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 DAY or NATIONAL MOURNING 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 
 
 ST. JOHN'S (LUTHERAN) CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 JUNE 1st, 1865. 
 
 THE ^'.A.STOjEt, 
 
 JOSEPH A. SEISS, D.D., 
 
 OFFICIATING. 
 
 FOR SALE AT 
 
 No. 42 NOETH NINTH STEEET, 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 1865. 
 
 Cop ^ 
 

 • The tyrannous and bloody act is done ; 
 The most arch deed of piteous massacre, 
 That ever yet this land was guilty of." 
 
I. THE DEYOTIONAL EXERCISES. 
 
 Introit. — " Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of 
 my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, Lord, my Strength and my 
 Kedeemer." 
 
 Eeading of the Ten Commandments, Ex. 20 : 1 — 17. 
 THE CONFESSION OF SINS. 
 
 Almighty and most holy Lord and God, who dost 
 command us to humble ourselves under thy mighty 
 hand, that thou mayest exalt us in due time ; in 
 humility of spirit we confess before thee, in this our 
 bereavement and affliction, how deeply, as a nation, 
 we have deserved thy wrath. We acknowledge thy 
 righteousness in the sorrowful visitation which has 
 come upon us, and bow to thy holy will in submis- 
 sion and self-abasement. Manifold are our trans- 
 gressions, and the more sinful because of the many 
 and great mercies which thou hast bestowed upon us. 
 We have sinned, in pride and living to ourselves, in 
 covetousness and worldliness of mind, in self-suffi- 
 ciency and too much trusting in man instead of thee. 
 
Profaneness of speech, violation and disregard of thy 
 holy day, neglect of thy worship, unbelief and con- 
 tempt of thy word, unfaithfulness to public trusts, 
 dishonesties in worldly business, and above all, re- 
 ceiving in vain thy wonderful grace in the Gospel of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, all cry out for thy indigna- 
 tion and wrath. It is because thy compassions have 
 not failed, that we have not been consumed. We 
 adore the riches of thy forbearance and long-suffer- 
 ing ; and beseech thee, O Lord, to turn the hearts of 
 this people to repentance and supplication, that still 
 thou mayest have compassion upon us ; not weighing 
 our merits, but pardoning our offences. For thy Son, 
 our Lord Jesus Christ's sake, forgive us all that is 
 past, and grant that ever hereafter we may all serve 
 and please thee in newness of hfe, to the honor and 
 glory of thy name, through him who liveth and 
 reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one 
 God, world without end. Amen. 
 
 HYMN. 
 
 "Great Milker of unnumbered wurlds, 
 And whom unnumbered worlds adore, 
 Whose goodness all thy creatures share, 
 While nature trembles at thy power," &c. 
 
 ScRH'TURE Lessons. — Isaiah 59, and Luke 6 : 20 — 38. 
 
THE GENEKAL PRAYEK. 
 
 Almighty and most merciful God, we lift our hearts 
 to thee, the hearer of prayer, from whom alone 
 Cometh our help. We adore thee as the great Pa- 
 rent of the Universe, from whom all things proceed, 
 and on whom all creatures depend. Thou art worthy 
 of all honor, gratitude, affection, and obedience. 
 Thou art the blessed and only Potentate, the King 
 of kings and Lord of lords. Thou alone hast im- 
 mortality. With thee are the issues of life and of 
 death. Thou doest after the counsels of thine own 
 will among the angels in heaven and in the affairs of 
 men. We, thine unworthy servants, desire to recog- 
 nize thy hand in all things, and to be duly grateful 
 to thee for thy many and great mercies. W^e bless 
 thee for our creation, preservation, and all the com- 
 forts and privileges of this life. As citizens of a 
 country which thou hast highly favored, as well as 
 sorely chastised, we adore thee for what thou hast 
 done for us, and humbly submit ourselves to thy holy 
 governance. We adore thee for all the way which 
 thou hast led us, in darkness and in light, in defeats 
 and in victories, in days of discouragements and days 
 of rejoicing, and for all the lessons which thou art in 
 all addressing to us. We bless thee for the steadfast 
 devotion and obedience of the people to the Govern- 
 
ment, under their many burdens during these years 
 of trial. We thank thee that when dangerous con- 
 spiracies arose, thou didst bring them to nought. 
 We thank thee that no invasions of loyal territory 
 have been permitted to prosper; and that, in so large 
 a part of the land, there have been preserved to us 
 tranquillity and prosperity, abundance of the fruits of 
 the ground, and the undisturbed enjoyment of the 
 means of grace. We thank thee for the devotion 
 and bravery and patience and faithfulness of the na- 
 tional forces, on land and water, through whose skill 
 and courage thou hast wrought such great things for 
 us ; beseeching thee to return them to their homes in 
 safety, to give them all happiness in their families, to 
 fill their hearts with love to thee, and to bring them 
 finally to the blessedness of thy kingdom. And we 
 pray thee so to impress the hearts of all the nation 
 with a just sense of thy providence, goodness, and 
 mercy in the years just passed, and in our present 
 deliverance and prospects, that all may most thank- 
 fully acknowledge their debt of love and praise, and 
 serve thee henceforth in humble obedience to thy 
 word. 
 
 And as thou hast seen fit, O thou mighty Ruler 
 of the world, in thine all-wise administrations, to 
 permit us to be deprived of the presence and fur- 
 ther counsels of our late Chief Magistrate, and hast 
 so deeply grieved the hearts of the people, turning 
 
our songs into mourning and our joy into sorrow ; we 
 beseech thee to have mercy upon us in this our ca- 
 lamity, and to overrule it to the furtherance of our 
 humility and peace, and to thine everlasting glory. 
 Give unto iis the gracious aid of thy Holy Spirit, 
 that we may rightly learn thy will, and profit by all 
 thy dealings with us. Enable us to have a right 
 estimate of the good example and timely services 
 vouchsafed to us in the life of him whom thou hast 
 taken, and to be governed aright in all our feelings 
 and meditations concerning the same. We thank 
 thee for the great grace and faithfulness thou gavest 
 him in his high office, and for the success with which 
 thou hast favored his administrations to the preserva- 
 tion of our national unity and the enlargement of 
 human freedom, and beseech thee to help us to ap- 
 preciate the high trusts which thou hast by him re- 
 given to our keeping. Have compassion upon his 
 sorrowing family and relatives, whom thou hast 
 called to endure this sore bereavement. Cause their 
 hearts to be lifted toward thy grace for support and 
 consolation. Mingle the ministrations of thy love 
 with the bitterness of their cup. Grant them, in 
 this cloud of darkness, to see and rejoice in the light 
 of life ; and lead them by thy heavenly grace to life 
 everlasting. 
 
