.     Not surprisingly, Hudson Taylor was a man of prayer.  Prayer and faith always go together.  He was devoted to prayer because he was devoted to God.  He lived a life marked by earnest prayer, fervent prayer, persistent prayer. 

3.     Taylor had a deep heart for lost people, especially the lost people in China.  Before he even went to China, after God had put China on his heart, he wrote these words:  “I feel as if I could not live if something is not done for China.” 

4.     Taylor prioritized time alone with the Father.  His common practice was to spend two hours in Bible reading and prayer, often between 2 and 4am, when he would be undisturbed.  He did this even when he was traveling and staying in crowded rooms partitioned by a curtain.

5.     Taylor shows us how to trust God through suffering.  Three of his children died young and he also lost his much-loved first wife when she was only 33 years old.  Though devastated by each of these deaths, he trusted his God in some amazing ways.

Here are a few quotes or stories from the book that stand out:

“When I get to China,” I thought to myself, “I shall have no claim on anyone for anything.  My only claim will be on God.  How important to learn, before leaving England, to move man, through God, by prayer alone.”  (p. 23)

“Depend upon it, God’s work, done in God’s way, will never lack God’s supplies.” (p. 86)

“It doesn’t matter, really, how great the pressure is,” he used to say; “it only matters where the pressure lies.  See that it never comes between you and the Lord – then, the greater the pressure, the more it presses you to his breast.”  (p. 107)

After the death of his first wife when she was only 33 years old:

“I never witnessed such a scene [wrote one who was present].  As dear Mrs. Taylor was breathing her last, Mr. Taylor knelt and committed her to the Lord, thanking Him for having given her and for twelve and a half years of perfect happiness together, thanking Him too for taking her to His own presence, and solemnly dedicating himself anew to His service.

The summer sun rose higher over the city, hills and river.  The busy hum of life came up around them from many a court and street.  But in an upper room of one Chinese dwelling, from which the blue of heaven could be seen, there was the hush of a wonderful peace …

He and he only knew what my dear wife was to me.  He knew how the light of my eyes and the joy of my heart were in her.  On the last day of her life – we had no idea that it would be the last – our hearts were mutually delighted by the never-old story of each other’s love … and almost her last act was, with one arm round my neck, to place her hand on my head and, as I believe, for her lips had lost their cunning, to implore a blessing on meBut He saw that it was good to take her – good indeed for her, and in His love He took her painlessly – and not less good for me who now must toil and suffer alone, yet not alone, for God is nearer to me than ever.”  (p. 124)

A young man observed Hudson Taylor leading a prayer gathering in London:

“Mr. Taylor opened the meeting by giving out a hymn, and seating himself at the harmonium led the singing.  His appearance did not impress me.  He was slightly built, and spoke in a quiet voice.  Like most young men, I suppose I associated power with noise, and looked for physical presence in a leader.  But when he said, ‘Let us pray,’ and proceeded to lead the meeting in prayer, my ideas underwent a change.  I had never heard anyone pray like that.  There was a simplicity, a tenderness, a boldness, a power that hushed and subdued me, and made it clear that God had admitted him to the inner circle of His friendship.  Such praying was evidently the outcome of long tarrying in the secret place, and was as dew from the Lord.

I have heard many men pray in public since then, but the prayers of Mr. Taylor and the prayers of Mr. Spurgeon stand all by themselves.  Who that heard could ever forget them?  It was the experience of a lifetime to hear Mr. Spurgeon pray, taking as it were the great congregation of six thousand people by the hand and leading them into the holy place.  And to hear Mr. Taylor plead for China was to know something of what is meant by ‘the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man.’  That meeting lasted from four to six o’clock, but seemed one of the shortest prayer meetings I had ever attended.”  (p. 133)

“A leader of the Church of Scotland said to Mr. Taylor:

‘You must sometimes be tempted to be proud because of the wonderful way God has used you.  I doubt if any man living has had greater honour.’

