'•..■:■;• '■: ■ '■ ■4 Mis** t*<3ft ^ 'W3&~ ^6* °*4lP 7* * '-*iyC/"™ $ ' V • A m. J** *• ~0 * v ^> • # » ■v?/^s ■ v :■■ & +o. -6i" valor he had pei formed. But dying as th : Executive of the nation — as the President of these United States, and at such a crisis in her history, with v. hat word; c- give expression to our sorrow! En this darkest hour that has ever gathered in im- penetrable blackness over our beloved Republic — to loose such a man! who can foretell the consequences ? Well may twenty millions of our countrymen, gather this day Into their respective places of worship with broken hearts, and bow down before the God of the whole earth, and pour out there souls in earnest supplication, that bis protecting and fostering care may not be.wilhdrawn from our National Government — to defend it from destruction, and to >. as dear as life and light to every A penetrable, inscrutibl overwhelmed, by its suddenness, and by the awful and irrepar- able breach which it has caused ! We dare not ask, why is it thus? We have not the power to determine where its conse- quences will end. But from it, a voice falls like the light of the morning sun upon the length and breadth of this land, and. says to every individual in it : " Com?, my people, enter ihou in- to thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee : hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation he overpast." Upon these boisterous, angry councils — upon these distracted, bigoted parties — upon those self-sufficient, grasping plans — up- on a Nation that had sunk down in apathy and indifference in regard to the moral and political eviis that abounded, God has let go the messenger of his judgments, and the one concerning whom we feared the least, and in whom the highest hopes and affections were centered, is removed at a single stroke. A calamity ? Of this there is probably not a single doubt in the Nation ; and a calamity, the bitter end of which, we can- not by any human penetration foresee. Can any thing be done to avert it ? To keep from us those fearful eviis, from the bare contemplation of which the mind shrinks back agasl ? Yes, there is a hope. Obey the voice of God m the calamity. " En- ier into thy chambers and shut thy doors ribout lliee, and | thyself, as it were for a little moment, until the rndignation be overp ist." The figure of the text is a most striking arid im- pressive illustration of the sorrowful event that has railed us together this morning. .' .. h, when the foundations of the great deep were to be broken up, and earth's guilty races were to perish by the judgments of God ; as he gathered his household around him and entered into his chambers;, and shut his doors about him, and give himself up entirely to the wiil of Him who rules in heaven and earth, and cast himself upon His mercy for protection and defence. What must have been his reflections as he sat in these chambers and heard the shriek of a world as it perished, and felt that wild waste of waters bear- ing him aloft, as he rode those mountain billows, as a forest or a city in its destruction came rushing past through the impen- etrable gloom, as the v and howled, and " the foundations of the c of course?" What must have been his views of the character ol'God — of his perfections, of his glorious holiness? With what contrition and awe did hoTegard sirr, that " brought death into the world with all our woeV' and reaped su ' a feai ful harvest in the universal wreck that reigned Or like the Israelite in Egypt, as he sprinkled the lin poll of his door with the blood of the >b, betokening that fearful visit from the Angel of Deal!), who in the solemn hour of midnight was to sweep over the land and deluge it with mourning and tears, by destruction of the first born in every house. With what solemn awe, did those households gather together in their chambers, and shut the doors about them, while that awful scourge was passing over them ! With what feelings did they hear the lamenta- tions and wailings of those that dwelt next to them, as the first- born was suddenly smitten by an invisible hand, and yielded his life a prey ! Wit!) what contrite penitence did they regard that Paschal lamb that lay there slain for them — the pledge of their present protection and the presage of their future hopes, through the mercy of God in Christ ? How awfully near did those solemn gatherings together — those momentous events, bring them to that Great Being, whose power they saw display- ed and whoso attributes they saw proclaimed in thrilling tones in the Providences by which they were surrounded ! So should we, whose first-born God has taken, and over -whom the cup of his indignation seems ready to be poured out, also enter into our chambers and bhut the doors about us, and solemnly consider of what has beet) done, and the probable re- sults which wc are to experience hereafter. That