 And for him who, by this mysterious providence, 
 is now called to assume the highest office in the na- 
 
8 
 
 tion, we entreat thy protection, support, and guid- 
 ance. Teach him where to look for all he needs 
 under the heavy duties which have come upon him, 
 and give him grace so to administer the Government 
 after the good example which has been set before 
 him, that by wisdom and moderation, by firmness and 
 clemency, in the due vindication of justice and re- 
 membrance of mercy, the laws may be truly honored, 
 the wounds of the nation healed, and peace and unity 
 restored to the land for all generations. 
 
 We implore thy blessing upon our entire country, 
 and upon all its inhabitants. Have compassion, O 
 Lord, upon those regions which war has desolated, 
 and in which the weapons of rebellion were lifted. 
 Restore to them thy gracious favor. May the waste 
 places be made to bloom again. Give to the erring 
 and the vanquished the spirit of loyal submission 
 to the rightful authority of the nation. Pleal the 
 wounds that have been made in their homes and 
 neighborhoods, in their peace and prosperity. Take 
 away from them and from us all bitterness, wrath, 
 and anger, and make us all kind one toward another. 
 Make us again one people, not only by union under 
 the same laws, but in affectionate participation in the 
 same national privileges ; serving together in the one 
 faith of thy holy word, working together for the ad- 
 vancement of the one glorious kingdom of righteous- 
 ness and peace, and inheritors together of eternal life, 
 
9 
 
 through the one sacrifice and mediation of our Lord 
 and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
 
 Let it please thee, also, to help and bless all sorts 
 and conditions of men, making thy ways known 
 unto them, and saving them from their sins. Endow 
 all rulers and magistrates with thy grace, and fill 
 them with the spirit of wisdom and justice. Show 
 thy goodness to the sorrowing and afflicted, and give 
 deliverance to the enslaved and oppressed. Remem- 
 ber thy Church in tender mercy, and refresh and 
 prosper it with the continual dew of thy heavenly 
 blessing. Send down upon all ministers of the Gos- 
 pel, and upon all thy people, the needful Spirit of 
 thy grace. Cause the number of thy saints to be 
 multiplied in all the earth ; and let thy blessed king- 
 dom speedily come, and thy holy will be done on 
 earth as it is in heaven. 
 
 Hear us, most gracious Lord and God, and despise 
 not these our unworthy services, neither deny us our 
 requests, which we present before thy Divine Ma- 
 jesty in the name of Jesus Christ, our Mediator and 
 Redeemer, to whom, with thee, and the Holy Ghost, 
 be all honor and glory, world without end. 
 
 Amen. 
 
SECOND HYMN. 
 
 ' God moves in a mysterious way, 
 
 His wonders to perform ; 
 He plants his footsteps in the sea, 
 And rides upon the storm," &c. 
 
11. THE DISCOURSE. 
 
 Text. "And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when 
 
 he died : his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. And the 
 children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days." 
 Deut 33 : 7, 8. 
 
 Many-sided, and full of light, are even the sim- 
 plest records of the word of God. This little his- 
 toric fragment is rich in fruitful themes for solemn 
 meditation. Even in the line of thinking to which 
 the appointment of this day specially calls us, there 
 are sundry very noteworthy suggestions. 
 
 We here find that the most eminent servants of 
 God, as well as other people, are subject to the do- 
 minion of death. 
 
 We here find that men high in office and favor, 
 are sometimes suddenly taken away in the fulness of 
 their strength, in the midst of their labors and use- 
 fulness, just when their presence seems most indis- 
 pensable, and on the very eve of the consummation 
 of their most earnest endeavors. 
 
 We here find that from remote antiquity, from 
 
12 
 
 some motive of religion, or praiseworthy impulse of 
 justice, gratitude, or admiration, it has been the cus- 
 tom of good people to take special notice of the 
 deaths of distinguished public servants, to express 
 by unwonted tokens the sense of loss sustained by 
 their removal, and to give befitting indications of ap- 
 preciation of their qualities and worth on the part 
 of their survivors. 
 
 But I do not propose to dwell on these topics. 1 
 mention them, as I use the text itself, not for discus- 
 sion, but chiefly as a preface and starting-point for 
 other observations. The mention of Moses, the close 
 of his career, and the mourning of the people for 
 him, calls up the character and mission of Moses. 
 These, connected with the purposes for which we 
 are this day in the sanctuary, naturally suggest the 
 comparison of this illustrious personage with him 
 over the recent, sudden, and melancholy termination 
 of whose life the nation mourns, and the civilized 
 world is moved. 
 
 Who Moses was needs scarcely to be stated. His 
 history is written in the best known and most sacred 
 books of nearly all nations, and is familiar to the 
 children of almost every home. His origin among 
 a people who labored in the brickyards and served 
 the Egyptians, his inheritance of hardships deserved 
 neither by him nor his parents, and his providential 
 preservation in early infancy, are things which we 
 
i; 
 
 learned in the first lessons of our childhood. You 
 remember how he was committed to his mother to 
 be nursed and reared for Pharaoh's daughter, whose 
 maids had found him in the river. You know from 
 whose lips he was taught in the traditions and reli- 
 gion of his people, and whence he drank in those 
 sentiments of justice, faith in God, sympathy with 
 the oppressed, and love of freedom and equal rights, 
 which manifested themselves so strikingly in his 
 early manhood, and became the guiding-star of his 
 life and greatness. You do not need to be told what 
 office it was that he was called to fill, and how he 
 was gradually schooled for it by his training in 
 Egyptian learning, by his military experiences in an 
 expedition against the depredatory tribes of Ethio- 
 pia, in his voluntary exile from the place of his 
 birth, in his servitude and quiet meditations as 
 keeper of Jethro's flocks, and in his sharp and pro- 
 longed contest with the Magicians of Pharaoh's 
 court. Nor will it ever be forgotten how he hum- 
 bled the pride of them that withstood him, and 
 gathered to himself the confidence of the people, 
 and submitted himself to the promptings of his con- 
 science, and enraged Egypt's haughty aristocrats 
 with his proposals and demands in behalf of the op- 
 pressed, and in the face of Egypt's armies led out 
 the enslaved from the house of bondage, and saw 
 the hosts of Israel's oppressors overwhelmed under 
 
14 
 
 the waving of his staff, and silenced the murmurs 
 of the rebelhous in his own camp, and rewrote and 
 reasserted the great laws of right, loyalty, and jus- 
 tice, and forced his way through lands which he had 
 been forbidden to pass, and was tried by the treach- 
 erous schemes of Balak and Baalam, and vanquish- 
 ed the tribes who took up arms against his people, 
 and conducted Israel through the wilderness to the 
 very borders of the land of rest, and then suddenly 
 ended his career, as he had been forewarned, amid 
 the tears and lamentations of those whom he had 
 dehvered and led. 
 
