tjptsijgisisjictaaageiasgeta 
 
 § LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. % 
 J- 
 
 Chap. 
 Shelf 
 
 ^ 
 
 UNBTED STATES OF A1V1EF5ICA 
 
 }^7^^^&i,^-^^ ^^!Z^^ 2Z:ii^^ ^ '2^ 'i!!^1.^'^Z^ 
 
V / SL. «., 
 
 Sjje ^eatj) of 
 
 PRESIDENT LINCOLN, 
 
 APRIL 15, 1865. 
 
r- 
 
iliic §ui\\ of f resiidcnt Lincoln. 
 
 S E E M O I^ 
 
 PREACHED IN 
 
 ST. PETER'S CHURCH, ALBANY, N. Y., 
 
 WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 1865, 
 
 EEV. WILLIAM T. WILSON, M. A., 
 
 KECTOE. 
 
 ALBANY : 
 
 WEED, PARSONS AND COMPANY, PRINTERS. 
 
 1865. 
 
t 
 
 
COEEESPO^DE^CE. 
 
 Albany, April 19, 1865. 
 The Rev. Wm. T. Wilson : 
 
 Dear Sir — The undersigned, members of the vestry of St. Peter's Church, 
 having listened with deep interest to the very appropriate and impressive dis- 
 course delivered by you this morning, on the occasion of the funeral solemnities 
 in honor of our late President, the lamented Abraham Lincoln, would earnestly 
 request you to furnish them with a copy for publication ; and in making this 
 request, they beg leave to assure you they express not less the general feeling 
 of the congregation than their own. 
 
 Very respectfully, your friends and parishioners, 
 
 ORLANDO MEADS, JAMES KIDD, 
 
 JOHN TAYLER COOPER, JOSEPH PACKARD, 
 
 JOHN TWEDDLE, JESSE C. POTTS, 
 
 HARMON PUMPELLY, WM. N. FASSETT, 
 
 MOSES PATTEN, PHILIP TEN EYCK. 
 
 St. Peter's Rectory, Albany, Api-il 20, 1865. 
 Gentlemen: 
 
 In reply to your kind note, asking for a copy of the sermon preached by me 
 yegterday at St. Peter's Church, in commemoration of our late President, 
 Abraham Lincoln, I have only to say, that I very cheerfully comply with 
 your request. The sermon is a simple and hurried one, yet I am glad to print 
 it as a poor, but heartfelt tribute to the memory of a good man. 
 
 Yours very respectfully, 
 
 WILLIAM T. WILSON. 
 
 To THE Gentlemen of the Vestry of St. Peter's. 
 
®rber of Dioine Seruicc. 
 
 The De Profundis: 
 " Out of tlie deep have I called unto thee, Lord." — Choir. 
 
 Sentences prom the Burial Office: 
 " I am the Resurrection and the Life." 
 
 The Lesser Litany: 
 " O Christ, hear us." 
 
 Anthem: from the Burial Office: 
 ' Lord, let me know my end and the number of my days." — Choir. 
 
 Lesson : 1 Cor. xv, 20. 
 
 Hymn 130. 
 " Peace, troubled soul." — Choir. 
 
 Sermon. 
 
 Hymn 201 : 
 "Who are these in bright array?" — Choir. 
 
 Prayers from the Burl^ Office. 
 
 Sentence from the Revelations : 
 " I heard a voice from Heaven." — Alto Solo. 
 
 Benediction. 
 
SEEMON. 
 
 \ 
 
 " Thou knowest not what a day may bring fortli !" 
 What sad verification of the Wise Man's words has 
 just come to us ! how sudden and appalling the dis- 
 aster that has fallen upon the nation! Perhaps 
 never before was the revulsion of feeling in a people 
 greater; never before did a whole country pass 
 instantaneously and at a single step from the height 
 of exultation to the lowest depth of grief. These 
 were to have been days of rejoicing. We were 
 about to lift up our hearts in thanksgiving. All 
 things conspired to make us glad. Victory, brilliant 
 and unexampled, had just crowned our arms. The 
 citadel of the Eebellion had fallen. That army 
 which from the first had been its strong right arm 
 had been shattered and taken. The nation's flag 
 floated once again over all the principal cities of the 
 South. The season in which we celebrate the Lord's 
 Eesurrection promised to be made memorable in our 
 annals by the restoration of public order and unity 
 
8 
 
 and peace. The national integrity had been vindi- 
 cated in four years of gigantic strife. The drum- 
 beat, the call to arms, had ceased. The long agony 
 and sacrifice, and sword and flame of war, were over 
 and done. The veterans of many a hard-fought 
 field were turning their expectant eyes toward home. 
 Glad hearts were yearning to go forth and meet 
 them. The former days were to return. The sword 
 was to be exchanged for the plough-share, and the 
 pruning-hook was again to replace the spear. 
 Surely, never were a people on the eve of a 
 greater or more exultant joy ! 
 
