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HATEVER relates to our Martyr-President possesses undying interest. In this work, the Publisher has aimed to snatch from oblivion some of the best of the many discourses and comments on Mr. Lincoln's life and charac- ter, by transferring them from the papers of the day to a worthy place in our permanent literature. The volume contains nothing heretofore published in a pamphlet or book form. The Table of Contents shows the breadth of the field from which the present sheaf has been gleaned; for, in forming the volume, the lines of party, se6l, and nation, have been completely ignored. In bind- ing these scattered leaves together into a memorial chaplet, the Publisher would show his respect for the memory of the Great Emancipator. Boston, Sept. 9, 1S65. CONTENTS. SERMONS. Abbott, Rev. F. E Brigham, Rev. C. H CoRDNER, Rev. J Chadwick, Rev. J. W CoRWiN, Rev. E. T Damon, Rev. S. C DuTTON, Rev. O. H Hartzell, Rev. J. H Hughes, Rev. D. L Hull, Rev. Moses JuNKiN, Rev. Geo., D.D. . . . Marshall, Rev. W. R. • . . Potts, Rev. J. P., B.A. . . . Rowland, Rev. L. S Stratton, Rev. J. B., D.D. . . Silver, Rev. Abiel Talbott, Rev. J. J Watson, Rev. B., D.D. . . . Page I Dover, N.H Taunton, Mass 8 Montreal, Canada 21 Brooklyn, N.Y 36 Millstone, N.J 52 Honolulu, Sandwich Is. ■ 63 Holjoke, Mass ']6 Buffalo, N.Y 89 Des Moines, Iowa 100 Battle Creek, Mich 123 Philadelphia, Pa 134 Columbus, Ohio 148 London, Eng 167 Bangor, Me 177 Natchez, Miss 186 Wilmington, Del 204 Louisville, Ky 212 Philadelphia, Pa 218 EULOGIES, SPEECHES, AND LETTERS. Banks, Gen. N. P New Orleans, La 233 Carruthers, Rev. J. J., D.D. . . . Portland, Me 239 Gilbert, Surgeon R. H Jefferson, Ind 248 d vi Contents. Page HuRLBUT, Maj.-Gen New Orleans, La 253 Jones, A. T Philadelphia, Pa 258 Stebbins, Rev. H San Francisco, Cal 268 Thompson, Rev. J. P., D.D New York 274 Adams, Hon. C. F London, England 281 Disraeli, Hon. Benj „ >> 286 Grey, Sir George ,, ,-, 288 Morse, Hon. F. H , „ 296 Russell, Lord John „ ■,, 298 Smith, Prof. Goldwin ,, ,, 303 Da Silva, Sr. R Lisbon, Portugal 307 D'Aubigne, Dr. Merle Geneva, Switzerland 315 Democratic Association Florence, Italy 317 Lawrence, T. B ,, , 31S Laboulaye, Edouard Paris, France 320 Mill, John Stuart Avignon, France 293 Martin, Henri Paris, France 327 APPENDIX. Letter from Rev. Elias Nason 333 List of Publications relating to the Assassination, Death, and Funeral Obsequies of Abraham Lincoln 334 SERMONS. f LINCOLNIANA. THE MARTYR OF LIBERTY: A SERMON PREACHED IN THE UNITARIAN CHURCH, DOVER, N.H., ON SUNDAY, APRIL 1 6, 1 865 ; BY THE PASTOR, REV. FRANCIS E. ABBOT. Gen. 1. 19 : " Fear not; for am I in the place of God?" DEAR friends, we assemble this morning, in our house of worship, in the shadow of a mighty affli6tion. The hearts of a vast nation are throbbing with anguish, horror, and dismay. The pistol of the assassin has done its hellish work; and he, who, by the enthusiastic acclamations of a great people, was declared, but five short months ago, our chosen leader in the march to universal freedom, our foremost champion of liberty, has now become its martyr. In his fall, the country bleeds at every pore; the stoutest heart thrills with fear; and the voice of universal wailing is our requiem for the great departed. Trea- son, which we thought lay buried beneath the yet warm ashes of Richmond, has leaped over the heads of our vi6torious armies, and carried by storm the impregnable forts of Washington. To- The Martyr of Liberty. day, the enemies of God and man rejoice: to-day, friends, there is jubilee in hell. I had planned to congratulate you this morning on the down- fall of rebellion, and the inauguration of a new civilization. I had planned to speak hopeful words of our own prospe6tive agency in redeeming mankind from barbarism and sin; and to urge you, with fresh courage and rekindled zeal, to do your part in this great and noble work. But that theme must wait: God has given me a different message to-day. One subject alone occupies our hearts and minds; and I must hearken to the imperative demand of the hour. Its lessons are weighty and solemn; and woe to us if we heed them not! In the very hour of victory, w^hile the welkin rang with shouts of triumph and exultation ; ' while we gloried in the prowess of our armies and navies; while we rejoiced, and thanked God, that our gigantic task was well-nigh ended, — the stroke has fallen like a thunderbolt from a cloudless sky. The Ship of State has weathered the storms of mid-ocean, and now approaches the region of sunken reefs and tortuous channels; the haven is in sight: but the danger was never so great as now. And, behold! in the very hour when our need of a skilled and trusty pilot is most pressing, he is struck down at the helm. Who is so blind as not to see the peril? who so bold as not to fear it? Rebellion will receive fresh life from this its greatest triumph; and, trusting to gain by murder what it has failed to gain by war, will strain every nerve to follow up this terrific blow at the nation by others as terrific. Loyal men will be so maddened and dis- mayed by an outrage to which American history can furnish no parallel, as perhaps to seek security from its repetition by dan- gerous means. The day has gone b}^ when the Chief Magistrate of the great Republic could trust himself among the people. Henceforth, body-guards and household troops must attend his Rev. Francis E. Abbot. steps; and, in sight of a military pomp which has hitherto be- longed solely to the Old World, who, alas! can repeat our boast of olden times, that the American President is a simple citizen? And further, in their exasperation at this cowardly and bloody deed, the people of the North will be tempted, nay, have been tempted, to take unlawful vengeance on those whose guilty sympathy and support are given to its perpetrators. Who does not perceive that their fiendish crime has put liberty and law in greater jeopardy, and struck a sharper blow at the cause of our country and of humanity, than the murder of many thousands in fair and open battle ? If we have no place of refuge, if we can find no better than human succor, our hearts may well grow sick with fear and anguish.. What a friend we have lost! His ster- ling integrit}', his high moral principle, his unselfish and unambi- tious spirit, his simplicity and tender-heartedness, his pure and patriotic aims, and, above all, his humble and childlike faith in God, — these gave him a hold on the popular heart, and an influ- ence, both at home and abroad, which have made him almost the saviour of his country. Faults he doubtless had; mistakes he doubtless made: but the country reposed so confidingly on his honesty, firmness, and cautious judgment, that it now feels stunned at its loss. Peace to thy ashes, tried and trusty friend! Thou hast fought a good fight; thou hast earned a rich reward, — praise, honor, and everlasting love, from thy country; approba- tion, benedi6lion, and eternal life, from Almighty God. We knew not how we loved thee, till we found thee passed away for ever. For us hast thou toiled; yea, for us hast thou died. Our hearts are full of sorrow, and our eyes of tears: when shall we look upon thy like again .^ Peace, I say, — peace to thy ashes, for evermore! I fear, my friends, that we have leaned overmuch upon this great-hearted and large-minded man. I find myself bewildered 4 The Martyr of Liberty. by his death, and asking, almost faithlessly, "Who can fill his place?" And yet the whole life of Abraham Lincoln is a rebuke to such doubts and fears. Perhaps his strongest trait was a childlike faith in the guidance of Almighty wisdom. From that bleeding corpse in the Presidential Mansion comes a voice more solemn than any of its living words, a voice full of encourage- ment and reproof, "Fear not; for am I in the place of God?" The nation has leaned upon him, it scarcely knew how much, and looked to him to steer us safely among the perilous rocks of reconstruftion. And now that we have lost our faithful helms- man, we are warned afresh to put our trust where he put his, — in a God of justice and mercy. The bullet of the assassin can- not reach to the Almighty's throne. The Lord God omnipotent reigneth for ever. No: great and good as he was, honored, trusted, and loved as he was, Abraham Lincoln is 7tot " in the place of God." Though our perils are imminent and manifold, it is weakness to be dismayed, and treason to despair. The cause of our country is the cause of God; for he loves justice, mercy, and righteousness better than we, and will raise up men to carry out his holy designs. Did he not summon him whom we mourn, out of obscurity and humble station, to be the Moses of our deliverance, and to guide his chosen people through a Red Sea of blood? And, though our leader has fallen before we have reached the Promised Land of peace, shall we not trust God to raise us up a Joshua? We dishonor our cause and our country, our own souls, and their Creator, if we give way to the cowardly fears which assail us. The very fa6t, that God has given us a Lincoln in the past, and a Grant in the present, is a pledge that the line of our heroes and saviours shall not fail in the future. Our fear must pass away with the first shock of this tremendous crime : we must " come to ourselves," and repossess our souls. After the battle of Cannae, which cost Rome seventy thousand of Rev. Francis E. Abbot. her best troops, and brought her to the very brink of destruction, the Roman Senate voted public thanks to ^milius Paulus, the commander of the defeated forces, " because he had not de- spaired of the Repubhc." To-day, dear friends, when a great prop and support is stricken out from under us, and a danger more terrible than the loss of an army overhangs us, America calls upon her children not to " despair of the Republic," not to lose faith in God. On him, and not on any human strength or wisdom, depends our ultimate salvation. Abraham Lincoln was a providential man; and, because I most thoroughly believe this, I believe, also, that he lived to fulfil his mission. He lived to vindicate the insulted majesty of the nation, and to redeem the promises of his first Inaugural Address. He lived to enter Richmond in triumph, to behold the Stars and Stripes waving over the rebel capital, and to witness the de- struction of the grand army of the rebellion. By his moral greatness, his patience, his forbearance, his practical wisdom and unselfish patriotism, he has earned a renown pure as that of Wash- ington, and will stand side by side with him, through all coming time, on the same high pedestal. I would that his earthly re- mains might slumber in the same august tomb ; and that Mount Vernon, doubly consecrated by the ashes of Washington, and by the ashes of him who alone, in the annals of historic time, stands forth his peer, might become the Mecca of the New World, — the shrine where millions of pilgrims, through generations untold, and from nations yet unborn, shall kneel and pray, and rise up fired with the divinest inspirations of libert}'. The toil of that great soul is ended. Perhaps the day had come when Abraham Lincoln could no longer serve the Republic he so dearly loved; perhaps, by his exceeding kindness and mercy towards undeserving men, he was about to sacrifice the vital interests of his country; and perhaps The Martyr of Liberty. God suffered the long-threatened and long-averted blow to fall at last on that beloved head, just in season to prevent dire calamity to America, and a lasting eclipse to his own pure fame. Who shall fathom the purposes of the Unsearchable One ? The great work of Abraham Lincoln is still incomplete; but his death by horrid hands may be the only way to complete it. Of one thing be sure, — God's plans are never balked. The souls of John Brown and Abraham Lincoln in solemn fellowship are " march- ing on," God himself at their head, and millions of tramping feet in their rear: the earth shakes with their mighty tread; and, be- neath the millstone of that stupendous march, slavery, treason, and rebellion shall be ground into impalpable dust. But, friends, the lesson of renewed faith in God is not the only one forced in upon our minds by this heart-sickening crime. We need, and now we see our need written out in letters of blood, not only a passive faith in God, but an a6live obedience to his will. Murder is a stern tutor, and sternness is the burden of his tuition." The fiend of secession has at last torn off his mask, and, like the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, has revealed to the outraged light of heaven a visage hideous with all the ugliness of hell. Every misguided follower whose heart is honest, but whose head is weak, must shrink back in horror and affright. None but devils in human form will justify or palliate a deed like this; and to such our reply must be short and sharp. Not revenge, but self-defence ; not vengeance through an irresponsi- ble and lawless mob, but justice through courts of law. We must make it dangerous to dabble in treason; for we see its danger. The diabolism of secession is now patent to all; and, if we show it either mercy or pity, our blood shall be upon our own heads. In the exultation of victory, the nation betrayed marks of a good-natured weakness, of a criminal magnanimity; and God may have suffered this appalling blow to strike us, to Rev. Francis E. Abbot. waken us to our duty, and startle us into obedience. Make sure work with treason, exterminate rebellion from the land; give no rebel the right to vote, until his contrition is transparent; and if the great ringleaders fall into our hands, as a solemn aft of self- proteftion, and as a warning to all futurity, mete out to them the extreme penalty of the law. Brand treason for all coming time with the infamy of the gallows. We have no right to trifle with our great responsibilities : we are trustees for posterity, and must transmit to them unimpaired the noble heritage of freedom. " Heal not the wound of the daughter of my people slightly." The blood of our martyr calls us afresh, in no ambiguous lan- guage, to renewed self-consecration, courage, and fidelity. Mild and forgiving to repentant prodigals, we must be stern and un- compromising to conquered rebels. Leniency to traitors means death to loyal men. Alas for us, if we leave smouldering embers in our new temple of liberty ! These, then, are the lessons of the sad event which has filled our hearts with gloom and apprehension, — greater faith in God, greater faithfulness to freedom. Bitter as is our loss, that hal- lowed blood will not have flowed in vain, if we truly heed its silent eloquence. The sombre drapery of woe, which here, in the house of God, feebly typifies a grief too deep for words, is but a pompous hypocrisy, if we follow not his example for whom we grieve. He may not always have been the first to comprehend the great duty of the hour; but, once comprehended, he was always the first to do it. Pure and tender of heart, wise and firm in a6tion, devout and childlike in spirit, — O Abraham Lin- coln, thou hast died for us, and our souls are heavy for thee this day! Take the love which fills our hearts, and the tears which fill our e3'es, as our sole return for thy sacrifice of life. We take up the task which drops from thy dying hand; and may a double portion of thy spirit rest upon us! Dover., N. //., Enquirer, Afril 27, 1S65. THE NATIONAL BEREAVEMENT: A DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, TAUNTON, MASS., ON SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL l6, 1S65 ; BY REV. CHARLES H. BRIGHAM, PASTOR OF THE CHURCH. Lam. ii. i : " How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel ! " IT is a sad and solemn time for our assembly to-day. We should have remembered, with anthem and rapture, the new birth of the spirit on the day of the Saviour's rising. We should have kept the double festival of the resurre6lion of the great Deliverer and the resurrection of this Christian nation. But how suddenly all our joy is changed into woe! How terribly thick darkness has come upon our exhilaration! How God has called in this solemn day his terrors round about us ! In what bewilder- ment of soul, as men stunned and prostrate, we wait for the next tidings ! So short an interval, and 3''et so great a change ! Where are we now? and what shall become of us.