 And how closely all this resembles the story of Jiis 
 life, for whom this national mourning has been ap- 
 pointed, scarcely requires to be pointed out. If 
 Moses was of humble parentage, so was he. His 
 father was a poor Kentuckian, who could neither 
 read nor write ; and his mother was a lowly woman, 
 whose highest literary attainment was ability to read 
 her Bible. If Moses derived from his mother those 
 sentiments and feelings which formed the basis of 
 his exalted character and success, the same may be 
 said of the late President. Though uneducated, his 
 mother was a talented woman, of sound practical 
 wisdom, earnest piety, and great devotion to her son; 
 and to lier influence and teachings, many of the 
 traits wliich distinguished his life are traced by his 
 biographers. A child of poverty and hardsliips, he 
 
15 
 
 was early expatriated from the place of his birth, 
 transfeiTed to the wilderness, subsisted on scanty 
 fare, and made to serve strangers. Though not 
 " learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," and 
 obliged to borrow the books from which he obtained 
 the first rudiments of his literary knowledge, he was 
 thoroughly educated in the school of humble life, 
 and familiarized with all its necessities and trials, 
 which, in his case, as in that of Moses, was the most 
 valuable part of his education. He, too, was a cap- 
 tain and soldier in a campaign against tribes of ma- 
 rauding savages. He, too, found it a great turning 
 point in his life, when, in answer to the generous 
 impulses of his heart, he volunteered to stand be- 
 tween an innocent sufferer and his accusers, and res- 
 cued him from a death which he had not merited. 
 And if the controlling sympathies of Moses ran 
 with the injured, the wronged, and the enslaved, such 
 was exactly the temper of Abraham Lincoln, who, 
 also, at an early period, gave decisive evidence of his 
 utter contempt for the preferments and luxuries of 
 enslaving power. He, too, was born to figure in a 
 great crisis in the affairs of his country, and remark- 
 ably called to execute a mission as pregnant with 
 results as it was feeble in friends, resources, and 
 promises of success. Even the complaint which the 
 Jewish leader uttered with reference to the apparent 
 inadequacy of the instrument to the end to be ac- 
 
16 
 
 complished, had its correspondence in him for whom 
 we this day mourn. " Who am I," said he, " that I 
 should go unto Pharoah, and that I should bring 
 forth the children of Israel out of Egypt" — '' O my 
 Lord, I am not eloquent." (Ex. 3:11; 4 : 10.) 
 
 And that great debate, of which all the people of 
 Illinois were the witnesses, and in which all sections 
 of the country were unwontedly interested ; in which 
 he was resisted by perhaps the most formidable 
 champion of the political arena then living ; in which 
 all the powers of extraordinary genius, adroitness, 
 and forensic skill were brought to bear against him ; 
 and which first fully laid open the question of free- 
 dom and slavery which the God of battles has since 
 decided in his favor; — what was it but a re-enact- 
 ment upon another theatre, and in another form, of 
 that contest between the shepherd of INIidian and 
 the Magicians of Egypt"? Indeed, contemplated 
 from almost any point, the considerate mind will be 
 at no loss to trace resemblances between his charac-" 
 ter and career and that of the matchless man whom 
 the Scriptures set before us as the great hero of Is- 
 rael's deliverance. 
 
 Nor were the times and circumstances in which 
 the two were called to operate, very dissimilar. By 
 some strange forge tfulness of acknowledged riglits 
 and covenants, there had been a power put forth in 
 Egypt, by which the multiplied posterity of Jacob 
 
17 
 
 were divested of their freedom, and subjected to 
 rigorous taskmasters, "who made their lives bitter 
 with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick, and in 
 all manner of service in the field." (Ex. 1 : 8-14.) 
 " And the children of Israel sighed by reason of the 
 bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto 
 God. And God heard their groaning. And God 
 looked upon the children of Israel, and God had re- 
 spect unto them." (Ex. 2 : 23-25.) In other words, 
 the time had come, in the decrees of Heaven, when 
 the heavy yoke was to be broken, the pride of the 
 oppressor humbled, and these suffering tribes set free. 
 So, on this continent, a new power in the world 
 had risen up, in the Constitution of which, owing to 
 whatever causes, or modified by whatever apologies, 
 contrary to the convictions and desires of its framers, 
 elements of oppression and undoubted wrong had 
 been embodied and legalized, by which millions of 
 human beings, brought hither in their misfortunes, 
 were doomed to abject and unquaHfied servitude; — 
 a servitude which, however mild, gentle, and benfi- 
 cent in some cases and relations, or excusable on the 
 part of those who had no share in producing it, did 
 embrace, in its very nature, a violation of the com- 
 mon rights of man, and was everywhere attended 
 more or less with hardships and horrors, for which 
 the inexorable requirements of justice demanded that 
 a day of retributive revolution should come. To such 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 a pass had things been carried, that, in some sections 
 of the land, there was not a day in which human 
 souls were not bought and transported as common 
 chattels, and families severed without compunctions, 
 and nameless crimes perpetrated without the possi- 
 bihty of redress ; whilst the whole population of all 
 the States was put under requirements to aid in 
 holding tight the bonds of the unoffending, and in 
 remanding to their toils and miseries such as had suf- 
 ficient human feeling left to seek for freedom by 
 their flight. What the founders of our institutions 
 regarded and lamented as a wrong to the bondman 
 and an evil to the state, had come to be accepted 
 and defended as the sublimest beneficence, the foun- 
 dation of liberties, and the proper basis of republican 
 government ; nay, as the very ordination of Almighty 
 Goodness, to touch or question which was considered 
 treason to the country and sin against God. The 
 enlargement and consolidation of enslaving power 
 had come to be the engrossing object of national 
 legislation, and the making firm of slave bonds the 
 great test of patriotism. The press, the rostrum, 
 and the pulpit, were being largely subsidized to the 
 same interest ; and the free speech of men who failed 
 in the pronunciation of its Shiboleth, in nearly every 
 section of the country, was put under ban, and held 
 obnoxious to all the penalties of this world and of 
 that which is to come. Long had the nation sub- 
 
19 
 
 mitted and yielded to the ever-multiplying demands 
 of the "peculiar institution," until the God of jus- 
 tice said, "/< is too much^'' and gave commission to 
 his angels to strike it down, yea, and to sweep it 
 from the earth. 
 