chamber should witness tears of contrite sorrow— the deepest penitence s for our nalbnal and individual sins — (he most devout suppli- cation that this wrath may be stayed, and thai tin's bereave- ment may be sanctified for our national and individual benefit. It should be the place of deep and prayerful icflection, that we may act wisely, and be prepared in a measure to open our hearts to the counsels of wisdom which we need in this trying hour. And what, among other things, should be the appropriate subjects for consideration in that chamber in which we hide ourselves from the impending wrath ? We should reflect upon the character and attributes of that Sovereign God, in whose presence " the nations of the earth are as the small dust upon the scales of the balance;" before whom the people "are as grass-hoppers." What is human greatness, when contrasted with the Ruler of the world? What is man whose breath is in his nostrils, that he should stand before him and endure? — What are stations of human power and authority in his pres- ence, who holds the sceptre of universal dominion, and whose Kingdom is everlasting? W T hat is human life, or wisdom, or experience with Him, who before the mountains were brought, forth, or ever the earth or the world were formed, from ever- lasting to everlasting was God? What are human plans and counsels and purposes with him, who is above all and over all, God blessed forever. From this event, in this place of solemn retirement, " the still small voice" enters our inmost souls, and with subduing, overwhelming majesty, proclaims that "God alone is great ?" " He giveth not account of any of his matters ; — his counsel shall stand, and He will do all his pleasure." — " Who by searching can find out God ; or being his counsellor, hath taught Him." " Who is of purer eyes than to behold in- iquity, and who cannot look upon sin." That chamber of re- fuge should bring that Being— his character and his attributes, —his sovereignty and his purposes— his purity and his holines, in connection with these events — with ourselves and our sins — our thoughtlessness and ingratitude— our hopes and our fears, and we may then perhaps, see the only way in which the worst may be avoided, and the desired result may be realized. Oh ! that my unhappy, bleeding country, could this day lay her throbbing heart before God ! For there alone can her gaping wounds be healed. There ive should reflect with the deepest humility and contri- tion, upon the character and extent of the calamity which has befallen us. Reflection here is above all things indispensible. Without it, we shall fail to realize our critical condition and take the onlv available course to remedy the evil. Without it we shall bo left to grow harder in sin, until God moves out ot his place to punish the inhabitants of our land for their iniquity. To lose a good man, is always to a greater or less degree, a national affliction. It reduces the number of those', who are the pillars of the State, and the firm supporters of order and good fellowship in society. To lose a good Ruler, is always a great national calamity ; but to lose such a man at such a crisis ! The loss is incalculable ! But once before in the history of our Republic, has this event occurred. Then there were compar- atively no great events pending — no distractions — no threaten- ed internal ruptures. Then there were but heart burnings and jealousies. Then those firery words had not been spoken— nor had those fierce denunciations been attered ; yef men start- ed and turned pale. The veteran of fourscore years wept like a child at his country's loss, and youth stood mute with aston- ishment ! But now — how is it now ? You whose time and occupation lead you to a more intimate acquaintance with po- litical events, tell me, how is it now ? With what words shall I describe the probable loss to the country in the death of him who held, as the earthly instrument, the helm of our Nation's destinies, and who had manifested such an indomitable resolu- tion to preserve her freedom and her integrity inviolate ? Has not our glorious' Union been threatened — denounced? Have not those unhappy words been spoken by American citizens? By the Representatives of a great and free people? Has not that been assailed most unsparingly, which was dear to us as the apple of our eye — the very mention of which in an unfriend- ly manner, we regarded as treason against our most precious hopes? The heart of the Nation has stood still, to see the champions of mind meet upon the floor of Congress, in fierce combat for freedom and the Union on the one side, and slavery at all hazards, on the other ! Humiliating, disastrous contest! Those words can never be unsaid ; those records can never be obliterated ; those bleeding wounds can never be probed and healed as though they had not been. Now parties rage and