^ Our day of Fasting in the past week was changed to a day of Thanksgiving : we could not mourn when such hope was opened, when there was such brightness of promise, when the agony was over, and the land seemed redeemed and saved. Even the ancient Fast-time of the Christian Church, the memorial Rev. Charles H. Brigham. day of the Saviour's death, was made this year a holiday in the land, as it was chosen for the restoration of the nation's banner to the walls from which this banner had been lowered in shame four years ago. But now, on this high holiday of the Church and of the land, we keep our Fast. The whole loyal nation is in mourn- ing. The bells which rang out at the opening of the last week, in every village and hamlet, from the farthest East to the farthest West, their festal peal, at the close of the week tolled their most mournful refrain for the beauty of the land, slain upon its high places. It is a funeral service that invites us, more melancholy than any that has ever called us together; and, with bowed heads, and hearts refusing to be comforted, we wait in our places of prayer, asking onl}' help from the Lord, — asking only that the Father above will show us the light of his countenance. What to say now, — how from this chaos of emotions, this mingling of WTath and fear, of sadness and doubt, of trembling anxiety and stern determination, of incredulous surprise and mournful convi6tion, this sense of the omnipotence of the all- disposing God, who so strangely baffles our designs, and enforces the folly and vanity of our mortal hopes, — how from this chaos to draw so soon any wise or sober thought, who shall know? Is it possible, is it decent, to make a homily to-day out of this awful catastrophe ? Shall we venture to insult this great grief by our cold moralizing, or to put it aside by any auguries of the future.^ Shall we forecast results, and arrange plans, and cry in frivolous haste, "The king is dead: long live the king!" as we turn from the ruler that was to the ruler that is ? Or shall we forget all composure of soul, and summon up the spirit of rage, and cry, " Vengeance, destru6lion, and death!" for the deed of blood that has been done ? Shall the pulpit become this day the instigator of violence, to rouse the bewildered souls of the peo- ple to fury? Not so shall it be here. But we will wait humbly 2 lo The National Bereavement. upon the Lord, and only ask that he will enable us to bear this burden. A great crime has been committed in our land, — a bloodier deed than the nation ever knew, though the land has in these last years in more than metaphor been deluged with blood. It is a crime against the nation, and for it there will be a fearful recom- pense. God grant that the forebodings of those who see in this the beginning of a reign of terror may not be realized; that the new ruler may have firmness to check all outbreaks, and to enforce the laws even against popular fury! We need not sup- press our horror at the crime. We need not disguise our sense of the great danger which it brings upon the land, even in this time when the triumph of our arms seems assured. It may inspirit the leaders of the rebellion, and breathe life into the dying em- bers. It may encourage the fallen traitors to lift their heads, and miake one more struggle for their desperate cause. It may reverse the order so successfully brought in, and restore the iniquities which seemed to be ruined and dead. We may conjure up a hundred evils vv^hich shall come from this crime. Yet it is better to look upon the other side of the pi6ture, and see what we have to depend upon, where we stand, even with this terror around us. Our brave armies are still in the field, strong, resolute, hopeful; not to be frightened by any deed of an assassin ; ready to follow their leaders, as ready now as ever, against foul treason. We have generals in command, who have been proved competent, wise, faithful, loyal, and who will surely see to it that the Republic shall suffer no detriment. Of the new ruler, whatever may be his defe6ts in habit and his lack in culture, no one can doubt the ability or the patriotism. Unless he shall surround himself with bad advisers, he cannot readily err; he cannot immediately alter the course of things. The nation has force enough, union enough, will enough, to prote6l itself against any new outbreaks of trea- Rev. Charles H. Brigham. 1 1 son. The murder of the ruler comes too late to destroy the Government, too late to create anarchy and confusion, too late to restore the broken power of slavery, too late to give traitors success and credit. There is no rival Government that can be set up against this Government. The assassin has killed but one man: he has not slain the nation. If he had done his w^ork in those 3^ears when the traitors were encamped close to the gates of the capital, or when their armies, flushed with victory, had invaded our Northern soil, or even when the rival ruler had his cabinet and his court, his army and navy, it might have brought disaster fearful to contemplate. But now it comes too late. It is a crime useless against the life of the nation, though it may be hideous in the passions it shall engender. This crime will, nevertheless, teach us several things, which have been often enough urged upon us, but which many of our people are slow to learn. It will teach all classes the foolishness of attempting to conciliate traitors by dealing gently with their offences, and meeting them half-way when they have come into our power. Our murdered President, in opposition to the advice of many of his wisest friends, who knew these Southern traitors and their spirit, who had been their associates, was disposed to treat them kindly, to overlook their crimes, to grant them am- nesty, to believe that they might be won back to honor and loy- alty. In a few days, probably, his proclamation would have been published, granting such easy terms as would have amazed even these men. It is safe to say, that no document of that kind will soon be issued. It is safe to say, that, for the present at least, there will be no more compromise with traitors ; that there will be no favor shown either to rebels in arms, or rebels who have been forced to lay down their arms. The traitors in our hands will be fitly dealt with by justice and the law, even if they find no quicker or sharper penalty. This a6t of violence, coming just at 1 2 The National Bereavement. the time when the leader of the rebel armies and his companions had been permitted virtually to go free, and even allowed privi- leges and honors, — the man and the men who have done more to sustain the rebellion than any others, and have upon them an awful weight of guilt and stain of blood, — will go far to settle the question, how to deal with traitors, and what shall be done with them. The sentiment of the army, the sentiment of the nation, will permit no more trifling. This reward for clemency and favor, this answer to kind dealing and pardon, will hush, for the time at least, all talk of amnesty, and will tell the leaders what they have to expe6l, if they fall into the hands of men w^ho will remember their crime instead of pitying their misfortune. And this crime will teach the people by a terrible illustration the spirit of slavery, the spirit of that form of social life which is based upon the oppression of men and the disregard of human rights. Four years ago, this crime was meditated, but not accom- plished. The spirit of the South then justified it; and the man who had committed it would have been a hero, would have been received and honored, as was the ruffian who struck down our Senator in his seat in the Capitol. Even now, the assassin who has done this deed of blood would be welcomed with triumph, if he could find a place where they dared so to receive hitn. There can be no doubt that this plan has all along been designed. Think what rewards have been offered in the Southern journals for the zealot who should do this deed! This is the kind of work that suits the base, cunning, cruel, and insolent spirit of slavery. It belongs to the same class with the scourgings and the brand- ings of women and children; with the wanton murders of the duel; with the sending of emissaries to burn the hotels of great cities, and destroy the lives of thousands of innocent men; with the burning of cities behind them by the rebel leaders, leaving thousands to wretchedness, exposure, and despair. All these Rev. Charles H. Brigham. 13 things — this great crime, which to-day startles the nation more than any report of a battle lost or a city burned — are the na- tural, the necessary issue of the institution which blighted the land so long, and ruled with such arrogance and tyranny. Shall we not learn from it to hate more heartily this infamous thing? Shall it not tell us to cast out for ever, root and branch, every vestige of this curse? So long as any tendril remains by which this vine can cling to our national life, so long we may expe6t such crime as this. Nothing can change the nature of this abom- ination. It hesitates at no violence, no outrage, no insult to the laws of God and man. Let us, on this new grave of the chief of the nation, with an oath as solemn and as deep as that of the 3^oung son of Hamilcar, vow eternal hostility to this source of all evil, in every form and degree; that we will have no rest until it is blotted out; that we will have no heed of any sign, promise, or prayer that it may make ! Reluctantly our honest ruler brought himself to the conviction that the existence of human slavery was incompatible with the safety of the land. We see that clearly, now, in the blow which has struck down his life, and made him a martyr. God grant that this deed of blood may write the death of slavery in letters red as of blood all over the land, — in the purpose of every resolute and patriotic heart, in the conviction and in the determination of all men! We will have no more of that social order which uses assassination, and is built upon vio- lence. We will have no more of that style of life, which whips women, and starves prisoners, and deludes the people to ruin by specious falsehoods. Not alone, "Down with the traitors!" shall be our cry, but " Down with the accursed thing which has brought their treason! down with the thing which has made trea- son possible in this free Republic!" We see now how perilous is the peace that shall come while any life is left to this enemy of our peace. Let us be fixed in this resolution, that no shape or 14 The National Bereavement. hold be left to this iniquity in all our land ! The spirits of our martyrs, in the long array which the battles of these years have gathered, wait to administer to the nation this vow. It is to 3^ou and me, brethren, to all of us, to men and to children. This blood will be upon our garments, if we do not wipe off the stain from the nation. From every pulpit in the land this day should echo the voice, "No peace with the wicked; no peace with that which is the source of such wickedness; no peace with that which destroys all honor; no peace with that which sends out midnight murderers ! " And if any thing could complete that union of men of all par- ties in the North, which was begun by the assault four years ago upon the beleaguered fort in the harbor of Charleston, it would be such a crime as this. There can be only one opinion about this aft, among all men of fair minds and patriotic hearts. There can be only one voice in condemnation of such an a6t, only one feel- ing of horror. The journals most hostile to the Government and its policy will hasten to disavow this a6t, and will join in the wish that summary justice may be done upon these murderers, upon all who have had any part in this infamy, whatever their rank or station or motive. If there should be any heart base enough to approve such a murder, it will not dare to find a voice. Through the length and breadth of the land, there will be one utterance, as there is substantially but one feeling. This a6l will convert men who were only half converted before, will silence cavillers, and will bring men of all parties together in the cause of the nation. Wranglings will cease before this opened grave: they ought to cease here, in such a solemn hour. Men will vie with each other, the most conservative with the most radical, in the promptness of their devotion to the public welfare. The rejoicings of this last w^eek had seemed almost to obliterate party strife: the mournings of the coming week will draw in the few that were still keeping Rev. Charles H. Brigham. 15 themselves apart. As, around the private bier, relatives and friends meet, forgetting their personal offences in the fellowship of grief; so, around this public bier, all differences will be forgot- ten in the sense of a common calamity. No Ishmael will utter his hatred in the household of mourning Isaac. Those who had never praised before will take up the lament, and will claim part in the burial. If such an occasion as this cannot silence strife, and bring men to be of one voice and heart, certainly nothing can. And now full justice will be done to that noble man, the chief vi6lim of this outrage, who has been so long the mark for abuse, detra6lion, and falsehood, but in whom the heart of this nation recognized a providential leader. Now that he is done to death by wicked hands, with one heart and one voice all will rise up to say, that here was a sincere, a wise, an honest, a just, a God- fearing man. They will tell, that he loved mercy better than power; that he loved his country better than his own fame or interest; how beneath this careless manner there was a grave and serious heart; how on this plain brow and ungainly frame there sat the dignity of a true manhood. Every event in his life, from its early struggles to its crowning martyrdom, will unveil its significance. They will tell how this Caesar was assassinated, not because he had destroyed, but because he had defended, the Re- public; not because he had suppressed, but because he had vindi- cated, liberty; not as he was gathering new armies to enlarge his tyranny and triumph, but as he was about to disband and send home the armies that had done their work of saving the State. We shall now see that this plain man of the West, of unknown lineage, with no gifts of birth or eloquence or fortune, coming to the chair of State with no experience of its duties, has proved himself the man of all men to save the State ; a better man than anv scholar, orator, or martial leader would have been; a second 1 6 The National Bereavement. Washington, entitled as truly as the first to the name of " Father of his Country." Violating no law, assuming hastily no preroga- tive of place, hesitating long before taking any decisive step, he has yet brought this nation through the chasm of its fate, and landed it on the hither shore of freedom, of union, and of peace. No great crime dishonors his use of the trust w^hich the people gave to him, and which they repe^ated with such cheerful consent after his work had been tried as by fire. His errors have been on the side of kindness, of humanity; have come from his generous heart and from his trust in men. The worst complaint of him has been, that he had too much pity for the stern duties of com- mand; that he could forgive so readily, and was so prgne to compassion. Yet, with all this tender heart, he has taken no step backward; has recalled no promise; has been driven neither by threats, nor won by entreaties, to break any pledge to the people. No ruler of any people ever had a harder task; harder in its mag- nitude, its obstacles, its complex variety, the momentous results depending upon it, its infinite troubles and embarrassments, "fight- ings without and fears within," false friends, weak advisers, in- competent instruments. Who shall measure such a task? Yet history will say he did the task faithfully and well, — history will say that here was a successful as well as a faithful ruler. The most glorious as well as the most crowded years in all our an- nals will be the four years in which the hand of this ruler guided the helm of the State. That simple name, El Kkalil, the Friend, by which the Arabs designate the first of the Patriarchs, is a true designation for this our ruler who bore that Hebrew name. He was indeed the friend, — the friend of his companions, the friend of the people, and the friend of God, as James says the first Abraham was called. In all his administrations, in all his messages and letters, in his declarations so often repeated, and in the steady tone of Rev. Charles H. Brigham. 