 While Egypt was busy riveting the fetters tighter 
 and tighter upon Israel, little did she dream that, 
 within her own borders, there was a young mind 
 maturing, who, with no ally but God, and no sup- 
 ports but the righteousness of his cause, was pre- 
 sently to scatter all her infamous legislation to the 
 winds. Little did she think, that, from among the 
 poor and despised whom her tyranny was oppressing, 
 there was one gradually being prepared, upon whose 
 plain unvarnished words should follow consternating 
 judgments, before which the pride of her dominion 
 was to be laid level with the dust. And little did 
 she imagine how, from the wilds of Midian, there 
 was presently to come a sun-browned shepherd, by 
 whose calm administrations all her great houses 
 were to be filled with mourning, stript of their illgot 
 treasures, and deprived forever of the vmrequited 
 services of those on the sins against whose manhood 
 her haughty ones had fattened and exulted. But, 
 when God wanted a Moses, there was a Moses ready, 
 hidden away far back in the desert of Horeb, and 
 who, in due time, received his commission from 
 among the trees of the wilderness. 
 
20 
 
 The same has been repeated, in our day, in our 
 country. The picture rises to your view without 
 my aid to call it up. 
 
 ♦ ****#**. 
 
 One of the most controlling features in the cha- 
 racter of Moses, which shines out in his whole ca- 
 reer, undimmed by a single stain of inconsistency, 
 was his self-sacrificing devotion to his convictions of 
 justice and right, based upon his religious faith. His 
 inspired eulogist has said of him, .and meant in this 
 to sum up the great actuating principle of his life, 
 that he " chose rather to suffer affliction with the 
 people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for 
 a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater 
 riches than the treasures in Egypt ; for he had re- 
 spect unto the recompense of the reward." (Heb. 
 10 : 24-28.) 
 
 The same is, in a large measure, true of our late 
 Chief Magistrate. Though not, so far as I am in- 
 formed, a professed Christian, at least not in all par- 
 ticulars, he was a man of decided religious turn of 
 mind, who Hved and acted in the light and influence 
 of a practical faith. It was from his religious per- 
 suasions that all his ideas were shapen, and accord- 
 ing to which he -honestly sought to settle his judg- 
 ment and direct his course, whether in matters of 
 private life or of public policy. All his opinions thus 
 came to partake of the nature of religious principles, 
 
21 
 
 which no personal hazards or counter motives could 
 induce him for one moment to forsake, and for which 
 he was willing to assume any amount of responsi- 
 bility, and to submit to any degree of self-sacrifice. 
 He died a martyr's death, but only because he was 
 pervaded firom the beginning with the elements of a 
 martyr's spirit. He had learned, from the holiest 
 authority, that God " hath made of one blood all 
 nations of men," and that the immutable rule of 
 right, as between man and man, is to do unto others 
 as we would that they should do unto us. And 
 his entire career, in all his public acts at least, was 
 simply the earnest and honest application of these 
 principles. Hence his uniform and generous sym- 
 pathy with the oppressed and the suffering. Hence 
 his early protest, upon the records of his State, in 
 which he declared it to be his solemn belief, " that 
 the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice 
 and bad policy." Hence his advocacy, in Congress, 
 of the right of petition for its removal, his votes to 
 exclude it from the Territories where it had not yet 
 been planted, his efforts to have it abolished in the 
 District of Columbia, his indignation at the repeal 
 of the Missouri Compromise, his ever-deepening ab- 
 horrence of the whole system, and his consent to 
 undertake the leadership of an effort to withstand 
 its insatiable encroachments, and to carry his prin- 
 ciples into a national administration which had nei- 
 
22 
 
 ther precedents nor records to guide it, and which 
 the great mass of those in power stood pledged to 
 resist. 
 
 Nor did he count anything too dear to be laid 
 upon the altar of that cause, which he believed to 
 be the cause of humanity and of God. Nobler 
 words, and revealing the whole structure of his 
 moral thinking, perhaps were never uttered by man, 
 than those in which he said to the people of Illi- 
 nois : 
 
 "The thirteen colonies, by their representatives 
 in old Independence Hall, said to the world of men, 
 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all 
 men are born equal ; that they are endowed by their 
 Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among 
 these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness/ 
 This was their lofty and wise and noble under- 
 standing of the justice of the Creator to His crea- 
 tures, — to the whole great family of man. In their 
 belief, nothing stamped with the Divine image and 
 Ukeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, 
 and degraded and imbruted by its fellows. Tliey 
 grasped not only the race of men then living, but 
 they reached forward and seized upon the furthest 
 posterity. They created a beacon to guide their 
 children, and their children's children, and the count- 
 less myriads who should inhabit the earth in other 
 ages. Wise statesmen as tlicy were, they knew the 
 
23 
 
 tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants ; and so they 
 established these great self-evident truths, that when, 
 in the distant future, some man, some faction, some 
 interest, should set up the doctrine that none but 
 rich men, or none but white men, or none but 
 Anglo-Saxon white men, were entitled to life, lib- 
 erty, and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity 
 might look up again to the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence, and take courage to renew the battle which 
 their fathers began, so that truth and justice and 
 mercy, and all the humane and Christian virtues, 
 might not be extinguished from the land; so that 
 no man would hereafter dare to limit and circum- 
 scribe the great principles on which the temple of 
 liberty was being built. And if you have been 
 taught doctrines conflicting with the great land- 
 marks of the Declaration of Independence, if you 
 have been inclined to believe that all men are not 
 created equal in those inalienable rights enumerated, 
 let me entreat you to come back, to return to the 
 fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of 
 the Revolution. Think nothing of me; take no 
 thought for the political fate of any man whomso- 
 ever, but come back to the truths that are in our 
 chart of liberty. You may do anything with me 
 you choose, if you will but heed these sacred princi- 
 ples. You may not only defeat me for the Senate, 
 but you may take me and put me to death, but do 
 
24 
 
 not destroy that immortal emblem of humanity, — 
 the Declaration of American Independence." 
 
 And with what patient steadiness and self-posses- 
 sion did he pursue his great mission ! 
 
 Moses was the very model of steadfast fortitude 
 and perseverance. Defiantly resisted, repeatedly un- 
 successfid, and again and again foiled and mocked, 
 he continued the conflict, by argument, by expostu- 
 lation, by miracle, and maintained his ground with a 
 firmness of endurance which outwearied even Pha- 
 raoh's hardness. And when his own people lost 
 heart and confidence, and found fault with him, and 
 basely conspired against him, and God himself, by 
 reason of their unbelief, added to his charge and 
 difficulties, by deferring the fulfilment of the pro- 
 mise, he never once thought of giving up, but kept 
 to his work, reasoned, waited, and devoutly perse- 
 vered, till, from Nebo's top, he beheld the expected 
 land lying invitingly at his feet. 
 