 But in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, by 
 the hand of an assassin, the great joy is dimmed 
 by a great grief. Far and wide over the whole land 
 the shock of this disaster falls. Everywhere you 
 see it reflected in pale and horror-stricken faces. 
 The preparations of jubilee are turned into the pre- 
 parations of bereavement. The draped and half- 
 hung flags attest the affliction of the people. The 
 triumphal i)rocession gives way to the procession of 
 mourners. The ovation becomes a funeral, and the 
 Te Deum of victory sinks into the wail for the dead. 
 
 It is the contrast of a week ! Thou knowest not 
 what a day may bring forth ! But yesterday, as it 
 seems, and we were listening to the merry peal of 
 
bells, and the boom of cannon, and the shouts of a 
 multitude — and to-day it is the fimeral knell and the 
 minute-gun ! A Nation sorrows for its great and 
 honored Chief. 
 
 There is something strangely pathetic, strangely 
 tragic, both in the time and manner of this great 
 man's death. He had been spared to his country in 
 the hour of her trial, in the agony of her threatened 
 dissolution, in all her sad passage through the valley 
 of humiliation, only to be taken away in the first 
 dawn of her returning and added greatness. His 
 had been the most fearful responsibility under which 
 man had stood in modern times — responsibility 
 which had furrowed brow and cheek with ceaseless 
 cares and great anxieties — and he was barely per- 
 mitted to taste the rewards of a faithful stewardship 
 in the commendation of his countrymen and of the 
 world. N"© other man was so identified with the 
 national crisis in which he lived. The position he 
 occupied made him its Representative Man. Events 
 had forced upon him that responsibility in which the 
 only alternative was an immortality of honor or an 
 immortality of shame. Perhaps, brethren, even now, 
 we cannot fully realize what these fom' years past 
 have been to this weary and heavy-laden man. 
 There is little or nothing in our own experience to 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 help us to it. However intense our interest in the 
 struggle, ours has been only a private and individual 
 responsibility. A nation's fate lay not in our keep- 
 ing. Upon our every thought, and word, and deed, 
 there has been no ceaseless and imposed constraint. 
 How often has our speech been inconsiderate and 
 rash ! We were not forced to weigh it. There has 
 been no fearful, consuming, never-ending care which 
 brought us weary days and sleepless nights. But 
 upon the heart of this one man the gathered burden 
 of the Nation was laid. The destiny of his Country 
 was in his keeping. Upon his wisdom, patience, 
 firmness, integrity, forbearance, and self-control, what 
 mighty issues hung! He lived in the crisis of an 
 hour when his every act must reach on, in its effect, 
 to generations yet unborn. I do not wonder that 
 the painter of the great picture in the Eotunda, has 
 given to that face a sad, and worn, and weary look. 
 What man could front such constant and weighty 
 responsibilities and not look sad, and worn, and 
 weary ? There must have been many hours in which 
 he felt utterly alone, when the travail of his soul 
 was in secret, when there was borne in ui)on him 
 that bitter sense of solitariness which belongs to the 
 Prophets of the Eace, which must be the lot of those 
 who are intrusted with the destinies of nations. 
 
11 
 
 It is scarcely possible that we private citizens 
 should ever be just, during life, to our great public 
 men. We cannot put ourselves in their position ; we 
 cannot make the allowances that are due. It is so 
 easy to criticise an act when the responsibility of that 
 act is not brought home to you — so easy to over- 
 look great qualities, and seize upon small defects of 
 character. Sincerely and deeply as we all honor 
 and mourn for him who is dead, perhaps there is no 
 single one of us who has not at times spoken of him 
 impatiently or harshly. I do not refer to this in the 
 way of self-condemnation ; in the confusions and 
 perjilexities of such a crisis it was almost inevitable ; 
 no life is free from its mis-judgments and mistakes, 
 and your criticism and mine may or may not have 
 been just — but perhaps we would not have made it, 
 or made it more gently, had we been able to realize 
 for oiu'selves all the trying anxieties of his position. 
 