1 7 his discourse, there is the pious sense always appearing of depen- dence upon the heavenly Friend. How strangely prophetic now appears that inaugural word, spoken only a few weeks ago, on that lowering day, in front of the Capitol (sad augury of woe soon to come), — no hint there of any course that he should pursue; no policy marked out for the coming years: but only an expression of trust in the Lord; only a vision of the Great Head of all Com- monwealths, of the judgments of God, of God leading the peo- ple, — "Whatsoever He wills to do, let his will be done"! This was a religious man, a religious ruler. That kindness of soul was stayed upon a principle of faith. That seeming weakness of will was supported by the invisible arm. The trembling magistrate leaned upon God; and, when others seemed to see an unsteady purpose, he felt beneath him the divine succor, and was strong in that uplifting. No place more proper to honor his name and to tell his worth than the house of God, to which his summons has so often called the worshippers in these years of trial. Again and again he has asked us to pray for the nation, and for the rulers of the nation; and has been quickened in the blessing of these united prayers. Perhaps the last work of his hand may have been a call of the nation to thanksgiving and praise; to ren- der thanks in their san6tuaries to that Disposer of events, that God of battles, who has guided the instruments of his will below, and whose right hand and whose holy arm, more than any coun- sel or work of men, have gotten us the vi6tory. That so good and pure a man, so worthy of the love and honor of the nation, should have been taken from us in such a way, im- mensely deepens the great lament in the land. We mourn not chiefly for the lost ruler, taken at so critical a time of public aftairs ; but more for the upright, noble, and patriotic man, whose large heart had endeared him to the people as no ruler since the firs^t has been endeared. This was the people's President, not by 3 1 8 Th( National Bereavement, jinv qiKilitios ot' hiob ^vnius, of various pt\s. of commamlinq- will; not as tl\o poat phili>sophor who wrote the Declaration v>\ our Froodom. i>r as tho intloxiblo ^vnoral who called tlie Eternal One to witness thai the Constitution shiuiKl not be luillitieil or ini- paireil, — but as the man wluMn the people beliexed in as one who would not deceive thei\i. who would not oppress them, who would not betray them, lie loved those even who hated him, better than the ambitious loaders who drew them astray. He was a truer triend to the men who toui^ht ai^-ainst his rule, than the bauiihtv lords ot' the lash, who used these poor millions only as the tools ot' their pride and their will. And he died really as the Saviour died, — on the very anniversary, too, otthe Saviour's death, and by a crime hardly less revolting, — with a prayer in his heart tor his enemies. What have the last a»5ts of this our ruler been, but a comment upon that dying- word of Jesus, " Fatlier, forgive thorn, tor they know not what they do".- Well may we borrow the wouls of one of our eminent men, and call the ruler who hiis so died, in a double sense, " the Saviour of his country." Nor mav we omit to speak of the other eminent intended vic- tim of this horrid conspiracy, who has stood by the side of his ohiet', in these lour years of trying ditficulty, to cheer by his hope- fulness, to advise from his knowledge of public ;illairs, and to perform all the office of a ready Iriend. How well the former ri\^\l gave up disappointment and vexation, to do his part in this crisis of the nation! With what moderation and what skill he has managx>d those relations of the nation in foreign lands ! saving us tK>m added w;vr: magnanimously confessing errors, and making Institution, vet alwiU's upholding the country's dignity: daring to oppose popular clamor, rather than risk the safety ol the nation, *nd the success of its etiorts to quench the tires of rebellion ! That the land is s;\ved, is owing in no small degree to the wisdom *nd patriotism ol' this optimist, as we have believed him. His Rev. Charles H. Brigham. 19 sanguine heart has only helped to keep up the faith of the people, but has not driven him into any errors of folly or rashness. He, too, whether he live or die, will have an honorable record, — hon- orable, not only in the story of long, various, and distinguished services in so many public charges, for more than a generation; not only in the ability of his statesmanship, and the success oi his diplomacy: but honorable as he has lived down calumnies, vindi- cated his prophecies, and won to himself the applause of enemies. This man, too, the country cannot afford to spare. Who shall stand in his place? A great sorrow indeed has come upon us in these outrages; and it almost seems that these bright skies, this cheerful sunshine, these songs of birds to-day, insult our grief We would have the heavens hung with black, as we have draped the doors of our houses and the walls of our churches. But, after all, is it not bet- ter to take the omen of the sunshine than to brood upon our grief and its emblems ? We may be glad, that, heavy as our loss is, it is no worse; that, successful as this great crime has been, it was not more successful. Other vi6tims were aimed at: and, if all the ■work had been done, we should have been left without a head for our armies, and almost without a Government. The crime has defeated its own ends. It will recoil upon those who have ex- pected to profit by it. This crowning wickedness is onlv the last of that series of follies by which Providence has blinded insane men here to their destru6tion. It cannot hinder the triumph of the righteous cause. Not falsely was the vision given to our mar- tyr, — the vision of freedom established, and a country saved. Not in vain has been his service. Not too early did the good man die, for the fruition of his hopes and his labors. Our illumination has been changed to cloud, our thanksgiving to lamenting; and the voice of wailing is heard in the land. But there is no voice of despair: the blackness is not that of a cavern or of night, but 20 The National Bereavement. only of a cloud in the sky: the lament is not a wail, — not the thre- nody of those who see no future; but is rather a requiem for the dead, the minor chord which goes in the funeral march before the full note of triumph. The land is safe, for God is its ruler. He leads us to deliverance. We will not trust in any arm of flesh, which may be broken; but we will trust in the living God, who hath led us hitherto. AVe will go on in the strength of this con- vi6tion, that, if we are constant in his righteousness, he will give the answer to our prayer, — will give peace, prosperity, plenty, a goodlier union, and a more glorious future. THE MURDER OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN: AN ADDRESS SPOKEN AT A MEMORIAL SERVICE IN THE CHURCH OF THE MESSIAH, MONTREAL, ON SUNDAY EVENING, APRIL 23, 1S65 ; BY REV. JOHN CORDNER. THE lessons we have read this evening are those of the ser- vice for the burial of the dead. " Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am."—" Lord, thou hast been my dwelling-place in all generations." The solemn strain of these grand old psalms has swept the chord of human hearts throughout the Hebrew and Christian ages. And they are fresh and strong to-day as when Moses wrote and David sang. " Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept. ... As we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Thanks be to God, who giveth us the viaory through our Lord Jesus Christ." This is the jubilant utterance of the great apostle, with mind illuminated by the new light which Christ brought from on high. And when the darkest shadows of death are projeded upon our path, this light gives consolation, hope, joy. Our present memorial service is but a single refrain of the wide-spread expression of grief which the past week witnessed on 22 The Murder of President Lincoln. this continent. On Wednesday last, a funeral took place in Washington, which closed the law-courts, banks, and places of business in this chief city of British America; invested our streets with subdued silence; called out visible tokens of mourning; and opened halls and churches, where words of sorrow and sympathy might jEind utterance. All this was spontaneous. It was the spontaneous " tribute of respect (I quote here from our mayor's proclamation) to the memory of the late President of the United States, and of S37mpathy with the bereaved members of his family; and an expression of the deep sorrow and horror felt by the citi- zens of Montreal, at the atrocious crime by which the President came to an untimely death." A great crime had been committed, which moved the common human heart of this continent to great horror, and great sorrow and great sympathy for those more im- mediately afflicted. On the evening of Good-Friday, — the anniversary of our Lord's crucifixion, — Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, was mortally shot by the hand of an assassin. This deed will stand throughout historic time as one of the dark and tragic events of history; signal and memorable as indicating to what enormity of crime defeated hate and rage will drive men. The mode of the murder was deliberate and chara6teristic. All in front of the private box where the President was seated with his wife and friends, — all in front was light and publicity. A large concourse of people was there, drawn by the expe6tation of seeing their beloved Chief Magistrate, who, on his part, went at personal inconvenience, lest the people should be disappointed by his absence. The flaming jets of gas shed the brilliancy of their light upon the assemblage. In contrast with this, the passage in rear of the box was all darkness and secrecy. There prowled the assassin marking his vi6lim. Lock and door had been pre- viously tampered with, to facilitate the horrid purpose on hand. Rev. yohn Cordner. 23 And when the moment came for the dreadful deed to be done, — standing in the darkness behind his vi6tim, — the murderer fired the fatal shot. The bullet lodged in the President's brain, and instantly deprived him of conscious existence. The physical mechanism of the strong frame maintained its a6lion some hours longer; but, before eight o'clock next morning, heart and lungs had ceased all fun6tion. The earthly life of Abraham Lincoln had closed for ever. This murder, in the method of its accomplishment, is some- what symbolic of the attempt made four years ago on the life of the nation. That attempt broke the peace and disturbed the order of this hitherto peaceful, industrious, and prosperous conti- nent. The same evil influence which moved to that attempt, pulled the trigger behind President Lincoln's head, and lodged the bullet in his brain. If the head of Queen Victoria stood in the way of the accomplishment of its purposes, it would share a like fate, if a like opportunity offered. The spirit of the slave power brooks no opposition. Habituated to the exercise of arbitrary rule, it chafes at the moral and constitutional restraints of a free, political, and social order. Hence its armed revolt against the pre-existing peaceful political order four 3'ears ago, as soon as the result of the ele6lion declared that it should no longer dominate the national aftairs with a view to its own extension. The Con- stitution guaranteed its sway within existing limits, unmolested by interference from without. Dissatisfied with this, it sought extension into territories hitherto free, and untainted by slave- holding institutions. The slave power, be it still borne in mind, revolted ao-ainst the result of an election in which itself took a6live part. In the prescribed constitutional way, the nation de- cided against the territorial extension of slavery by the ele6tion of Mr. Lincoln; and, from the hour this decision was first made known, the slave power conspired against the national existence. 