 How like Moses, in these respects, was our late 
 President 1 Who ever encountered more or greater 
 perplexities, difficulties, provocations, and discourage- 
 ments than those which beset his way 1 And yet, 
 with what earnest but passionless calmness did he 
 grapple with them! Look at him; unexpectedly 
 called from an humble sphere in which he had been 
 content to remain, and suddenly made the head of a 
 party for the first time, and, as it were, by accident, 
 
I 
 
 25 
 
 coming into power, and as yet wholly without settled 
 habits or traditions of official life, charged with the 
 administration and maintenance of a government 
 which one powerful state after another had renounced 
 and repudiated, required to locate among a people 
 who were almost all opposed to him, the subject of 
 misrepresentation and unqualified abuse, waylaid 
 for his life at almost every turn, mocked at for offi- 
 cial awkwardness, maligned and resisted for his 
 opinions and steadfast policy, tried by years of appa- 
 rent failure before that policy obtained a single suc- 
 cess, embarrassed by the zeal and boastfulness of his 
 friends and subordinates no less than by his inexpe- 
 rience, and that of the country, in such a state of 
 affairs, pressed on every side by some who could see 
 no force in his obligations as a constitutional ruler, 
 and cried down on the other by men whose sym- 
 pathies with treason would allow of no measures 
 large enough for the revolutionary emergency which 
 had arisen, often forsaken by his friends, and deceived 
 and censured and conspired against by those whom 
 he had honored with his confidence; he patiently 
 endured all, and stood calmly to the helm amid the 
 shoals and tempests, never once giving way to anger, 
 to resentment, to despondency under discourage- 
 ments, or to intemperate exultation over the most 
 rapid and brilliant successes, when at last they came. 
 In all his extraordinary trials, and notwithstanding 
 
26 
 
 his great solemn earnestness, his good nature, his 
 generosity, his kind feeHng, and his wonderful meek- 
 ness, never once departed from him. Uncouth and 
 inexperienced as he was at the beginning, he knew 
 his place, and understood his own mind, and added 
 mth every year to his force of character, his self- 
 possession, his executive capacity, and his magnani- 
 mous devotion, until there shone forth from under 
 that ungainly figure a grasp of principle, a directness 
 of judgment, a dignity of manner, a solemnity of 
 purpose, a goodness of heart, and a comprehensive 
 simplicity and justness of policy, which arrested the 
 attention and commanded the admiration of foreio-n 
 courts, and which place his name on the roll of earth's 
 best men and greatest rulers. 
 
 Some said that he was a tyrant. And if inflexi- 
 ble patriotic devotion, and the bold maintenance of 
 the majesty of law over self-will, unruly sectionalism, 
 and daring revolution, if untiring study and cou- 
 rageous promptness in bringing every power and re- 
 source of the Government into exercise for the over- 
 throw of armed conspirators and the preservation of 
 his country from ignoble dismemberment, if unquail- 
 mg confrontation of a subtle and mighty attempt to 
 destroy the most beneficent rule on the fiice of the 
 earth, if daring to use power to save a great and 
 useful nation at a moment when the last flames of 
 its life seemed to flicker for extinction, if these, and 
 
27 
 
 such like instances of patriotic and Christian effort, 
 constitute tyranny, then Abraham Lincohi was a 
 
 tyrant. 
 
 But we have not so learned to count usurpation 
 and tyranny. There is another spirit and style of 
 action, of which there has much been seen and felt 
 in recent years, to which these terms much more ap- 
 propriately apply. It is the spirit which says of the 
 black man, " If he complains of his wrongs, lash him;' 
 and of the white man, "If he stands in your way, 
 KILL HIM." It is the spirit which comes to the Senate 
 chamber with loaded canes, and answers patriotic 
 logic with physical blows upon its author's head, to 
 leave him dying in his seat. It is the spirit which 
 enters defenceless towns in the guise of peaceful tra- 
 vellers, in order to rob, burn, and murder, out of mere 
 brutish vengeance. It is the spirit which gathers 
 infected clothing from the pest-houses, and sends 
 them as honest merchandise to be distributed in un- 
 suspecting communities, for the purpose of breeding 
 death and desolation. It is the spirit which, with 
 oaths in heaven registered to serve and defend, plots 
 plunder, dismemberment, and revolution; which 
 schemes in secret, and sends forth its emissaries in 
 darkness, to burn unoifending cities unwarned, and 
 to erase them, if it can, from the earth; which un- 
 dertakes, in the name of freedom and religion, to 
 subvert the very foundations of both, and to rear in 
 
28 
 
 their places an illegitimate thing, conceived in self- 
 will, estabhshed by rebellion, and subsisted upon the 
 forced toil of millions consigned to brutal degrada- 
 tion and eternal servitude. It is the spirit which 
 incarcerates unfortunate prisoners of honorable war- 
 fare in pestilential holds, stifles them with thirst, 
 starvation, diseased meats, if not slow poisons, and 
 plants tons of gunpowder under them that, in case of 
 inability to retain them, they might be blown to 
 atoms at the mere touch of a match. It is the spirit 
 which gets into the house of a sick public servant 
 with a lie, and stabs him in his bed, and deals out 
 slaughter to his unarmed and terrified attendants ; 
 and which, nothing daunted, holds the charged pistol 
 to the head of the nation's legitimate chieftain, and 
 blows out his brains in the presence of his family and 
 friends, because it cannot overawe his noble purpose, 
 nor drive him from his fixed fidelity to his country, 
 his conscience, and his God. 
 
 Men and brethren, I may be mistaken ; but if I 
 have at all learned to estimate the character of hu- 
 man actions; if I have any true insight into the na- 
 ture of human rights; if I have any just perception 
 of what enters into the composition of the praise- 
 worthy or the base, there is in things like these, the 
 very quintessence of tyranny, and all its worst and 
 most intolerable infamies. And I pity the man who 
 cannot justify, or at least excuse^ any stretching of 
 
29 
 
 official power, however questionable in other circum- 
 stances, that may be requisite to save a free people, 
 and a government based on equal rights, from fall- 
 ing into the hands of such wrongful domination. 
 Rise from the little muddy circles of party politics 
 and prejudices, and look at it in the broad sunUght 
 of eternal morality, and see whether such " chivalry," 
 fairly interpreted by its own acts, does not unmis- 
 takably belong to the sphere of the ugly, the brutal, 
 and the devilish. 
 