 Yet it is one of the conditions of true greatness 
 not to be dependent on prompt recognition or popular 
 sympathy — to be content to labor and to wait. And 
 he waited, as we see it now, with a magnanimous 
 and wondrous patience. In the frequent and marked 
 alternations of public feeling we have heard from 
 him no murmur of complaint. And he is stricken 
 down in the very hour when, without exception, and 
 
12 
 
 without distinction of party, the sentiment of the 
 whole country was clear in its recognition of his 
 unswerving fidelity to his trust. Sweet, indeed, to 
 Abraham LrffCOLif, would have been the cup which 
 even now a grateful iiTation had lifted to his lips. It 
 is not in human nature for even true greatness to 
 be indifferent to the refreshment of popular favor 
 after it has borne the heat and burden of the day. 
 It can do without it, if necessary, but it is none the 
 less welcome when it comes. What a tragic taking- 
 off", then, was this ! 
 
 But the fact that the President did not live to reap 
 the full measure of the Illation's applause is not that 
 which is most pathetic in his fate. It is but simple j us- 
 tice to him to say that, far beyond all other thoughts, 
 rose his pure and lofty patriotism. It is the endow- 
 ment of large natures to be superior to personal con- 
 siderations, and no one will deny that to the Presi- 
 dent's heart the salvation of his country was far 
 dearer than the appreciation of his countrymen. He 
 had led her through trial unparalleled in her history. 
 Upon him had fallen the cares of four such years as 
 she had never known. And, at last, after all the 
 harassing vicissitudes of war he saw upon the moun- 
 tains the shining feet of the Messengers of Peace. 
 But he saw them only from afar. Like another leader 
 
13 
 
 of another people it was not permitted liim to pass 
 over with his nation into the promised land. On the 
 hither side his own steps were stayed. It was not 
 given him to be the Chief Magistrate of a country 
 once again at unity, concord, and peace. His own 
 life was to complete that costly sacrifice which had 
 been heaped up on her altars. A fate tragic and 
 pathetic indeed ! 
 
 He has passed into history. This is not the 
 occasion or the place to vindicate or criticise the 
 political principles that have marked his public life. 
 IS'or, even if it were fitting, would it be possible to 
 make any fair and impartial estimate of him as a 
 statesman now. After death we see men more as 
 they really are, yet in the first hours of his decease, 
 we cannot adequately do justice to the memory of a 
 great public man. Time alone can give him his true 
 place in the world's history. The future historian of 
 this war will be also the historian of Abraham 
 LnsrcoLivr. When the films of misconception and 
 passion and prejudice have passed away, when there 
 remains not a vestige of those partizanships from 
 which no man in his generation can be ever wholly 
 free, when the coming years shall have determined 
 beyond appeal the real character of every issue that 
 has been involved in the struggle, when in the calm 
 
14 
 
 vision which distance brings, men see things and 
 events in their just relations and proportions — then, 
 and not till then, will the true biography of the 
 President be written. The truest life stands in 
 the closest relation to the present and to the future. 
 Every man who aspires to be a leader among his 
 fellows must be not only an interpreter of his own 
 age, but also a herald of the age which is to come. 
 He is so linked with his race that these conditions 
 are involved in his work in the world. To the coming 
 generation, then, it belongs to determine what the 
 work of this man has been. Posterity is just. 
 History is impartial. We need not fear to leave the 
 reputation of the lamented dead with them. In 
 some respects they may reverse or modify our 
 judgments, but whatever position is assigned him 
 among the benefactors of mankind, we cannot doubt 
 that it will be a great and honored one. 
 
 But while not j)resuming to fix the position of the 
 statesman, it is fitting that we should do homage to 
 the personal worth and virtues of the man. That, 
 at least, is a demand of the hour. It is not often 
 that the pulpit can be used for a funeral eulogium. 
 In this sacred place, where we come before God with 
 the acknowledgment that we are all miserable 
 sinners, one shrinks from anything that might seem 
 
15 
 
 to savor of extravagance or adulatiou. AYe are 
 reminded that the fairest hnman life, in God's sight, 
 is not without its stain ; that it must fall infinitely 
 short of that high ideal which the Gospel has set 
 before us. In the presence of the Lord, and in His 
 holy temple, we would utter no undeserved, or forced, 
 or unreal words. Yet there are times when, even in 
 God's house, the tribute of praise in the recognition 
 of human worth, is not only permissible but just. 
 When dignity of public station is united to loftiness 
 and purity of character, the homage should not be 
 uncertain or reluctant that is spoken here. And yet 
 on this occasion I can scarcely find words large and 
 strong enough to render it. I can do but poor, brief 
 justice to my theme. 
 