24 The Murder of President Lincoln. After the manner of the assassin, it worked in secrecy and the dark. Disregarding the sacred obligations involved in high na- tional trusts, it made use of its official opportunities to destroy the nationality it had undertaken to serve. By stealthy distribu- tion of the military stores and naval resources of the nation, the slaveholders then in offices of high trust crippled its power for self-prote6tion. By various intrigue abroad, the slave power mis- represented the a6lual issue at stake, and involved foreign opin- ion in one of the most stupendous political delusions of modern times. After such manner did it work, in secrecy and the dark; and by strategem and device sought to make sure the blow it was preparing to strike at the national life. Sic semper tyrannis — thus may it always be with tyrants — were the words of the assassin of President Lincoln. Sic semper tyrannis., — this is the motto of the State of Virginia. All honor to Virginia, oldest of the States, mother of many Presidents and illustrious men! All honor to Virginia, for the wisdom and ex- cellence she has given to the world in so many of her sons! Within her borders, Virginia has the elements of enduring great- ness; but conjoined with these she had the one element of social and political blight, — I mean the institution of slavery. Contact with this institution inevitably obscures the moral perceptions, and induces a strange inversion of the moral order. Evil is put for good, and good for evil; bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter; slavery for liberty, and liberty for slaver}-. Only on this ground can we account for the use of the motto in this case. If the irre- sponsible control of man over man is not of the nature of tyrann}'', I know not what is. If the deprivation of man of his natural rights, — his right is his own person, to the fruits of his skill and toil, and to the sacred privileges of domestic life, — if the aftual deprivation of these rights, through the irresponsible a6t of another, is not a6lual tyranny, I know not what is. But the insti- Rev. John Cordne7\ 25 tution of slavery legitimates all this, — so far as its code can legiti- mate any thing. This motto, Sic semper tyrannis^ floating over the Capitol at Richmond, and over the slave-breeding farms and slave-au6tion marts of Virginia, if understood in its true import, ought to have struck awe to the heart of every slave-trader and slave-owner. But its import was not discerned. Its significance was obscured through the distorting moral influence of slavery. Hence comes its utterance from the lips of the assassin who, from the darkness behind, fired that deadly ball into the brain of Presi- dent Lincoln, the emancipator from bondage of four millions of human beings. The assassination of Mr. Lincoln was not a thought born of last week or last month. It was plotted from the beginning of the insurre6tion, more than four years ago. It will be remembered, that, after much persuasion, he was induced, by friends who had taken pains in gathering undoubted information concerning the plot, to change his plan and time for proceeding to Washington for his first inauguration. His friends had obtained possession of fa6ls relating to a plot for assassination, and they would be satis- fied with nothing short of a private night-journey in advance of the public journey proposed. He yielded in this matter to the most urgent solicitation of friends; and thus, in all probability, prevented the conspirators from accomplishing their deadly pur- pose at that time. He yielded; but would on no account consent to go, until he had fulfilled two public engagements on the next day, — both of which he averred he would keep, though it should cost him his life. It was on one of these occasions, — at the rais- ing of the national flag at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, on Washington's birthday, — that he uttered these memorable words: " If this country cannot be saved without giving up the principle involved in the Declaration of Independence, / would rather be assassinated on the spot than surrender itP Thus spake Abraham 4 26 The Murder of President L incoln, Lincoln in the month of February of the year eighteen hundred and sixty-one. The statements made at the time, and preserved still as record of history, inform us that the " chara6ler and pursuits of the con- spirators were various. Some of them w^ere impelled by a fanati- cal zeal, which they term '^patriotism;' and they justified their a6ls by the example of Brutus, in ridding his country of a tyrant. One of them was accustomed to recite passages, put into the mouth of the character of Brutus, in Shakspeare's play of ^Julius Caesar;' others were stimulated by the hope of pecuniary reward." Again, it was stated that " the list of the names of the conspira- tors presented a most astonishing array of persons high in South- ern confidence, and some whose fame is not confined to this country alone. Statesmen laid the plan, bankers indorsed it, and adventurers were to carry it into efie6f. They understood Mr. Lincoln was to leave Harrisburg at nine o'clock by special train; and the idea was, if possible, to throw the cars from the road at some point where they would rush down a steep embankment, and destroy in a moment the lives of all on board. In case of the failure of this projeft, their plan was to surround the carriage on the way from depot to depot in Baltimore, and assassinate him with dagger or pistol-shot." * Subsequently an advertisement appeared at the South, making fervent appeal to slaveholding States to advance a large sum of money to promote the "patriotic purpose" — this was the term used — of "reaching" the President of the United States, the Vice-President, and Secretary of State, and destroying their lives. I do not say that all the men of the South san6lioned such plots, or approved of such proposals. God forbid! I am confident there are multitudes of men there who would recoil from them in * See Rebellion Record, 1S60-61, Doc. 38. Rev. yohn Cordner. 27 horror. But the secret plot and the published appeal were both the produ6l of a state of society familiarized with violence and disregard of human life through familiarity with slave institutions. The a6ls of Preston Brooks and Wilkes Booth were inspired by the same social and political ideas. The dreadful purpose, then, of assassinating Mr. Lincoln, has borne more than a four years' waiting. And now, in its a6tual execution, it has horrified the world. Four years ago, Mr. Lin- coln was, comparatively, an untried man, — untried, I mean, in the great responsibilities which devolved upon him as President of the United States, during the most critical period in the history of the country. The weight of those responsibilities we can but dimly understand. How they pressed by night and by day, amid the divided councils of friends and the constant obloquy of ene- mies, we can but poorly imagine. Amid the varying fortunes of the four years' war, and the complications of foreign diplomacy, this hitherto untried man met the dail}^ exigencies of the occasion in such manner as to strengthen general confidence in him from day to day, and from year to year. The secret of his success lay in the simplicity and sincerity of his purpose. The honesty of his intention was so clear, that it could not be even suspefted. And this honesty of purpose was sustained by a practical sagacity truly wonderful. His integrity and wisdom, rooted and grounded as they were in a generous nature, quickened and moved by re- ligious faith, supported and direfted Mr. Lincoln throughout his whole administration of public affairs, and won tor him that alwa3's increasing confidence which resulted so decisively in his second election. His predominating qualities of character desig- nated him as the providentially appointed man for the time. He was a self-made man, as the phrase goes. His name indicates his English ancestry; and his great perseverance and pra6lical qualities of chara6ter indicate fidelity to his Anglo-Saxon lineage. The Murder of President Lincoln. One of the most critical problems to be solved in his presidential career related to the enslaved men at the South, and the treatment thereof. As Abraham Lincoln, his honest instin6ls would strike the fetters from the slave. As President of the United States, he was restrained by constitutional limitations. For these limitations he had a due regard, as he was bound to have; but as from time to time they became clearly weakened and broken, in law and fa6t, by insurgent action, then the honest instin6ts of the man found their justifiable expression in the a6ls of the President, who was always ready to give the slave the benefit of the breach. Step by step, with an honest and pure wisdom, he walked the straight and trying path of emancipation. And one thing spe- cially noteworthy here is, that he never took a backward step on this path. New circumstances might arise, out of which a cry would come to reverse the order and withdraw the promise. In such cases President Lincoln had only one answer, and that was an emphatic refusal. His word was, that no slave set free in the inevitable progress of events, by authority of the United States, should ever be returned to bondage. His maxim was, " In giv- ing freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free." No man deplored the war more than he. But the action of the slave- holding States in challenging arbitrament by the sword left him without choice in the matter. If defeat in a fair election justifies armed revolt by the defeated party, then there is clearly an end to all political order on this continent. If any question of abstra6l right is raised, whether in relation to the individual or the State, and if one party in the matter challenges the arbitrament of the sword in advance of discussion in the constitutional assemblies and tribunals of the land, then there is nothing left for the other party but to accept the challenge, and allow the sword to settle the question. President Lincoln's heart was for peace, — for peace on a permanent basis. But, like all thoughtful observers, Rev. yohn Cordner. 29 he saw that no permanent peace could be had while the institu- tion of slavery remained. His second inaugural address is a faithful transcript of himself It contains no shadow of boastino- no personal reference, no vanity of predi6lion. It is the writino- of one who felt himself as in the hollow of God's hand, to be used for God's purposes. It is eminently solemn and humane, tender and trustful. Here are the two closing paragraphs : " Both parties to the war read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any man should dare to ask a just God's assist- ance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. ^ Woe unto the world be- cause of offences, for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the ofience cometh.' If we shall sup- pose that American slavery is one of these offences, which in the providence of God must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woes due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope, fer- vently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may soon pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop oi blood drawn with the lash shall ""be paid with another drawn with the sword, — as was said three thousand years ago, — so, still it must be said, ^ The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' " With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to 30 The Murder of President Lincoln. finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations." This last paragraph ought to be engraven on his monument. In the midst of life, brethren, we are in death. Death meets man at every turn, — a surprise and a mystery. In the high places of the nations men fall sometimes by violence, and some- times in peace; and the more private circle of the home is visited by death's call, and our friends are borne away to the tomb. That same morning which witnessed the departure of the spirit of President Lincoln from the earth witnessed also the departure from this life of a venerable life connected with this congregation. No man living could be in more ardent sympathy with the cause of emancipation than he was. He had passed through a lengthened public life, honored with various high pub- lic trusts, and had reached an advanced age which demanded repose. But with fourscore 3'ears upon him, he had a heart ten- der as a child for the wrongs of the slave. Any reference to these wrongs stirred his whole nature with profound and visible motion. You know I refer here to the late Mr. Justice Gale. Yes; in the midst of life we are in death. Men fall at con- spicuous posts, and in the full bustle of a6live public life. While the tidings of President Lincoln's death were yet fresh upon us, ships from beyond the sea came with further tidings of sadness and death. We heard that Richard Cobden, one of England's foremost men, had suddenly ceased to be. He had come up to London to take part in a debate concerning Canada; but sickness seized him, and soon cut short his life. He, too, like President Lincoln, was a self-made man, rising gradually from humble birth and social obscurity, until, by dint of perseverance, attain- ments, and chara6ter, he became one of the most influential men Rev. yohn Cordner. 31 of the nation. He was a representative man of the bone and sinew of England, — her intelHgent middle and industrial classes. These are the classes who have built up Britain's material power and greatness. These are the men who plant her colonies, car- ry her wide-stretching commerce, and her traditions of libert}^, all over the earth: here bearing fruit in one form; in another place, bearing fruit in another form. Canada and the United States are both the products of the energy and enterprise of the middle and industrial classes of our common mother-country. Mr. Cobden, like Mr. Lincoln, was a man of marked sincerity of purpose and integrity of chara6ter. Like Mr. Lincoln, he had to bear his share of obloquy from flippant and reckless partisan opponents; but like Mr. Lincoln, too, he triumphed over these, and has bequeathed a name to his country, which his country will not willingly let die. His name is intimately identified with some of the most important political and economic reforms of the present century. He cheapened the food of the operative masses in England, after a hard and tedious conflidt with the ignorance and selfishness of the agricultural interests and landed aristocracy. He lived to see the nation a grateful convert to his enlightened principles of commerce. He was invited to join Lord Pal- merston as Cabinet Minister; but he declined. He was offered rank and title; but he declined. He wanted neither office nor title. His desire was that of a sincere and noble mind, to serve his countrymen — the great mass of his toiling countrj^men — with an honest and disinterested service. And, when the calami- ty of civil war befel the United States, his mtelligent acquaint- ance with American affairs, and his clear moral vision, preserved him from that lamentable delusion on this matter in which cer- tain classes of English society became almost hopelessly involved. President Lincoln had in him an enlightened and faithful friend. He was the consistent supporter of the cause of free labor and of 3 2 The Murder of President L incoln. popular government in the free States, as against all faftitious claim to sympathy and support made on behalf of an attempt to establish an 'oligarchical Republic founded on slave labor. His voice did as much as any other man's to keep the masses of the English people right on this great subje6t. He was, beside, the steady advocate of international peace. He had faith in Chris- tianity as a religion of peace. Sixteen years ago, it was my privilege to meet him as a delegate to the Peace Congress then held in Paris. Then and there, I listened to his calm, cogent, and convincing speech on the main topic of the Congress. I do not know in what form he would have written his religious creed. But his expressed maxim was, " You have no hold on any man who has no religious faith." There was no narrowness about his religion. It was broad in its sympathies, and pra6tical in its aims. He said he liked the Unitarians, "because they did not make their faith and works distinct." And, speaking as I do from a Unitarian pulpit, I may be pardoned for alluding to the fa6t, that Richard Cobden first tried his power as a public speaker in the Cross-street Unitarian Chapel Room in Manchester. And when he wanted help in any good cause, as he was heard to say many 3^ears afterwards, he knew he could always rely on the Unitarian young men of that city. When Richard Cobden, the son of a Sussex farmer, died, one of England's genuine noblemen passed away. When he died, the cause of human freedom and progress lost one of its most enlightened friends and devoted advocates. In the midst of life we are in death. On the seventh day of this present month of April, the grave closed over the mortal remains of this conspicuous representative Englishman. Just one week afterwards, on the fourteenth day of this same month, an assassin's hand brought death to a conspicuous representative American. Abraham Lincoln and Richard Cobden, names fa- Rev. John Cordner. 