sections are arrayed against each other. Now the " house is divided against itself." Shall we appeal to the Divine Teach- er to decide whether it can stand or not? The vaulting am- bition to obtain territory has been gratified. Upon that terri- tory, fierce contests were fought to secure its possession ; and now a fiercer conflict is raging to decide the question, whether human slavery shall, or shall not pollute its air, and blast the sinews of its strength. The God of mammon has been propi- tious—more than propitious. To him his votaries have bowed 10 down n with all the devotion of an Eastern idolatry."" The God of Heaven has been forgotten, and he has justly sent confusion into the councils of the Nation and relaxed the bonds of her strength. The defender of her integrity and her rights, lies in state, cold in the embrace of death. He has done with plans and schemes. His voice will be heard no more over those wild billows of sectional feuds and party strifes. His arm is power- less to hold the helm that guides and defends the hopes and blessings of present and future ages. Alas! my bereaved fel- low-citizens, you have met with an incalculable loss ! A ca- lamity which words cannot well define ? And what gives point to our justly excited fears, is, that he who is now gone — • our departed President, had assumed a position before the A- merican people, upon those questions that now divide the Na- tion, which no other man can maintain with the same degree of efficiency and acceptance with that section and interest of the Union, which he represents. His head can devise no more, nor can his heart carry out its noble schemes of sacrifices and concessions for the sake of peace. That a successor is provi- ded, and that he is a good man and true, we this day make de- vout thanksgiving to God. But what changes must result ? — Cabinets are dissolved. Counsellors of State are changed. — New elements are brought into the alrea^ fermenting mar, 1 :! ; and from the wreck of what there was, w the combination of new and more deadly e beloved Union, the heavens brood darkly ! Thick clouds nro gathering fast — in awful pomp our God has come, and our days of joy may be past; and the event which we mourn, and the voice of God in the event — our hopes and fears say to you — " Come my people, enter thou into thy chambers and shut thy doors about thee ; hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be over past." There is another subject which that chamber of solemn re- flection should urge, and does urge upon the hearts and con- sciences of men, with prodigious power. A subject which I would fain pass over in silence, could I thus consider my du- ty done. That subject is, the rebuke ivhich is administered to the party spirit, ivhich has become so fearfully predominant in the administration oj our political affairs. How in a mo- ment are the plans, the hopes, the purposes of a party, chang- ed—crushed by the Providence of God all that for which they schemed and contrived and labored and sacrificed for months, for years, is brought to nought in a single moment. Success, without regard to the means employed to obtain it, or the prin- ciples or the men selected to secure it, is now the one sole aim 11 of political parties. God, right, truth, justice, all are iurg^. ten in the intemperate zeal to triumph and hold the stations of* influence and power in the Slate. How do men canvass and organize and martial their forces and intrigue and plot to ac- complish their end. The curse of God is upon it, and has been for the last ten years of our political history, as legibly written as were those mysterious words upon the palace walls of Babylon's King. Brethren, I hold no connection or affinity with any political party in existence ; and what I say, I firmly believe to be as fully applicable to one political party as it is to the other. It is the bane, the curse of Republicanism — the plague spot that rusts and eats out its strength and destroys its life. Look at its legitimate results. It corrupts the purity of political institutions and defeats the very end for which pow- er was given to the people. It is the embodiment of injustice and cruelty. A man is no sooner selected as the choice of the majority of the people to fill the noblest office in their gift, than he is anathematized and devoted to political destruction from one end of the land to the other. Every act that he performs, is misconstrued, ridiculed, derided, and he himself is tortured, tormented, stung, until life becomes a burden. That a man's acts in such a station should be narrowly watched and freely commented upon, is both natural and right, but that he should. be thus abused and taunted merely for political purposes, is at once barbarous and wicked in the extreme — a sin that cries to high heaven for vengeance upon its perpetrators. The ruler is the servant of God, whatever