 How fully the moral virtues of the late President 
 had commended themselves to the appreciation of 
 his country, has its best witness in the unvarying tone 
 of the popular press. I have looked in vain for any 
 expression of detraction. The friends and the oppo- 
 nents of his administration have vied with each other 
 in generous tributes to his memory. There has been 
 something strangely touching and inspiring in the 
 spectacle of these few days past — a whole people for- 
 getting all political differences to unite in the recog- 
 nition of moral worth. The fact is too significant to 
 
16 
 
 be overlooked, that the qualities of the lamented 
 dead which are foremost upon every lip, and which 
 there is found none to dispute, are his simple and 
 unvarying goodness, his incorruptible integrity of 
 character, his purity and straightforwardness of pur- 
 pose. These are not the most dazzling qualities, yet 
 they are those which endear a man to his fellows. 
 When all is over, we fall back upon them as the ele- 
 ments which must shape our estimate of his real 
 worth. We admire brilliancy of intellect, but we 
 have tears for the memory of the good. It is moral 
 greatness which enshrines a man in the hearts of his 
 countrymen, and vindicates at last its superiority to 
 any other. And he was strong and patient ; firm, yet 
 gentle ; just, but merciful. What that true, brave, 
 earnest, unselfish life has been to the Nation in all 
 these years of trial, perhaps we shall never fully know. 
 Had his high trust been held by an unscrupulous and 
 ambitious man, no imagination could picture all the 
 horrors that might have been before us. But in 
 the integrity of its Head, the Nation reposed with 
 an implicit trust ; amid all the stormy passions and 
 cloudy bewilderments of the time, that shone out 
 like a guiding star. Honesty was the quality which, 
 whether in praise or depreciation, was always asso- 
 ciated with his name ; and, although honesty is not 
 
17 
 
 all that is required of a leader, liistory is the witness 
 that the most splendid endowments without that 
 have never given to the world a life of true benefi- 
 cence. An honest man, the poet says, is the noblest 
 work of God ; and the minister of God can select no 
 moral character more worthy of his eulogium. Yes, 
 our President was a simple, good, and honest man. 
 In him we have lost what we could ill afford to lose. 
 He has been called the purest public man of his day ; 
 and, however that may be, it is no disparagement to 
 others to say that the death of Abraham Lincoln 
 was an untimely death, an inscrutable dispensation of 
 Providence, a great national disaster. We mourn for 
 him as for an irreparable loss, as we have never 
 mourned at the worst tidings of defeat. 
 
 Nor is this all for which we have to mourn. There 
 is another cause for mourning, in which shame mingles 
 with grief. Our annals have been defaced by what 
 before had been to them an unknown crime. The 
 country has been shocked, absolutely stunned, by its 
 commission. Treason and rebellious war^we had 
 become familiar with. Even the wild barbarities of 
 this strife we could find it in our hearts to pardon. 
 But no man is found to palliate the assassin's foul 
 and stealthy deed. I would not speak one word to 
 stir in you any thought of vengeance. That were, 
 3 
 
18 
 
 indeed, unfitting here. Eage is cruel, and impotent, 
 and blind ; and the worst that it could do would be 
 as nothing in comparison with the guilt of the assas- 
 sin. Let Justice hold the even tenor of her way, and 
 let the Law exact the penalty of its own violation. 
 
 But there is another penalty, awful, inexorable, 
 remorseless, which has come upon that guilty soul 
 already, and which every succeeding age will take up 
 and confirm. Two men have just entered upon an 
 earthly immortality : the one as a Martyr of Liberty, 
 beloved, honored and lamented, the other as the 
 greatest criminal of modern times, upon whom are 
 heaped a nation's execrations. Time will never take 
 that burden off. 
 
 " The days will grow to weeks, the weeks to months, 
 The mouths will add themselves and make the years, 
 The years will roll into the centuries. 
 And his will ever be a name of scorn " — 
 
 Yes, forever a name of execration, infamy, and 
 scorn. What an awful immortality is this ! To be 
 pursued from generation to generation by a people's 
 endless curse ; his very name a word of loathing even 
 upon little children's lips ! For him, as for the first 
 murderer of the world, is not his punishment greater 
 indeed than he can bear ? 
 