33 miliar in two continents, no longer represent living men. Both have passed aw^ay from the scene. Yet, from a human point of view, how needful to their two nations were these two men! Both were lovers of freedom. Both were friends of peace. Each in his own nation was a pledge of peace toward the other nation. The removal of these two men about the same time is a notable and startling faa in the order of Divine Providence, — a faa, solemn, inscrutable, admonitory. How shall we interpret this double dispensation of death? And what use shall we make thereof? Brethren, the times are critical. War exists on this continent; and the spirit which breeds war is unhappily too rife here and elsewhere. What then? Are we not bound to look soberly and devoutly at passing events? And, as we stand at this hour by the freshly closed grave of Richard Cobden, and behold the murdered body of Abraham Lincoln passing along, amid a nation's wail, to its tomb, shall we not pray, and put our prayer into effort, that the two great and kindred nations, of which these two men were such conspicuous representatives, shall remain in amity and at peace each with the other? Every true friend of either nation must desire this, and can desire nothing but this. And all such persons should have a clear understanding of their duty at this junaure. The governments of the two countries are friendly and peacefully disposed. The most recent intercourse between our Qiieen's representative at Washington, and the new President of the United States, indicates a spirit of mutual friendliness, which goes beyond the coldness of mere formality. But, in contrast with this friendly temper of the two governments, we cannot but notice the unfriendly temper of certain classes of persons on both sides of the frontier line. By whatever name they are called on this or the 9ther side, how different soever may be their origin on one side or the other, or apparently opposite their present party conneaions, their temper, 5 34 The Murder of President Lincoln. in this regard, is the same; and by their fruits they are known. Their purpose, jointly and severally, whether a6ling in concert or in seeming confli6t, is to foment international strife, and fan the flame of -ill-will. Their organs of expression abound with abuse of the United States on the one side, and of Great Britain on the other. Various motives prompt on the one side, and the other; but the thoughtful and clear-seeing eye will generalize the whole under one order of enemies to the true interests of both coun- tries. The day of peace was just dawning on this continent, when the assassin's deed threw a cloud of darkness over the rising dawn. But God rules. The rising day-spring of peace, I trust, will not be permanently clouded. I look with hope for the ofradual restoration of order on this continent. But we must not be impatient, but bide the time of the Supreme Disposer. Mean- time, as citizens of a Christian land, and still enjoying peace, let us follow after the things which make for peace, and wisely cher- ish the temper thereof The changed situation of the parties to the present war will possibly lead before long to a changed atti- tude on the part of the maritime powers of Europe. Diplomatic questions may possibly arise out of the past; but none ought to lead to farther war. So far as Great Britain and the United States are concerned, I will venture to say, that no question can arise which ought not be settled amicably by commissioners mutually chosen. If this cannot be done, then I must blush for the Christianity and civilization of the English-speaking races of men. The news of President Lincoln's assassination will cause a shock of horror in Europe, as it has done in America. That murder is a blow which tells not merely on one man or one government, but on every man and every government. What man's life is safe, what ruler's life is secure, if the assassin can find his way behind him in the dark.'* As we stand in the present Rev. yohn Cordner. ^^ shadow of this great calamity, may our hearts be moved to deeper horror of that evil temper w^hich- urges to crime. And, as death presents itself to our notice from time to time, — some- times in quiet, and sometimes in startling form, — may we be moved to consider afresh the sanctity and significance of the life which God has given us to live! Christian Inquirer, May 27. '^r^ ABRAHAM LINCOLN : A SERMON PREACHED TO HIS SOCIETY IN BROOKLYN, N.Y. BY JOHN W. CHADWICK. EccL. iv. I : " Behold the tears of such as were oppressed." A FORTNIGHT since I went away, and left you with a joy upon your faces that was all too deep for words. To-day, I come again, and find you smitten with a grief too sad for human hearts to hold. I trust that God would have permitted me, in case I had been with you when this terrible calamity came thundering down into your common life, to speak, not altogether foolishly, according to your sorrow and your need. I trust, beside, that your own hearts have prophesied how hard it was for me not to be with you. It may be that I could have helped you just a little. But you would have given to me a great deal more than I could have bestowed. And if, to-day, my words but faintly echo that which your sad hearts keep on complaining, will you not try to feel that they would have been better spoken, if, first, I could have seen the meaning of this sorrow written upon your faces, or felt it quiver through the trembling grasp of your right hands ? " Behold the tears of such as were oppressed." Shall I tell you why I took this sentence for my text? It was because I felt, that, when the news of Abraham Lincoln's death should find its way into the streets of Charleston and Savannah, into the tents Rev. John W. Chadwick. 37 of colored regiments, into the cabin of the planter, and the brain of Robert Small, tears would arise, from hearts all bruised and shattered, into eyes already dim with other tears, not sorrowful, more hot and scalding than ever mother shed upon the death-bed of her earliest born. Not forgetting any other sorrow whose offerings will be wreathed about his memory, I could but feel that the enfranchised negro of the South would twine for him the darkest cypress and the brightest bay. I would not be unjust to any of the countless multitude who mourn his swift departure. One's brain needs not to be badgered ere he thinks how much he was beloved. I take it that your shrouded streets but faintly symbolize the utter darkness of your inward woe. And I respe6l all these attempts which men and women make to help and com- mune with each other. It is quite terrible to see your marts and custom-houses draped so darkly and so heavily. It is altogether sweet and tender and beautiful to see the bits of blackness that the poor and starving and half-naked denizens of this and yonder city put out from their windows, even in narrow courts and crowded alleys, where only God, perhaps, can look upon them. I doubt not that these bits of crape and muslin help these poor wretches, from whose dingy homes they flit so drearily, to forget themselves a little, and that they keep away the devil for a day or for an hour. This is their recompense. Their loss, which they do not begin to understand, is gain to them in some such way as this. And what a change upon your splendid thorough- fares ! How bright they were with banners scarcely a week ago ! It was a feast of resurrection; and now it is as if the risen Lord had gone back into his tomb again. It made me shudder, when I came upon them suddenly a day or two ago. But what was all the crape, and what were all the drooping flags, and all the reverent devices, to the sad faces of the listless throng? And what were these to the sad hearts that tried in vain to symbolize 38 Abraham Lincoln, their bitterness ? Is it too much to say, that never in the annals of our modern Hfe was there such deep and unafFedled sorrow? The death of Everett, of Harrison, of Webster, furnished no parallel. No more did that of the first Washington. To-day, the second, snatched so suddenly away, eclipses him, and every other, with the majestic sorrow that he leaves behind. It happened that the love accorded to this man admitted of no geographical distin6lions. It came from every quarter of the world, and from men of every nation and condition. I will not speak for his own land; but I am certain that in other lands his fame, ere long, will outrun that of Washington. I doubt not, that, in every nation of Europe, there are men and women to-day who pray God that they may live to see that face, which even we shall see no more for ever. How sad the bravest of the French will be, that he has not outlived the incubus which is upon their bosoms! Alas that Garibaldi could not have looked into those deep eyes, that were so beautiful that they will haunt me with their witching tenderness until my dying day! Pity, that the grandchild of that chief, who bears our Chieftain's name, could not have kissed his broad, pale forehead, though it had been but for a single time! And do you imagine that his name was never whispered in German brotherhoods and Austrian homes, if homes they can be called? The Swiss guide talks about him to the traveller. I have heard the echoes of his fame from the Valley of El Ghor, and from Jerusalem. It is marvellous, you say, that this man should have been so greatly loved, while yet so little known. No: it is not mai-vellous; for the whole man was of a piece. And upon the least hint it was as easy to constru6t him, as for the geologist to constru(5t completed organisms from a single bone. There was not a rotten thread, not a bit of shoddy, in the whole man. Was any thing good, it was all good. So that to know him but a little was to love him well. But to know Rev. John W. Chadwick. 39 him well was to love with an almost infinite affe6lion. And to have known him much or little is to mourn his loss as if he were indeed our father, and to curse the day that ever treason raised its bloody hand against a life so fair. And yet the tears which fall upon the dusky cheeks of the enfranchised slave are better worth beholding than any tears which stain your cheeks, or flow from fountains far away across the sea. They shall be more to him in heaven than those which strong men shed against their will ; more to him than even the gentlest tears of womanhood. But they shall not fall and sting as other tears which must be shed sooner or later. For such will fall like hissing coals upon the cheeks that have not blushed when the false tongue beneath shot out its base and wicked slan- ders, which went like poisoned arrow^s into a great, tender soul, — and yet a soul that was so sweet, that it could quench their poi- son. And when they, who made these arrows out of hate, and dipped them in the essence of obscenity, shall know at whom they shot them, and how perfe6l his forgiveness was, theirs shall be grief and misery indeed. There can be no sorrow like this sorrow. Other than this, there is no sorrow like the black man's own, — at once so rich and full and tender. With what awful suddenness did this blow descend, even upon us who thought that we had passed beyond the stage where men can be surprised ! With what tenfold horror, then, it must be fraught for those whose only life, as yet, is that of sense and feeling! On the morning of Saturday, the 15th April, I stood in Zion Church, in Charleston, a larger church than Mr. Beecher's, and from two to three thousand of these emancipated ones were there assembled. And when the name of Lincoln was uttered in that presence, it was greeted with such exhibitions of reverence and love as I never saw before. The cheers that went up from that multitude went up from the heart. I wish, my friends, that AQ Abraham Lincoln. you could have been there. They prayed; they sung; they danced for very joy. They hugged their dusky children to their bosoms in the very ecstasy of pleasure and content. Their whole frames trembled w^ith emotion. And I said to myself, " Oh that Lincoln might know of this!" And he did know of it. "Oh that he were here! " I said; and he was there. For, on that very morning, his soul had put away the chains of fleshly limitation; and the uncouth form was lying stiff and cold, where slavery had stricken it. The genius of rebellion had done its worst upon the nation's gentlest, bravest, best. And now I keep on thinking how it would have been, if this tale of g-odless murder had been told there in that cursed and bat- tered city to that waiting multitude. Surely it would have frozen their poor hearts. It would have burdened them with a sense of unutterable horror and despair. For they cannot rise to any thing impersonal. They deal with individuals. Even their God is one. They recognize no providential order, — only its instruments and its effe6ts. They are free, and " Massa Lincoln " made them so. He was their Christ and their deliverer. And their old enemies have crucified him. God help them when they hear of this! God grant it may not goad them to a swift and terrible revenge! They have borne and forborne so long, may the kind Heavens decree that they be still, as ever, merciful to them that have no mercy! But, oh! how swift and strong and terrible will be the flood of their emotion! How fierce will be their agony! how cold and hard their disappointment! And again I say, God help them! And do you work with him. 1 believe that this is the only providential way in which you can be reconciled to this supreme aflliftion. If you stand silently apart, and brood upon this a6l of the assassin, and the dear life it has destroyed, what shall keep your tired brain from distra6lion, your poor weak heart from fierce rebellion } You must forget Rev. yohn IV. Chadwick. ■ 41 3^ourself, and all the circumstances of this most foul and most un- natural murder. Compare the black man's sorrow with 3^our own: go and behold the tears of the oppressed. You must live for them as did that martyred one whose memory you revere. If need be, you must die for them as he did. You must go to these poor wanderers, and wipe away the tears that shut them out as with a blinding mist from all things heavenly. And it may come to pass, that you shall know that this good man died for 3^ou also. The consciousness of carrying out his lofty purposes shall take up its abode in you. And this shall be your recompense. Your loss shall be as gain to you, and your sad heart shall be comforted, if to this end you look about you, and " behold the tears of such as were oppressed." But come and ponder lovingly with me the life and chara6ler of this dear friend of God's eternal justice. There is something very worshipful about him, when you consider merely his concrete appearance, that which he manifested to the world. His steady progi'ess upward, through a thousand hindrances and bars and terrible privations, to the highest point of influence and esteem. One might talk for hours about the obstacles which he encoun- tered and as often overcame. It was his task, as it is every man's, to hew from out a mass of shapeless stuft' a name, a character, an influence. But how many find their marble ready and their tools at hand! It was not so with him. He was obliged to quarry his material, and to fashion his tools. But, working diligently, he came at length to shape colossal forms, whose merit shall insure him universal admiration. And this, I say, was very worshipful. Yet it might not have been so. For other men have raised them- selves, by slow degrees, from deeper valleys to more lofty heights of civil power and glory. And 3'et they are not admirable in any- way. And why? Because their end was self. Because they bent God's opportunities into a refuge for their own conceit. 