 It is not for me to say where the responsibility lies ; 
 nor would I direct criminating words where they do 
 not apply. But these things are the true fruits of 
 secession, which show what it practically is, and in- 
 dex what I take as a full vindication of almost any 
 measures calculated to weaken and to vanquish the 
 unholy thing. If some were, by rigid construction, 
 extra-constitutional, they were not the offspring of 
 resentment and vengeance, nor of self-will, and vain 
 ambition, and love of power, which are the charac- 
 teristics of tyranny. If some were unprecedented in 
 the nation's history, so was the occasion which de- 
 manded them, and the treason which made them 
 necessary. And if, peradventure, certain provisions 
 of the Constitution, repugnant to its framers, and 
 applying only to sections which had, by deeds of re- 
 sistance and assault, forfeited their claims to its pro- 
 tection, were ignored, what good man would put his 
 
30 
 
 country's existence in jeopardy, and imperil the cause 
 of freedom in all the earth, by endeavoring to uphold 
 what could but weaken himself, and strengthen those 
 who were at the time trampling the whole instru- 
 ment under their feet, and glorying before the world 
 in their purpose to destroy it 1 
 
 Silence as the antidote for traitorous proceedings, 
 and the Constitution to fetter the hands of conscien- 
 tious loyalty in grappling with them, is a political 
 creed which argues ill for the patriotism of its con- 
 fessors ; but it embodies the exact logic of those who 
 look upon Abraham Lincoln as a tyrant. Another 
 man, an officer of the government, and sworn to de- 
 fend it, may use his place to manipulate for that 
 government's destruction ; he may go and levy war, 
 and raise armies, and make generals, and commission 
 agents, public and secret, to strike the death-blow to 
 its heart ; and the Constitution, which ranks such 
 proceedings with earth's foulest crimes, is never 
 named. But when a God-fearing executive plants 
 himself in the way of the destroyer, and exerts his 
 proper power to save the most precious of political 
 creations, and gives promise of success in restoring 
 his country's unity, with its freedom enlarged, its im- 
 purities purged, and its greatness augmented, he is 
 denounced as a tyrant, and murdered for his devo- 
 tion. Shame to such shallowness, and woe to the 
 
 guilt of such hypocrisy ! 
 V 
 
31 
 
 And whilst upon this point, let me quote a sen- 
 tence or two even from that organ of our country's 
 enemies, the London Times. " Abraham Lincoln," 
 says that paper, in a recent issue, " was as little of a 
 tyrant as any man who ever lived. He could have 
 been a tyrant had he pleased, but he never uttered 
 so much as an ill-natured speech. The war was 
 attended with all war's horrors, but there was no 
 cruelty at Washington. If the people of the seced- 
 ing States were rebels, never was rebellion, except 
 on the field of battle, more gently handled. In all 
 America there was not one man who less deserved to 
 be the victim of this revolution than he who has just 
 fallen. He did nothing to aggravate the quarrel; 
 short of conceding the independence of the South, he 
 did everything to prevent or abbreviate it. He recog- 
 nized it as his one great duty to preserve the Union, 
 and whatever opinions may be entertained about the 
 war and its policy, nobody can say that such a prin- 
 ciple was otherwise than becoming in the President 
 of the RepubHc." (April 29th.) 
 
 It would seem, however, to be one of the common 
 laws in human affairs, that the most virtuous and 
 useful men are the most hated and abused in their 
 lifetime. This was remarkably illustrated in the 
 history of Moses. How was he sneered at when first 
 he appeared at Pharaoh's court ! How did all Egypt 
 despise him for his miracles ! How did his own peo- 
 
32 
 
 pie complain of him in their timidity, when they saw 
 the Egyptians coming upon them at Baal-Zephon ! 
 How did they murmur against him at the waters of 
 Marah, and accuse him in the wilderness of Sin, and 
 cry out in condemnation of him at Rephidim ! How 
 vexatiously did they depart from him while engaged 
 with, God on their behalf, and rail at him, and take 
 up stones to destroy him in the plains of Paran ! 
 How was he wronged by the conspiracy of Korah 
 and Dathan, and tried by the treacheries of Balak 
 and his apostate prophet, and mistreated at every 
 step of his self-denying careej: ! And so it was with 
 all the prophets. Some of them were stoned, sawn 
 asunder, tempted, slain with the sword, " being des- 
 titute, afflicted." Even the blessed Saviour of the 
 world was crucified ; his apostles were martyred ; and 
 his great confessors, in every age, have been hunted 
 down with wrath and bloodthirstiness. Even among 
 the heathen, we find such men as Aristides banished, 
 Socrates poisoned, Demosthenes exiled, Cicero ex- 
 pelled and assassinated. And now, in this boasted 
 home of civilization, in these days claimed as the 
 culminating period of triumph for human rights, we 
 have to add to the list, the kind, generous, passion- 
 less, self-sacrificing, honest-hearted Abraham Lin- 
 coln, who in the midst of his wonderful achievements 
 for his imperilled country, and his great magnanimity 
 towards its foes and his, was sought out, and mur- 
 
33 
 
 dered, for no other reason than that he was good 
 and true and great. 
 
 He was but a man. God forbid that he should 
 for one moment have a higher place in our affections 
 or esteem than that which may lawfully be assigned 
 to a man. I believe that there is real danger in these 
 days, and one which is pointed out as the peculiar 
 snare of the last times, of falling into a spirit of hero- 
 worship, and an apotheotizing of human leaders, 
 which is among the subtlest, easiest, and deadliest of 
 idolatries. It was the great crime of some of the 
 most enlightened nations of antiquity, and it will be 
 the essence of the great apostacy under the Anti- 
 christ. We need, therefore, to be carefully on our 
 guard in that direction. But, let us not fail to do 
 justice to the virtues of the dead, or refuse to keep 
 in kind remembrance those whom God has honored 
 as great servants of their kind. 
 
 It was a sublime work which Moses did for his 
 people and for the world. He relaid the foundations 
 of Israel's great nationality by new illustrations of 
 God's covenant concerning them. He was the great 
 reasserter of human rights over against the tyrannies 
 of Egypt, and the great representative of Law at a 
 time when the world had become oblivious to its high 
 and immutable obligations. He was the great me- 
 diator between Jacob's seed and their oppressors, and 
 the friend who kept Israel from compromising their 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 proper destiny. He was the great instrument in the 
 Divine hand through whom dehverance was ad- 
 ministered to an enslaved race. He was the great 
 collector of the simple traditions of his people, and 
 the reproducer of them for the enlightenment of man- 
 kind. And, taken all in all, he was one of those 
 sublime mountains of human greatness from which 
 new eras date, and the most important affairs of time 
 take complexion and shape. 
 