 But while we stand aghast before his crime, let us 
 remember that it is but a fearful manifestation of 
 
19 
 
 that same sin which is common to us all. This 
 should be a day not merely of mourning, but of 
 humiliation. The possibilities of murder are in 
 every heart. The spirit of Cain is in the race, and at 
 a word it may blossom into crime in you and me. 
 We are bound together in a mysterious fellowship of 
 good and evil. This criminal, outcast and outlaw 
 though he be, may yet claim kindred with us in a sad 
 brotherhood of sin. There is no evil done under the 
 sun in which, remotely, we have not our share. While, 
 therefore, we execrate the crime, let us not forget to 
 mourn, with tears and penitence, that sinfulness in 
 ourselves and in the world, which has made such 
 crime possible. 
 
 And with this thought we should be slow to charge 
 complicity in it upon others. It is far too dreadful, 
 too awful, too diabolical, for light or indiscriminate 
 accusation. We would fain believe, even against evi- 
 dence, if it must be, that no leader of the rebellion 
 could incite or approve of such a damning deed. Still 
 less should it embitter our feelings towards the people 
 of the South. They have proved themselves desperate 
 rebels and traitors, it is true, but they have proved 
 also their gallantry on many a stricken field, and 
 men who rush undaunted upon the cannon's mouth, 
 and bare their naked breasts to the glittering steel, 
 are not the men who make or countenance assassins. 
 
20 
 
 I have already spoken of what seemed so tragic 
 and pathetic in our President's death. How could it 
 be otherwise than hard, after all this care, misrepre- 
 sentation, and apparent defeat of fame, to be stricken 
 down in the moment of his triumph, and in the hour 
 of his country's awakening and grateful recognition? 
 Yet, in another and deeper reference, his death was 
 not so untimely as it seems. ]!:^ever, perhaps, could 
 he have been better prepared to be summoned into 
 the presence of his Maker. In Eepublics, as in 
 Kingdoms, rulers reign by the grace of God. Their 
 responsibility is not only to the people. There is 
 another tribunal before which they must give account 
 of their stewardship, and answer for the things that 
 they have done. To that tribunal Abraham Lrsr- 
 COLN has passed, not in an hour of pride, not in a 
 mood of vindictiveness, not in the darkness of 
 revenge ; but " when," in the eloquent tribute of a 
 political opponent, "all his thoughts were concen- 
 trated upon peace, and when his heart was full of 
 purposes of mercy." Sic semper tyrannis! was the 
 shout of the assassin, as he brandished his weapon 
 before a horror stricken crowd after he had done that 
 dastard deed. Ah! poor, counterfeit, and painted 
 passion. Foul, false, and slanderous word ! It dims 
 not the glory that settles on that bowed and bruised 
 head ! Most merciful of victors, the world will never 
 
21 
 
 couple " tyrant " with tlij^ name ! Tliine was not tlie 
 ambition of a Csesar to purchase thy self-exaltation 
 with thy country's loss ! The people of thy deliver- 
 ance will sutfer no aspersion to rest upon thy fame, 
 and in its indignant refutation history will lay the 
 foundation of thy great renown ! 
 
 IS^o! the reputation of the dead President is not 
 stained by one single act of tyranny. If ever revenge 
 may be excusable, it might have been in him. From 
 the hour of his inauguration he had been engaged in 
 a life and death struggle with the nation's foes, and 
 sometimes the struggle seemed to go hard against 
 him. Yet the moment the assurance of victory was 
 unalterably his, he showed a true Christian magna- 
 nimity, a marvelous and generous forbearance. In 
 word or deed there is no trace of meditated vengeance. 
 A true father of his country, he went forth with com- 
 passion and tears and gladness to meet his erring 
 but scarce repentant sons. And he himself was called 
 into the presence of the Great Father " when all his 
 thoughts were concentrated upon peace, and when 
 his heart was full of purposes of mercy." Blessed 
 are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the 
 children of God ; blessed are the merciful, for they 
 shall obtain mercy. Let that be his epitaph ! We 
 listen eagerly to catch a great man's dying words. 
 But, in the hour before his death, the President was 
 
22 
 
 silent and sad. And after the fatal messen^^er had 
 sped, he died and made no sign. We must seek the 
 moral of his life, not in a phrase, but in his crowning 
 purpose of beneficence. The face, they say, after 
 death, was clothed with a sweet and strange serenity. 
 May we not believe that he who sought peace so 
 earnestly, had found peace, yet not the peace he 
 sought? The peace which the world cannot give. 
 The peace that passeth understanding. The peace 
 which is won through conflict, and which comes as 
 the reward of faithfulness in that. The peace which 
 Christ alone giveth. Such peace as He gave to His 
 disciples, when, showing them His stricken side, and 
 holding up His wounded hands, He said: ''My 
 peace I give unto you ! " 
 