6 42 Abraham Lincoln. When they might have built these into his altars, the}' built them into thrones, that they might sit upon them. And they marked the stages of their journey upward with false beacons and with lying monuments. Has not the progress of Napoleon III. been a progressive masquerade? Has he not been a liar and a cheat from its beginning until now? Our Chief Magistrate not only raised himself to noble eminence, but he did this with the appli- ances of simple justice. Try him by the standard of success, and he does not fall a whit below it. You cannot tind in history a more successful life. And yet it was so through no trick or sub- terfuge. He walked over every inch of the ground. He forded every stream that crossed his way. He rode in no man's carriage. He burdened no man's shoulders. And then, for crown and cul- mination, no sooner did he find himself on any height of honor, than from that height he hurried back to seek for any who, per- chance, had been less fortunate, and point for them the way. No sooner did he win a gift, through prayer and struggle, than he fain would share it with some brother soldier in the ranks of mortal weakness and temptation. So much for his outward life, — a great success, — and as such consecrated to great purposes. For this reason, come upon it where you will, it is significant. At every point of his circumference, there were springs connect- ing with the central power and beauty of his soul. The least a6l had the flavor of the greatest; and it was as natural for him to strike oft' four million fetters at a blow, as for him to leave his Cabinet to talk with any soldier's wife, and answer her petition. And his words were deeds also. He never wrote a letter or a message*, and he 'never made a speech, which did not contain something that was fine and memorable. Some of his sentences are like children's prayers, and some of them are as sturdy as the blows he dealt in when he swung his axe upon the border. Some of them soothe like ointment; but anon they pierce like a two- Rev. yohit W. Chadwick, 43 edged sword. But he was very chary of them. And hence, no doubt, the world will cherish them the more. For upon every thing he said or did he stamped his inmost self, as with the signet of a king. And the motto of that signet was the name of God. The form and substance of this man were so related, that to speak of one necessitated mention of the other. True, it were easy to abstra6t success from every thing beside. But the mo- ment that I spoke of his success as being beautiful, I had to tell you why it was so, and speak of his sincerity. I had to say that he was honest in the methods of his greatness, and that its end was not himself, but human love and helpfulness. I think that he would have preferred to work in a more humble sphere. He hated din and bustle. He had no taste for pomp and circum- stance, and he dearly loved the quiet of his home. But he found himself to be a providential man; and thereupon he put his hand in that of the unseen fate and providence, and let it lead him as it would. And it led him into toil more hard, into anxiety more terrible, than any other man has wrought or suffered in these lat- ter days. But he did not grumble; he did not complain. He made no doubt that God knew what was best for him. His hon- esty and his benevolence were equal to the largest application. They widened with the greater need and opportunity, — the one into justice, the other into universal sympathy. But, anon, it came to pass that this deep-eyed and tender- hearted man, who had been schooled on wooded slopes and prairie solitudes; whose teachers had been want and deprivation; still somewhat rough and crude and angular, — became a potent, ener- gizing force. He compelled respeft from such as would not grant it willingly. One by one the voices of detraction ceased. Lord Lyons goes away regretting that the President is not more utterly respe6ted and admired. Wise men across the sea delib- erately write his name high up with Hampden's, Cromwell's, 44 Abraham Lincoln. Washington's. He controls a Cabinet, every man of which sur- passes him in culture and experience. He thanks them for their advice; he is anxious for their opinions: but he never substitutes them for his own. Their discords do not trouble him; or, when they do, he drops the offending member as quietly as the tree drops down its ripest apple in the fall. He has ruled this people as it has not been ruled since Andrew Jackson's time, yet not in Andrew Jackson's arbitrary way. He ruled by force of charader, and not by force of will. He did it quite unconsciously. He thought that he was looking up to Mr. Seward. But it was cer- tainly an illusion, and Mr. Seward did not think so. And, before his death, the traitors of the South honored him with their hatred, and acknowledged that he was not to be despised. There is no doubt, but that he lived to be the vital head of civilization in America, and freedom in the world. Now, it is very plain that this fine potency did not come of honesty nor of benevolence. They were its rich and beautiful adorning. It was not in them to beget a child so strong. At best, they were the conditions of its growth. They were not the cause of it, and it is that which we are seeking. Honesty and benevolence will commend a man to God; but we are more ex- acting. We do not bow and kneel when these exist apart from other qualities. What were the sources, then, of this man's con- stantly increasing power? I do not find them hidden in the crannies of his brain. He did not prevail by dint of intellectual superiority. I know that he was sharp and keen. He was not apt to be illogical. He had a passion for destroying sophistries. But these were any thing but rare endowments ; and as for fancy and imagination, he had none; and for insight he was not remark- able. His throne was never built on intelle6lual foundations. It rested on his faith and resolution. His resolute determination was only equalled by his. perfeft trust. These gave him that Rev. yohn W. Chadwick. 45 magnetic force which we denominate chara6ler, and constituted him a power. But the operation of his will was as quiet and as irresistible as that of any natural law. There was no fuss and demonstration. He made his soul a sacrifice for sin. He pledged himself to God to make an end of this rebellion. He never doubted that he should accomplish his desire. He never dreamed of being balked in his intention. He felt the weight of all this struggle upon his own heart; and, if he could have lifted it, he would not have done so. So that, when he had carried it four years, the nation entered into his thought, strange as it was, and allowed him, as a privilege, to bear it still. And not until the special task which he accepted, of crushing armed rebellion, had been fairly done, was heaven thrown wide open to receive him. Beyond that point his spirit seemed to halt. His theories of reconstru6tion did not satisfy himself An awful prescience haunted him, that other hands would have to manage that. God only knows how many daggers have been blunted against the iron mail of his resolution. There is nothing which can hedge a man about like a strong purpose; and so he went everywhere, armed in this simple way, assured that naught could harm him, if he did not harm himself This sturdy resolution was of itself enough to make him teem with power. But to this he added faith. I mean by this, that he was always open to the infinite; that he was expe6lant, and ready to be constantly corre6led and re- vised. He never settled down into the ruts of dogmatism, refus- ing to be stirred. It is very strange, if that other which I said of him was true, and this also. But so it happened. And it was a thing which hdippens scarcely once a century. It was the means of his salvation, this perfect faith in God, united with a will to carry out the dictates of his inspiration. For the Eternal Provi- dence does not give its talents unto those who bury them. No 46 Abraham Lincoht. wonder, then, that he was always placid and serene. Resolved upon his work, and confident that God would give him strength according to his day, why should he not have been? But he knew the price of wisdom, and he lived accordingly. He was an optimist; but he knew well enough that it is God who worketh in us, both to will and do. He did not think that God's work would go on, if his own work, and yours and mine, stopped short, or even flagged. Therefore, he made the most of all the faculties and means at his command. The mental movement of the man was very slow; and yet it made good distances, what with the sense he had of constant oversight and certain ultimate reward. Before, the glorious future beckoned him. The Holy Spirit pricked him from behind. It was this grand and lofty fatalism which preserved him, when the shafts of treasonable and partisan abuse fell thickest all about him. He accepted these things, with no end of care and pain and misconception, as necessary parts of his condition. There was the task; and there was God who set it. Every thing else was worse than vanity compared with these. But it is very plain, that he was not indifferent to the cruel blows that were levelled at him every day. Instead of this, he was as sensitive as any child. But he had made up his mind what to expeft before he started; and, in the silence of his own heart, he had prepared himself for all contingencies : — "As if the man had set his face, In many a solitary place, Against the wind and open sky." And when great men and small met him, at any time or place, they found him perfect in his poise and self-containment; they felt his power; they knew that there was plenty of it in reserve; and, though they did not stop to analyze, they were assured that Rev. yohn W. Chadwick. 47 its beginning went clear down into the heart of nature, into the Hfe of God. And they bowed themselves before him; and, going on their wa}', told all men everywhere how excellent he was. And so, in time, he came to be the power which I assert, — the living head of that great bod}" which we call the Time. But he was not only a centre of force: he was a centre of attra6tion. And, as 3'et, I have said nothing w^hich accounts for this. I have said why men honored and respected him, not why they loved him as, perhaps, no other man was ever loved, save by a wife or mother. He might have been as faithful and deter- mined, as honest and as just, as I have said he was, yet not have been beloved. For such qualities must be intelleftually appre- hended, seen ; and it is a proverb, that love is blind. Yet can we turn to all the world, and say, " Behold, how we loved him!" It was because we felt his S3'mpathy with us, and knew that, if we went to see him, even the humblest of us, he would take us by the hand as cordially as if we had a rightful claim upon his time or his affe6lion; it was because of his naturalness and free- dom; because he was so void of any thing like affectation or conceit. He w^as always himself; and it seemed never to occur to him, that he might be something different: although, as such, he was no carpet-knight, no drawing-room celebrity. He lived so deeply, that he lived unconsciously. And, in his w^ay, he was as easy and as gracious as my lord. We loved him, too, because he w^as so kind; because he would listen while the common soldier told the story of his real or fancied WTongs, or while his wife or mother prayed for his furlough or discharge. And w^e remember him upon the field of Gettysburg, and at Captain Worden's bedside; and we never shall forget his agony, when Hooker was. discomfited. And then we loved him for his sweet and happy disposition. Was ever any one burdened so heavily, and yet so genial and so pleasant under all cares ? I doubt not 48 Abraham Lincoln. that he bridged with laughter many a swelling stream. I am glad that it was so. This quality in him has often been con- demned. But why? Was not his countenance weary and hag- gard enough to suit the most exa6ling fancy ? Easier than not, he might have weeded out this quality of mirth. And then he might have gone sheer mad, just for the lack of it. But no: he had a work to do; and how was he straitened until it was ac- complished ? Thank Heaven that he could sometimes shift the burden just a little! He never laughed at misery. He never thought that slavery was a joke. And it was a providential blessing to us all, that there was this sunny exposure to redeem his life from being altogether dark and troublesome. And now this man, in whom were mixed so many elements of strength and beauty; whose life was so successful, and so truly so; whose martyr-death so fitly sealed his providential work; whose faith and resolution made him such a force; whose genial v^^armth and kindly glow endeared him to us all, — is vanished from the earth for ever. His lifeless form still journeys slowly through the country which he loved; but the truthful lips are silent, and the kindly heart is still. And is he lost to us and to the world? Shall we miss, for ever miss, the noble qualities that made him what he was? No, no! If the sin-blackened and incrusted soul of him that robbed us of his mortal presence thought that it would be so, how vainly did he reckon! He is ours in death, more than he was in life! I know how pleasant and how sweet it would have been, if he could have remained with us until brooding peace and universal freedom had settled down to bless the weary land. You should have carried your children and your chil- dren's children from afar, to see the face of him who broke the bondman's fetter in the name of God. The joyful tears of such as were oppressed should have bedewed the threshold of his simple home. And now it cannot be. And yet it was expedient Rev. yohn W. Chadwick. 49 for us that he should go away. He was caught up into the Eter- nal Presence just when he seemed to us more holy, pure, and gi-eat, than ever in his life before. There is a moment when the fever turns; there is a day when languages begin to lose their purity of form; and there are times in life when great men stand upon the topmost peaks of possible achievement, and to proceed another step is to go downward on the other side. Better a thousand times ascend from hence, at once, into the courts of memory and fame. Better to crystallize, ere yet the subtile processes have carried them one step beyond their highest point of influence and power. And so the hand which murdered Abraham Lincoln insured his earthly immortality. They tell, that, on the eyeballs of the slain, the murderer leaves a pi6lure of his face. It is a hard fancy. But it is beautiful to think that he impresses on our hearts the memory of him at whom he strikes. So it is with us now. Did you never think, when looking at the sunset clouds, " Oh that they might linger there against the west, just at their perfe6lest, until the painter painted them for you, and for his own perpetual joy".'^ And see! upon the back- ground of this crime, so terrible, the sundered life stands out in all its red and purple glory, — stands fixed for ever at its best; and all the world can seek to emulate the sweep and majesty of its proportions. Indeed, we have not lost him! Would you have me speak of the poor fool, who thought that he should strike at freedom when he struck at freedom's tried and faithful friend? It would not profit you. Arrest him, if you can. Punish him as you may. And what of that? You cannot punish him according to the measure of his crime. " There is a peak of guilt so high, That those who reach it stand above The sweep of dull humanity, The trail of passion and of love. 50 Abraham Lincoln. The clouds that dim the lower heaven Touch not the mountain's hoarj crown ; And on the summit, thunder-riven, God's lightning only strikes them down." You cannot visit him with deeper condemnation than that which he adjudges to himself. When you have done your worst upon him, then God will deal with him. Such crimes would have to go unpunished, were it not for Him. Our pains and penalties are light indeed for such transgression. But there are infinite resources. The bar of heaven is not a rhetorician's fancy. It was no single man that murdered him whose loss we mourn to-day. It was an institution, stained already with the life-blood of a million saints. It was an institution; the same that mur- dered Lovejoy and John Brown ; the same that struck at Sumner from behind his back; and lit the fires of this rebellion, that it might burn up the hope of freedom and democracy. It was not to be. The flying sparks kindled Jhe North into a fiercer flame, which has well-nigh destroyed the godless institution. I dare to say, that it was God's intention, when he permitted this last a6t of damning infamy, that it should be as fuel to that flame which burned so hot already. Its meaning is not vengeance upon any man, or class of men. It is that, if heretofore we have been hacking at the trunk of slavery, we shall now resolve that we will tear the very roots' of this vile cancer from the bosom of the land. It is that, with your hands upon 3^our hearts, you shall devote yourselves with solemn vows to the utter and complete eradica- tion of this social curse. Let it breed no longer strife and mur- der and conspiracy. So shall it come to pass, that he who died upon the day when Christ himself was crucified afresh in tearful memory shall rise again, as Christ himself arose in the new life of such as Rev. John W. Chadwick. 