 We are not yet in a position so well to under- 
 stand the relations and importance of Lincoln's life 
 and deeds. It remains for future ages to trace the 
 bearings of his work upon the fortunes of humanity. 
 But we know enough to warrant the remark, that 
 generations to come will recur with grateful interest 
 and holy reverence to the story of that rugged pio- 
 neer, coming suddenly from the wilderness to steer 
 the greatest of the nations through the greatest of 
 its perils, and to set an example of wise and pru- 
 dent administration, worthy of the study and imita- 
 tion of all the reigning powers on earth. Though 
 never once settmg up to be great, and seemingly 
 unconscious that he was anything more tlian a man 
 of the common average, history will not fail to write 
 him down a great man and a model servant of his 
 kind. Though occupying now no very exalted place 
 in some men's estimation, his administration will 
 mark a new era in the history of this continent, and 
 
35 
 
 the time will come when his name shall be che- 
 rished by freedom's children as warmly as that of 
 Washington himself. 
 
 Had he left no other legacy by which to be favor- 
 ably remembered than the magnificent illustration 
 he has given of the value of talents which oft he 
 hidden in the humbler walks of life, and of the ge- 
 nial excellence of institutions which throw open the 
 paths of honor and official greatness as well to the 
 low born and the poor as to the educated and the 
 rich, the world would still have reason to bless God 
 that he has lived. In this one respect alone there 
 gathers round his history an importance to which no 
 one can afford to be indifferent. The facts in his 
 career open a fountain of ever fresh inspiration to 
 improvement, fidelity, courage, and triumph, which 
 must give strength to many a fainting heart, and 
 fan the fires of generous ambition in many a lowly 
 spirit, and thrill and cheer to greatness and to good 
 many a one of whom the world otherwise would 
 never have heard, and teach the proud, the high-born, 
 and the wealthy, that their children are by nature 
 no better and no greater than the children of those 
 who serve in their houses, hew their wood, and draw 
 their water. There is, after all, an equality among 
 men, too prone to be forgotten ; and this fresh, in- 
 structive, and finished life, now added to the trea- 
 sures of mankind, reopens and recalls the fact, and 
 
36 
 
 sets it up on high for the everlasting encouragement 
 of the lowly, and the thoughtful contemplation of all 
 men. 
 
 This, however, is but a fragment of the case. 
 Think of the terrific perils through which we have 
 just passed; of the thunder-clouds of destruction 
 which, time and again, threatened to overwhelm our 
 homes and country in one common ruin; of the 
 great feebleness to which the cause of loyalty, free- 
 dom, and humanity, had been reduced ; and of the 
 almost miraculous deliverance which has been vouch- 
 safed. Think of the gigantic proportions, far-reach- 
 ing influences, and subtle sophistries of that long- 
 organizing movement, which must be henceforward 
 known as treason and rebellion ; of the universal 
 ignorance of the resources and real mightiness of 
 those despised States to which the preservation of 
 the Union and the maintenance of the General Go- 
 vernment's sovereignty were left; of the quietus 
 which has been given to the exultations of the hire- 
 lings and friends of despotic and aristocratic power 
 at the prospect of America's humiliation ; and of the 
 shame which has been made to overtake the insult- 
 ing babblings of foreigners touching the follies of 
 the North. Think how, in the midst of discourage- 
 ments and disasters on sea and land, the contest for 
 the majesty of law, national unity, and equal rights 
 was maintained, until rebelUon was defeated in its 
 
37 
 
 disorganizing aims, disrobed of its pride and usur- 
 pations, and bereft of its ill-directed power. Con- 
 sider where this great nation of ours this day stands 
 in the estimation of the world, and how sublimely 
 it is rising up to the true greatness of its earliest 
 manifestos, with one of its greatest stains and most 
 troublesome causes of difference and dissension as 
 good as purged away forever, and the great motto 
 of "Liberty and Union, one and inseparable," 
 nailed to its flag-staff, and woven with its emblem- 
 atic colors, to signal hope to the oppressed of every 
 land; and, when you have searched out the agency 
 by which such great things have been wrought, and 
 found the earthly well-spring of those successes 
 which half the world believed to be impossible, all 
 will be seen connecting with a name till recently as 
 humble as it will henceforth be great, and radiating 
 from the meek heart, the calm judgment, the wise 
 administration, and the patriotic fidelity of Abraham 
 Lincoln. 
 
 And this is the man against whom it has been in 
 the hearts of some to plot schemes of assassination, 
 and, with a malignant effrontery for which the Eng- 
 lish language has no name, to carry into execution. 
 Alas ! for which shall we lament the most, — the loss 
 which has been inflicted by the audacious murder, 
 or the awful depravity and bloodthirstiness which it 
 shows to be lurking in the hearts of m^n who would 
 
38 
 
 fain have us believe them to be our country's truest 
 friends'? Both are subjects for our profound grief; 
 but for both we have this great consolation left, that 
 a just God is upon the throne of the universe, and 
 that He will bring every work into judgment, with 
 every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it 
 be bad. 
 
 I will not undertake to maintain that our late Chief 
 Magistrate made no mistakes, or that he never erred 
 in his estimates of men or adoption of measures ; 
 even Moses himself did ill-advised things, and was 
 censured of God for his conduct at the waters of 
 Meribah. 
 
 Neither do I conceive of all the surroundings in 
 which the assassin found him, as good, pious, or 
 becoming a Christian's dying-place. He was but a 
 man, lacking in experience in public affairs, and of 
 that meek and generous nature which was, perhaps, 
 too willing, in smaller matters, to acquiesce in the 
 tastes and wishes of people less conscientious than 
 himself 
 
 But, in the great elements of his character, he was 
 just, devout, Christian, and of a moral make and sta- 
 men, to which few in politics have ever attained. He 
 believed in God, in llevelation, in Christ, in prayer, 
 in the necessity of virtue, in providence, and in the 
 habit of settled dependence upon the precepts and 
 administrations of Heaven; and his creed was per- 
 
I 
 
 39 
 
 haps quite as real, as influential, as practical, as that 
 of any who venture to sit in judgment upon him, 
 and certainly as much so as that of thousands who 
 give tithe of mint, anise, and cummin, but are not 
 quite so particular in the weightier matters of judg- 
 ment, mercy, and faith. God is his judge, and in 
 His hands I am hopefully willing to leave him. If 
 he was not so eminent a saint, he was an honest 
 friend of his country, a sincere sympathizer with the 
 suffering and the lowly, and a great servant and 
 benefactor of mankind. If he was shot down in a 
 theatre, he died a martyr to his country and to prin- 
 ciples which good men in every age will honor and 
 approve. 
 