 Brethren, how can we better honor the memory of 
 the dead than in the reflection of his own great 
 charity — the fulfillment of his own beneficent de- 
 signs? This is no hour for muttered vengeance. 
 This is no time for ruthless retribution. It would be 
 a stroke more cruel even than the blow of the assas- 
 sin to inaugurate a reign of terror with his burial, 
 and offer a holocaust of human victims at his tomb. 
 Peace and Mercy ! is not this the legacy, the watch- 
 word he has left us, with which to go forth and meet 
 a vanquished, yet kindred, foe ? Such mercy as may 
 
23 
 
 be consistent with the safety of the Republic ; and 
 such jieace as may lay deep and broad again the 
 foundation for a free, restored, and reunited People. 
 And in our bereavement, let us not forget to dis- 
 cern the finger of God, to recognize His Fatherly 
 correction. It requires no little effort to bring our- 
 selves to think of our aflliction thus. Our first and 
 almost irresistible impulse is to view it simply as an 
 unmitigated disaster. Yet there is no failure and no 
 loss in the economy of the infinite Wisdom. AVe 
 cannot doubt that in the permission of that deed God 
 had a wise and far-reaching puri)Ose. We cannot 
 tell what it may be, but we know that it is always 
 His to overrule evil for good. Perhaps it was to 
 chasten, in these first hours of triumph, a too arro- 
 gant and exultant joy. Perhaps it was to secure us 
 from the immoderation of victory, and lead us to wait 
 humbly upon that Providence from whom all victory 
 comes. Perhaps it was to deepen our devotion to 
 our country, by this final and crowning sacrifice 
 which the preservation of her integrity has cost. It 
 would seem that the nation must grow as does the 
 church, from the seed sown in the martyr's blood. 
 That this visitation has softened men's hearts 
 strangely, we ourselves can see. Kot since the com- 
 mencement of this sad war has there been such unity 
 
24 
 
 of feeling. It is no partizan spirit that has draped 
 the land in habiliments of woe. Party lines and 
 animosities seem for the time to have ceased, and 
 we are again a great people, reunited in a great grief. 
 Let the pm-e, unselfish patriotism of the honored 
 dead be unto us a lesson teaching by example ! Let 
 it animate and inspire us! Let us cherish in our 
 hearts, and strive to realize in our lives, a true 
 Christian patriotism — not merely the patriotism 
 which is a civic virtue, but the patriotism which is a 
 religious duty ! May we grow in faith and love and 
 devotion to the Nation. May we hold it as the 
 goodly heritage which we have received from our 
 fathers, and which we are to transmit to our children. 
 May ours be the cheerful, willing, holy self-sacrifice, 
 if for further sacrifice there should be any call, which 
 should become the Christian patriot, which should 
 belong to the Christian citizen. In jjrayer, and the 
 strength which comes of prayer, we may do the work 
 that has been given us to do. Then shall this fair 
 land, this continent guarded by the mountains and 
 girded by the seas, become the heritage of our 
 children and of our children's children — its laws 
 respected, its authority inviolate, the integral unity 
 of its territory unimpaired, stable in the righteous- 
 ness that exalteth a nation, and under the majesty of 
 
25 
 
 a flag which droops upon no tield — symbol of power 
 and purity — the home of Freedom, the home of 
 Justice, and the home of Peace ! 
 
 As for our dead President, his work is done. Oare 
 shall furrow brow and cheek no more. That great 
 heart is bowed no longer beneath the affliction of his 
 people. The long weariness is over and past. The 
 sad face is calm and still and untroubled now. Even 
 as we speak they are bearing him to the long home 
 and the narrow house — they are reading at the 
 Nation's Capital the burial service for the dead — 
 earth to earth, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust ; 
 looking for the general Eesurrection and the life of 
 the world to come. Yes! the life of the world to 
 come. Let us comfort one another with these words ! 
 Not vainly do these yet unwithered Easter flowers 
 hold their place amidst all the drapery of grief. 
 They symbolize an immortal hope, the triumi^h over 
 death and the resurrection from the dead. The 
 faithful servant, we may trust, hath entered into 
 the joy of his Lord. Let us leave him to his rest — 
 
 the blessedness of them who rest from their labors ! 
 4 
 
^ 
 
■■■■■■ftt.