51 loved him, and obeyed his word. We would not have him rise in any other way. We could not find it in our hearts to tear him from the rapt embraces of the everlasting peace. " His voice is silent in jour council hall For ever; and, whatever tempests lower, For ever silent; even if thej broke In thunder, silent : yet, remember all He spoke among jou, and the man who spoke ; Who never sold the truth, to serve the hour, Nor paltered with Eternal God for power; Who let the turbid streams of rumor flow Through either babbling world of high and low; Whose life was work, whose language rife With rugged maxims hewn from life ; Who never spoke against a foe. And he is gone, who seemed so great ! Gone : but nothing can bereave him Of the force he made his own Being here ; and we believe him Something far advanced in state, And that he wears a truer crown Than any wreath that man can weave him." Christian Inquirer, May 4. DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN: A DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT MILLSTONE, N.J., ON SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 1 6, 1865 ; BY REV. E. T. CORWIN. Prov. xxi. 30 : "There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord." T HE astounding Intelligence reached us yesterday, that the President of the United States had been shot; and this awful faft, with some hasty reflections upon it, is the only theme upon which we can fix our minds to-day. The first thought is, that it cannot be that our nation has been so disgraced. In the times of the old Roman emperors, it was a rare thing indeed for one of them to die a natural death. And the reason of this was to be found, not only in the ambition of others, but in the judgment of God, and the just hatred of the people whom they had enslaved and oppressed. They were monsters of iniquity and despotism, and aptly described in pro- phecy as beasts, because they were the destroyers and enemies of mankind, the despisers of the rights of men. In striking con- trast, our Chief Magistrate was not the enslaver, but the free- dom-giver to men. He was a man whose name will be linked, to the end of time, with the great and glorious. Not theories, but fa6ts, of accomplished emancipation; looked upon, and truly, as Rev. E. T. Corwin. 53 the man raised up by Providence to conduct the nation to a higher, a nobler, a truer position before the world. For we stood as a Christian nation, the great representative of Freedom, though portions of our land had long been disgraced with the sin of slaver}^ But it was at length almost utterly, yea, virtually, abol- ished. But just at this time, the one whom we thought raised up to carry on this glorious renovation, to consummate tiie great truth contained in the first sentence of our Declaration of Inde- pendence, "that all men are born free and equal," — such a one, not the tyrant, but the friend of the oppressed, and the freedom- giver to the slave, has fallen by the hand of the base assassin. The land may well go in mourning for the loss of such a one, and for grief at such a disgraceful deed. Peace was just dawning upon our desolated country. Only the day before, the orders had gone forth, that no more men were needed for the war. The bright bow of promise was seen spanning the skies. Thanksgiv- ings from innumerable hearts were ascending to God. The na- tion was saved from the blood-stained hand of the slaveholders' rebellion. It was purged of its great crime. In the words of the departed, " Perhaps for every drop of blood drawn by the lash, another had been drawn by the sword." And he whose heart was foremost in the great work which God was accom- plishing for man; he whose mind had been racked with many a sleepless night because of a natioii^s burdens laid upon it, who had a task of difficulty and responsibility and world-wide inter- est, such as perhaps no other man ever had, and who was at length thanking God for a nation's triumph, yea, the triumph of human liberty, and of slow justice through the land, — in the very midst of his joy is stricken down by the hand of the foul assassin. Oh, how mysterious are the ways of Providence ! " God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform." 54 Death of President Lincoln. His ways are not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts. The good and noble and intelHgent of the earth are ever working with God, for the triumph of Hberty and righteous- ness, according to the best of their abiHty. But suddenly, to their utter amazement, instruments which seemed to be so neces- sary for the accomplishment of these ends are removed, and others substituted to finish the work. Such sudden turns of Providence bewilder our minds for a moment. At first, the thought of irretrievable disaster flashes upon us. But a little re- flection upon the ways of God, and the promises of his word, and that the throne of the universe is occupied by the Lord Jesus Christ, whose whole business is to raise the poor and the down- trodden, and to break the rod of the oppressor, as it exists, and is wielded in the first place by the Devil himself, and then by his countless agents of high and low degree on earth; as we reflect upon the faft, that our Almighty and infinitely benevolent Saviour is the Lord of all, and that no event, whether accomplished by good or evil instruments, is independent of his wise and holy will, — we begin to understand that He who doeth all things well, and who sees the end from the beginning, is only accomplishing the same grand and holy purpose, for which his people have been laboring and praying so long, in a more thorough manner than they had designed. For while every Christian and loyal heart abhors the foul deed which has been committed, and while their eyes help swell the river of tears which this day flows through the land, yet, to the man of faith, the glorious cause of Christ and humanity is not injured, — no, is not injured, nor is dela3^ed for a single day, by the destru6tion of even such a life as that of Abraham Lincoln. For all things must work together for good to the cause of God, to the cause of right, to the cause of justice; and all these, as far as they were contained in national and politi- cal events in our land, and indeed throughout the world, were Rev. E. T. Corwin. 55 chiefly centred in him. For these holy causes are greatly involved, not only in the revolutions, but even in the politics, of the present day. It has no doubt often been true, that politics, when con- cerned simply w^ith questions of tariff" and commerce and such like things, were fairly open questions for honest Christian differ- ences; and often indeed it was no easy thing to decide stri6tly as to duty. But every intelligent and unprejudiced man, (but, alas ! how much mischief has mere prejudice and partisanship wrought in the world!) if he make himself sufficiently acquainted with current events to understand them in their great moral signifi- cancy, could not fail to see, that, for several years past, a disunion (not yet by any means perfe6t, but progressing), that a division, like that of the future sheep and goats, has been going on. Right- eousness or iniquity, which should prevail? has been the real question, though not in just so bald a form. Truth or error, lib- erty or oppression, Christ or Satan, — these are the real and simple issues in the great political, moral questions of the present day. The lines are becoming each year more clearly marked. The friends of Christ and of mankind are each year coming more closely together. There are, indeed, many of the true friends of Christ, by some sad mistake, by want of refle6lion or understand- ing, by family connections sometimes, or by want of prayer for divine direction, who are yet, alas! mingled with the friends of Satan. It seems impossible to understand, how, sometimes, men of intelligence and unquestioned piety can take such a false or even neutral position. And it is just as true, alas! that many, who, by unregeneracy of heart, are the friends of Satan, are found in these great political divisions with the friends of Christ. But these political divisions will each year become more clearly defined. Babylon, in prophetic language, is a name which de- scribes the whole policy and organization of the cause of iniquity; and to those who should find themselves inhabitants of that 56 Death of President Lincoln. wicked place, that is, the unconscious or unwilling allies of evil, to them God speaks in kindness and in love (Rev. xviii. 14), " Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." It is addressed to those especially who lived at the time of, and since, the Reforma- tion, and who might, by some perchance, find themselves in the company of those beasts described in that book, or, in other words, in league with ecclesiastical or civil oppression, and conse- quent error, in any of its plagues of development. And it is because the Church of Christ in general understands these events, that the Christian can lift up his head, under apparently the most adverse circumstances, and rejoice ; believing, yea^ knowing, that the cause he loves so well, not for its own sake merely, but chiefly because of its connexion with the great and glorious work of Christ, — hence it is, I say, that the Christian, when the standard- bearers of liberty are for a moment stricken down, can yet ex- claim, " He doeth all things well." For what the prophet says of Christ, and therefore of his people, must be fulfilled: "He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set justice in the earth." For the cause of right, of liberty, of God, whether con- sidered in its more stri6tly religious, or in its more external and national aspe6l, must conquer. It is not dependent upon the life of one man. It is not dependent upon the lives of even a million of the best and most virtuous men now alive. They might all be destroyed, and such a cause would only take heart from their destruction, and go on with greater success. The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church. How often did the despots of Europe, civil and ecclesiastical, put to death the friends of God, and the defenders of human liberty ! But did they kill the cause? Oh, no! The cause of truth can never die. Disciples arose in their places more numerous than the slain, until the thoughts of those martyrs of God and of Liberty crystallized into Rev. E. T. Corwin. 57 our glorious Constitution. And now tliat so great an effort as the slaveholders' rebellion, entirely satanic in its origin and nature, has been made at its very life, and which has been so greedily seconded by the aristocrats and tyrants of Europe, yet could it kill this noble life, containing as it does the cause of both God and man? Impossible! We see already the rebellion in its death- throes. We see the glorious dawn of peace. Hallelujahs are ascending from our hearts. And now that the representative man of freedom in the West (as the Czar of Russia has so unexpect- edly become in the East) has been foully murdered, does it injure the noble old cause against which the dragon has already launched so many blows? Not in the least. It will prove, as the end no doubt will show, a great blessing to the cause. Men may die; Satan may let loose his agents upon them: but the cause still lives. It is as immortal as our Elder Brother on the throne. Universal freedom and brotherhood will only be the more surely, and perhaps the more rapidly, accomplished. The gos- pel shall more speedily have free course, and be glorified. The wrath of man shall praise Him; and the remainder He will restrain. It is a sad event, indeed, which has happened, — a disgraceful event; probably actuated by nothing higher than the plotted revenge of a few individuals, at the failure of their bad cause. But it is the fool who says, that revenge is sweet. God has said, that sin is a bitter thing. The deluded murderer, as well as his instigators and accomplices, will, no doubt, soon be in the hands of justice, and then in the hands of an angry God. David would not kill Saul, when he had him in his power, though Saul was a wicked man, and God had specially promised the throne to David. But he in his piety declared, " I will not lift up my hand against the Lord's anointed." Saul was God's vicegerent on earth, as a king, to administer justice among inen, though wicked 8 5 8 Death of President L mcoln. and unworthy. But here was one, who was likewise God's vice- gerent to administer justice and truth, who was literally, what every ruler ought to be, no respe6ler of persons; Avho had stricken off the shackles from the slave; and yet, alas! by the hands of a poor deluded man, who could not raise his mind to grasp the glory of the great evolving problems of humanity, because he himself was a slave of Satan, — by such a man is the noble President, the Great Emancipator, basely murdered. Slan- ders and calumnies the good ever expe6l to bear; and these, though innumerable, he deemed never worthy a moment's atten- tion. But who would have believed (the good President could not) that one who called himself an American citizen could have been so fiendish as this? But Satan ever overshoots the mark. Even the plans of wicked men are under the control of the Lord Jesus Christ, the friend of the sinful and the captive. Long have the friends of liberty prayed that he would turn the counsel of the wicked into foolishness. We have seen how he has done this, by permitting the slaveholders to rebel, and who have thus destroyed their cherished institution, and put them- selves completely in the power of those whom they call their enemies, but, in fa6t, who were only the enemies of their wicked- ness. And now, by this last most abominable of deeds, they have only sunk their cause still lower, and injured it more irre- mediably. The departed President's fault, if such it might be called, was his extreme leniency, his kindness of heart. For look at the terms, which he no doubt approved of, if he did not suggest, which General Grant has offered to General Lee. The country was surprised at them. And this is but one illustration of his whole career. Indeed, many good men feared that he might yet endanger the Republic by excessive clemency; that the great cause of liberty was in peril from very kindness to its foes. But they have murdered this kind-hearted and good man. Rev. E. T. Corwin. 