‘On the contrary,’ was the earnest reply, ‘I often think that God must have been looking for someone small enough and weak enough for Him to use, and that He found me.’” (p. 142)

“It was not easy for Mr. Taylor, in his changeful life, to make time for prayer and Bible study, but he knew that it was vital.  Well do the writers remember travelling with him month after month in northern China, by cart and wheelbarrow, with the poorest of inns at night.  Often, with only one large room for coolies and travelers alike, they would screen off a corner for their father and another for themselves, with curtains of some sort; and then, after sleep at last had brought a measure of quiet, they would hear a match struck and see the flicker of candlelight which told that Mr. Taylor, however weary, was poring over the little Bible in two volumes always at hand.  From two to four A.M. was the time he usually gave to prayer; the time when he could be most sure of being undisturbed to wait upon God.  That flicker of candlelight has meant more to them than all they have read or heard on secret prayer; it meant reality, not preaching but practice.”  (p. 165)

My Marathon: Reflections on a Gold Medal Life

Frank Shorter

In the 1972 Munich Olympics, Frank Shorter won the marathon, becoming the first American gold medalist in the marathon since 1908.  This marathon victory helped propel the nascent running movement in the United States, which continues to thrive today, nearly 50 years later.  Frank Shorter, a Yale graduate and an attorney, became an iconic figure for distance runners in the United States. 

Shorter also won the silver medal in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.  Later, it was discovered that the gold medalist, Waldemar Cierpinski, from East Germany, was part of the systematic East German doping program.  So actually, Shorter deserved the gold medal for the marathon in both the 1972 and 1976 Olympics.

In this autobiography, Shorter tells the story of his training and racing over the years that he was competing.  He also explores some of his relationship with such fellow runners as Steve Prefontaine and Kenny Moore, both fellow Olympians.  Moreover, Shorter also would become a leading figure in the movement to help make track and field, along with other sports, drug-free.

However, the heart of the book in some ways is not running, but the tragic story of an abusive father.  Shorter grew up in a smallish town in New York State, one of 10 children.  Their father was a hero in the community, a local physician, who was held in wide esteem.  But what people did not know, and what many people today refuse to accept, is that his father terrorized the rest of the family.  The terror included emotional and physical abuse, and with the daughters in the family, sexual abuse.  It was horrific.

Because of shame and fear, Shorter kept this tragedy private from even his closest friends, and even his first wife, for decades.  But eventually he decided to go public and tell his story.  It is a sobering story.

I found Shorter’s autobiography surprisingly fascinating.  Some of that is the story of his tragic childhood and how he has dealt with it.  Some of it may be that I lived, to some extent, in the world of international distance running and marathoning, even interacting with Shorter on several occasions.  And I certainly enjoyed some of the riveting running stories, both about his training and his racing.  But perhaps, the reason the book impacted me so much was that I saw in Shorter a marathoner who was intentional, deliberate and thoughtful about his training and racing, an athlete who fully leveraged his gifts and abilities for running.  For various reasons, including deep struggles with OCD, I do not think I maximized the running abilities that God gave me.  I suspect that the book had a subconscious poignancy in me because of this issue.

For most distance runners, Shorter’s autobiography will be a great read. 

Peter the Great - His Life and World

Robert K. Massie

The biography Peter the Great, by Robert K. Massie, is undoubtedly the definitive biography in the English language of Russia’s greatest tsar.  Peter was born in 1672 and died at age 53 in 1725.  He is the tsar who brought Russia into the modern world.  When he became tsar Russia was a backwards, isolated people.  Peter dragged his country, at times against their will, into the modern world and into the European orbit.

He imported all kinds of scholars and ideas from Europe.  He brought reforms to the Russian Orthodox Church.  He built a powerful navy when Russia had no navy and no port at the beginning of his reign.  He built a very strong army that did battle with and eventually defeated the mighty Swedish army, which was the most powerful army in Europe when Peter took office.

Peter was an unusual man.  He was not educated in the classical sense, but he was smart and he was endlessly curious.  He loved to build things with his hands.  He could be generous and kind, but he could also be severe and autocratic.  There is no doubt that he came to rule Russia with an iron hand, and that included a severe taxation and burden to support his strong army and navy.

He built St. Petersburg from scratch after capturing that land from Sweden, and he moved the capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg.  He lived with so much drama, becoming a co-tsar at the age of 10 during a bloody and dangerous revolution.  He fought off his half-sister in a battle for power.  He would later imprison his own son, who would die young.  There were continuous intrigues within and wars without.  In so many ways, Peter the Great was a titanic figure who would become the most influential tsar in Russia’s history.

This is a fascinating story, well told by the master biographer, Robert K. Massie.