may be his personal or indi- vidual character. In his official relation, there have been com- mitted to him high and solemn trusts which he holds in behalf of those governed, as the representative of a higher power, and he who called him to that station will defend his preroga- tives or avenge his wrongs. That noble old hero whose re- mains were but yesterday hung over in inexpressible grief by the citizens of the Capitol of our nation, never knew what hardship was, until he took his seat as President of the United States. He had braved the malaria of the southern ever- glades — he had breasted the savage in fierce combat undaunted and unhurt — he had faced the death-bearing shot of iron and lead upon the field of carnage unscathed — but he had never been tortured and vexed and plagued and defamed by hun- dreds and thousands of the people, whom he came to serve ; and upon his own death-bed, he felt that his vexations and mental anxieties and the lacerations which his heart had en- dured, had done more to destroy him than physical disease.— My Brethren, I do not believe that the man lives, who cau 12 pass, under the existing stale of political parties, a single Pres- idential term and not come out a perfect wreck. How was it with the predecessor of him who has just gone to his rest. I refer to President Polk, that noble minded man whose virtues and high endowments all acknowledge — whose character was so symetrical, so beautiful, who brought to that, station, a mind and a body full of vigor and youth and of vast resources and immolated them upon the altar of his country's good. He left his place, the shadow of what he was, to sink into a premature grave. How was it with that poor old man that preceded him — whose name was shouted by the multitude, and borne in triumph to that lofty seat and hurled from it again in fiercer denunciations, by a popular clamor equally as great. It has now become a matter of history that his martyrdom lasted just one month ! And in this connection, it is a most significant fact, that for an office that lasts but for four years, and which has never been held but for twice that length of time, there should now be living but a single individual that had been elect- ed to it by the people. It has become, almost without any fig- ure of speech, " that bourne from whence no traveler returns." Is it not a most significant fact, bearing with it a most thrilling reproof — manifesting most conclusively that God's judgments ere abroad in the land, and that his hand is upon the place of power, to hurl from thence all that man places there, without recognizing his sovereign prerogative? Political partizan, pause ! Enter into thy chamber and shut thy doors about thee. It is time to reflect seriously. Events so marked bring with them their own peculiar lesson. Look over the history of the past, the feelings, the motives, the influences which have com- bined together and brought about the present stale of things. See the evils which threaten us and the causes which have produced them. Pause here— upon that brink to which, to all human appearances, the Providence of God has brought upon us ? Can any thing be done to arrest these evils — to pass the cri- sis in safety — to shun the rock upon which we are in such im- minent danger of being wrecked, and again reach the open sea of prosperity and increasing glory ? We believe there may. — Not by Legislatures and Senates — but by the humble disciples of Jesus Christ, in their contrite supplications before the Great Ruler of the world — not by the Representative upon the floor of Congress, but by the Constituent in his chamber of solemn reflection — not by the man of the mighty intellect, \tfho seizes upon the passions of his audience with the grasp of a giant and drags them to the very borders of treason and anarchy, but by the sorrow of the humble heart that trembles at God's word ; whose mental conceptions may be few and feeble; but who has the power t: to move the arm that moves the world." We have seen too much of man — too much of his plans and ma- chinery and contriving. It is time that he hides himself for a little —that he disappears from the stage of action, until the just indignation of Him that doeth his pleasure in the armies of Heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, be overpast. That we may realise our true posilion and estimate onr real character in his sight, he has baptised our Nation in grief, and bathed it with tears. May we deplore our sins, and with the remains of our departed Ruler, bury our animosities and offer with one heart the prayer : — Our Fathei's God, lo Thee, Author of Liberty — To Thee we sing : Long; may out land be bright. With Freedom's holy light. Protected by thy might. Great God our King. 146 9 a* "£>. A <^ , ° /^ ^ -,^ .& o » a •IM B « O * / SjMfc;. %> * c /^&f ,0 «■ c^yr. \>** <& % HI- £52^- V,