 It is time, my friends, that I should dismiss you ; 
 but indulge me with yet a remark or two, before I 
 conclude. The public mind is a good deal exercised 
 about monuments and memorials to our deceased 
 chieftain. Now, the greatest honor that can be ren- 
 dered to his memory is for those who revere him to 
 stand by the principles for which he lived and fought 
 and died, — to reproduce his good, honest purposes 
 and generous nature in themselves, — to steer by those 
 landmarks which guided him to greatness. Other 
 monuments will perish. The memorials constructed 
 of nature's elements will pass away with nature's 
 wastes. At best, they are but mute things, the 
 meaning of which may be lost even while they yet 
 
40 
 
 stand. But great principles and truths, practically 
 wrought into immortal minds, and lived into the his- 
 tories of mankind, will endure through all the ages, 
 and keep telling their impressive story forever. 
 
 Moses is dead, and to this day no man has ever seen 
 his sepulchre ; but his genius lives, fresh, vigorous 
 and active, and will continue to live on, increasing 
 in dominion as the race expands and men are found 
 to accept his ideas. No monumental piles could so 
 perpetuate his honor. 
 
 Nor can the fame of Lincoln wane, or his potent 
 greatness fail in its power on the earth, if men will 
 keep to the channels of thought and action again 
 laid open in his life. 
 
 And if there was that in him worthy of honorable 
 commemoration, the nearest to immortality that we 
 can give it is, to live it and act it ourselves, and 
 to teach our children to do the same. If his ideas 
 and convictions were framed to the statements and 
 precepts of Revelation, and yielded fruits worthy of 
 our honor, that honor is best rendered by giving to 
 that self-same Revelation full sway in all our thoughts 
 and reasonings. If he considered it bad pohcy, and 
 a crime which cannot escape Divine indignation, to 
 withhold from a fellow-being his native rights, and 
 we think him entitled to our praise for his consistent 
 and conscientious adherence to that belief, we shall 
 praise him most effectually by making it the basis of 
 
41 
 
 our actions too. If he regarded all men as of one 
 blood, and entitled by their Maker to the same rights, 
 and acted out to sublime distinction the golden nde, 
 to do to others as we would have them do to us, and 
 the credit of his course calls for significant celebra- 
 tion, we cannot answer the call in better form than 
 to take the same into our souls as the inviolable law 
 of our lives. If his great devotion to his country's 
 unity, and his patient self-sacrifice for its preserva- 
 tion, demand some marked acknowledgment from 
 his countrymen, there is no way in which that ac- 
 knowledgment can be more handsomely made, than 
 by the earnest and honest copying of his example. 
 If he held secession to be treason, and felt it as a 
 solemn obligation upon his conscience to make no 
 compromises with it or with the doctrines of its de- 
 fenders, and men would honor his judgment and 
 scruples in the case, let them cling to these teach- 
 ings as their political creed, and see that they are 
 enthroned among the inviolable stabilities of our 
 cherished institutions. And if he had no double 
 conscience, one for private life, and another for po- 
 litical conduct, but for all his relations kept to the 
 one great and ever-binding law of right and con- 
 science, and you think it meet to give honorable ex- 
 pression to your appreciation of such simple integ- 
 rity, the sublimest thing to be done is, conscientious- 
 ly and always to conform your course to the same 
 
42 
 
 Divine standard, and live to truth and right and 
 God, in business and in politics, the same as in your 
 charities and in your church. 
 
 But whether any are moved or not by such refer- 
 ence to the dead, let us not forget, that we all have 
 obligations upon us, and duties to discharge, and re- 
 sponsibilities to meet, in the directions indicated, 
 which take their rise from our very position in the 
 universe, and which it is our great business in this 
 world to learn, acknowledge, and obey. 
 
 We may be humble, feeble, and unnoticed in the 
 great crowd of men ; but we are each God's work- 
 manship. He has put each of us here for a pur- 
 pose ; and we each must some day answer to Him 
 for the manner in which we have fashioned our lives, 
 and fulfilled our mission. 
 
 We may not have nations to lead, or to organize 
 to new ideas, or to guide and keep in the hours of 
 trial ; but we each have spheres of importance in 
 which to operate, and little gardens which we our- 
 selves alone can cultivate, and webs of little deeds 
 to weave, in which our highest life is to be found. 
 
 We may not, indeed, be Moseses or Lincolns, but, 
 like both of them, we can be ourselves ; and by be- 
 ing honestly our true selves in humble things, we 
 know not to what high spheres we yet may be raised. 
 We have the highest authority for it, that fuithfid- 
 
43 
 
 ness in that which is least, is faithfuhiess also in 
 much. We know by whom, and to whom, it was 
 said, " Well done, good and faithful servant ; thou 
 hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee 
 ruler over many things." (Matt. 25 : 23; Luke 16 : 
 10.) And both the histories of the men whose 
 names I have associated in these remarks, preach 
 and illustrate the same hopefulness. 
 
 " Lives of great men all remind us 
 We can make our lives sublime, 
 And, departing, leave behind us 
 Footprints on the sands of time — 
 
 Footprints that perhaps another, 
 
 Sailing o'er life's solemn main 
 A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 
 
 Seeing, shall take heart again. 
 
 Let us then be up and doing, 
 "With a heart for any fate ; 
 H Still achieving, still pursuing, 
 
 Learn to labor and to wait." 
 
 ft 
 
III. THE CLOSING SERVICES. 
 
 THE riXAL PRAYER. 
 
 Almighty God, the eternal Source of wisdom and 
 purity, from whom all good counsels, all holy de- 
 sires, and all just works do proceed; sanctify our 
 hearts by Thy holy Word. What we know not, 
 teach Thou us. Whatever is wrong in us, help us 
 to overcome, and to put far from us. Whatever in 
 us is good, aid us in cherishing, and in carrying 
 forward to perfection. Enable us to go forth into 
 the world with the spirit of true religion in our 
 hearts, and to spend all our days in Thy fear and 
 love. May Thy Gospel ever be precious to our 
 souls. And when Thou shalt see fit to remove us 
 from this state of toil, trial, and danger, may Thy 
 grace avail for us, and the gates of eternal life open 
 to receive us, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, and 
 our Hope. Amen. 
 
 THE CONCLUDING HYMN. 
 
 " Guide me, thou great Jehovah ! 
 Pilgrim through this barren land ; 
 I am weak, but thou art mighty, 
 
 Hold me with Thy powerful hand," &c. 
 
I 
 
-^ 
 
I