59 who had done them no wrong; who had fairly been ele6led, by a vast majority of the people, a second time; who, by his severe labors to save the nation, and to maintain and extend the cause of human liberty, was, in very fa6t, spending himself for their benefit, and the benefit of their posterity, though, in their blind- ness and wickedness, they could not see it. They have murdered this man, who would only have been too good to them with their restoration to the Union. And now a man of iron sternness succeeds him, whose mercy towards the leaders, at least, will surely be far less; from whom they may expe6l justice rather than mercy. God saw this to be necessary in finishing up this great rebellion. He saw that that good and kind-hearted man would not be the one for this work; and he has taken him away. And, though the first sad news shocked every faithful heart, yet it is only in order to secure the triumph, more utterly to destroy the evil course. It is only to forward, by other and sterner instrumentalities which he had at hand, the great struggle in which Christ and his people are engaged. The gospel can never have free course, until the t^Tants and oppressors of men are destroyed. Liberty is the forerunner of the gospel. The gospel, after it had been planted by the apostles, begat liberty, as her strong and sturdy son, — the man-child who, ultimately, should go before her, to prepare her way. The gospel, pure and true, after occasional great triumphs, yet could only, in general, live in secret, till her own offspring grew to strength (especially exem- plified in our nation), and who, by his strong and herculean arms, should strike down the opponents, and say to the heralds of the gospel, "Enter in: the way is prepared: proclaim ye the accept- able year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God." And now a man of iron sternness holds the reins which are to secure the cause of liberty and God, and who is to draw the rebels back to their proper place in the Union (which they shall 6o Death of President Lincoln. not destroy), or who will mete out to them, if they persevere in their wickedness, the just deserts of their crimes. The part which Providence designed our lamented President to pla}^, he had completed. Little did he or any one think, that his work was so near done. But he had fulfilled well his part. His name will ever stand by the side of that of Washington. He has completed virtually the work which Washington begun. We have only, as yet, passed through the introdu6tory chapter of our nation's history, during the last few years of which, the noble cause has been purged of the dross which necessarily, and to their mortification, adhered to it as it came from the hands of the fathers. It has passed through the furnace heated seven-fold, and must come out purified and refined. No longer will the theories and the fa6ts of our government conflict; but, henceforth, all who tread the soil of our country will be free men: and thus only will our Republic be prepared to take part consistently in the yet future confli6l upon the remaining oppressors of mankind in other lands. For God undoubtedly intends to use us in this pouring-out of some of the latter vials of wrath upon his ene- mies. Not only has our war purged us of our chief sin, but has drilled us for the greater, not only national but international, confii6t, and liberty's universal victory. And here it may not be amiss to allude to the religious char- acter of our beloved and respe6ted Chief Magistrate. President Lincoln is well known to have been a praying man. When he left his village home to go to Washington, more than four years ago, and his fellow-citizens bade him farewell, as he stood on the rear platform of the train, his last words to them were, " Pray for me." And did ever man need a nation's prayers more? On the morning of his first inauguration, he rose early, and retired to a secret place, and prayed that God would enable him to do his duty in the great task laid upon him. And yet, perhaps, all this Rev. E. T. Corwin. 6i time, he was not a Christian. All his proclamations, however, seem to be redolent with piety, and far superior, in this respeft, to most, if not all, his predecessors, till we come to Washington. But, less than a year ago, a man from a Western State had busi- ness with the President, and, after it had been transacted, told him that he had a question to ask him, at the solicitation of some Christian friends. The question was, " Do you love J^ehcs ? " TJie President burst into tears, and buried his face in his hand- kerchief, and, for a time, could not speak. But, oh! how precious to us that we have this record of his religious experience! He at length said, " When I left Springfield, I said to my fellow-citi- zens, ' Pray for me ; ' but I was not then a Christian. When my child died, soon after I entered upon my office, my heart was still rebellious against God. I was not then a Christian. But, when I walked the battle-field of Gettysburg, and saw the wounded and the dying, and felt, that, by that vi6lory, our cause was saved, I then and there resolved, and gave my heart to Jesus. / do love jfesMsP This is the testimony of his own lips upon his religious life; and is it not sufficient? Millions of loyal hearts and of freedmen have often prayed that God would bless that man with his grace. Often have I prayed in private, and in my family, as well as in public, that the faith of Christ might not be lacking to him. And could it be, it might well be asked, that so many prayers, especially from the thousands of slaves whose freedom will ever be associated with his name, — could it be that all their prayers could have been unanswered ? This testimony, from the President's own lips, proves that they were answered : " On that blood-stained field, I gave my heart to God. I do love Jesus." We mourn for the man. We hide our faces in shame at the awful crime which deprived him of his life. But we will still rejoice, as we remember that the cause of God and of liberty can never die. Men may die; but it is said of Christ, "And He shall 62 Death of President Lincoln. live " (Ps. Ixxii.) ; and this is necessarily true also of the cause which he represents. The wrath of man shall only hasten in the triumph of the cause of truth, and the complete destru6lion of the powers of iniquity. But, in view of this solemn providence, the pra6lical question is, which let each man ask himself sin- cerely, as in the sight of God, and as he will answer it at the last great' day, — let each man ask himself, whether, hitherto, in his politics on these great moral questions, he has been the servant of Christ or of the Devil ? For there is no middle ground. Somerset Unionist, Somerville, JV.y., May i8, 1865. GOD PUTTETH DOWN ONE, AND SETTETH UP ANOTHER: A SERMOX ON THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, PREACHED IN THE SEA- MEN'S chapel, HONOLULU, MAY 1 4, THE FIRST SABBATH AFTER RE- CEIVING THE SAD INTELLIGENCE OF HIS ASSASSINATION ; BY REV. S. C. DAMON. Psalm Ixxv. 7 : " But God is the judge : he putteth down one, and setteth up another." John xiii. 7 : " What I do, thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter." IN the administration of the affairs of this world, God is ever doing and permitting things to be done, the reasons for which cannot be seen by short-sighted mortals. Such is God's method of proceeding, that we are continually compelled to take many things on trust. Faith in him is the great lesson which he is ever teaching mankind. He has drawn an impenetrable veil before our eyes, shutting out the future from our view. "Ye know not what shall be on the morrow," or " what a day may bring forth." How impressively these scriptural declarations, and those of my text, are illustrated by events which have recently transpired on the other side of the globe ! All the loyal people of that great country, stretching from the shores of the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Gulf to the Lakes, were preparing for such a day of thanksgiving and jubilee, as never had been witnessed on the Western Continent. The national 64 God putteth down One, and setteth up Another. feeling, which during four years of civil war had been repressed, was rising, and about to burst forth in such scenes and shouts of rejoicing, as would have made the "welkin ring." The dove of peace, which had, during those four long years, been confined to the ark, rocked and tossed upon the troubled waters of civil strife, political contentions, and cruel war, had now been re- leased, and, with the olive branch in her mouth, was winging her flight over mountains and valleys, broad savannas and boundless prairies. The good news was flashed with lightning speed over the land and the world. The dark clouds were rolling away, and the sun of the nation's glory was beginning to shine; and the rainbow of peace was distin6tly seen spanning a continent, as in days of yore, — when, lo! from the receding black clouds of secession, treachery, and slavery, there darted forth a fiendish arm, holding in its hand an assassin's dagger. The whole scene is instantly changed. For a moment, the pulse and heart of the nation cease to beat; but, the next instant, there follows a sigh of anguish and wail of sorrow. Abraham Lincoln, our beloved President, is dead! I do not believe, since the creation of the world, so many hearts, in so short a space of time, ever mourned over the death of a single human being. There is no disputing or gainsaying the fa6t, Abraham Lincoln had gradually been winning for himself a place in the hearts of the American people, second only to that of Washington, the Father of his country. But will not the people now call him the Saviour of the coun- try, when the life of the nation was threatened? This most tragic event is not an accident; it is not the work of chance. We do not live in a world ruled over by blind fate. Never before did I realize there was so much force and intensity of meaning in those words of our Saviour, " But the very hairs of your head are all numbered," and even a sparrow " shall not fall on the ground without your Father." I do not think there Rev. S. C. Damon. 65 ever was a public man who recognized more clearly and fully this doctrine of God's special providence, than did our lamented President. Gathered as we now are in the house of God, on this first sabbath morning after having received the news of his death, how can I more appropriately employ the usual time allotted to a discourse, than by directing your minds to some of those moral and spiritual lessons taught by this most sad and melancholy event. The telegraphic intelligence which has reached the Islands is quite sufficient to disclose the naked fa6ls, but insuffi- cient to portray the effe6ls upon the country at large. Under these circumstances, perhaps I may be allowed to dwell upon the religious features of Mr. Lincoln's character. He was a public man, and had been called to occupy a most responsible and try- ing public position. He fully realized this fa6l, from the very moment that he stepped forth from the sphere of a private American citizen to occupy the highest position within the gift of his countrymen. His brief address, on leaving his home at Springfield, 111., is inimitably beautiful: "My friends, no one not in my position can appreciate the sadness I feel at this part- ing. To this people, I owe all that I am. Here I have lived more than a quarter of a century; here my children were born; and here one of them lies buried. I know not how soon I shall see you again. A duty devolves upon me, which is, perhaps, greater than that which has devolved upon any other man since the days of Washington. He never would have succeeded except for the aid of divine Providence, upon which he at all times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed without the same divine aid which sustained him; and, on the same Almighty Being, I place my reliance for support. I hope you, my friends, will pray that I may receive that divine assistance, without which I cannot succeed, but with which success is certain. I bid you all an affectionate farewell." 9 66 God putteth down One, and setteth up Another. During the delivery of this short address, the audience was much affe6led; and, when it closed, there was the hearty re- sponse, "We will pray for "you." During his progress to Washino-ton, he uttered similar sentiments at Columbus and Steubenville, in Ohio, ever expressing the hope that he should be sustained by the prayers of the American people. In this ad- dress, we have the key-note to all his subsequent addresses, let- ters, proclamations, and public documents. I cannot recall a single one in which he did not fully and frankly recognize God's agency in the management of the affairs of this world. His allusions to an overruling Providence were not in a half-apolo- gistic and semi-infidel style, as' if he wished to conciliate the feelings of Christians, while, at the same time, he had no ver}' clear and definite idea of what he was saying or writing. Read his second Inaugural, on the fourth of last March. The staunch- est and most orthodox divine could not have given utterance to more evangelical doctrines or religious sentiments. He quotes and comments upon the very words of our divine Saviour, in the eighteenth chapter of Matthew: "Woe unto the world because of offences." Then, too, with what masterly emphasis he quotes the words of the Psalmist David, prefacing, " If God wills that the war continue until all the wealth piled by the bondmen's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as w^as said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, ^ The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' " Noble utterances and sublime language, which will live as long as the English language shall be spoken! Such truthful sayings will go forth from the Chief Magistrate of a great people, to break asunder the fetters of slavery throughout the world. His name through all coming time will be associated with that most important of all his State documents, — his Eman- Rev. S. C. Damon. 67 cipation Proclamation. It may well be compared with the Impe- rial Ukase of the Emperor Alexander, giving liberty to twenty millions of Russian serfs. From the time and circumstances under which it was issued, it must ever be viewed as marking the transition point from slavery to freedom, in the history of the Republic of America. I cannot stop to dwell upon Mr. Lincoln's efforts and labors in behalf of the slaves and the colored people of America. It was noble and philanthropic ; and it doubtless afforded him unfeigned pleasure, during the latter months of his eventful life, to learn, in so many ways, that they appreciated his services. This w^as apparent when he received a copy of the Holy Bible from the loyal colored people of Baltimore, as a token of respect and gratitude. They hailed him as the '"'' friend of universal freedom." It never will be known in time, how many millions of earnest prayers went up for " Massa Linkum " from the Uncle-Tom cabins scattered all over the Slave States, from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. Those sincere but enslaved people took hold of the Arm that sustained the universe. America stands forth to-day disinthralled and saved, not merely by the achievements of our noble soldiers, and the masterly statesman- ship of our Cabinet Ministers, Senators, and Representatives, but there was a power behind all these outward manifestations. That power was prayer, — the prayers, too, of the poor. Says the son of Sirach, " A prayer out of a poor man's mouth reacheth to the ears of God, and his judgment cometh speedily." — " He will hear the prayer of the oppressed." — "The prayer of the humble pierceth the clouds; and, till it come nigh, he will not be comforted, and will not depart till the Most High shall behold to judge righteously, and execute judgment." Mr. Lincoln recog- nized that power of prayer, as I have already shown, w^hen he left his home for the White House at Washington. How intensely interesting the fadi, that, while he was thus 68 God putteth down One, and setteth up Another. occupied with the great and momentous affairs of thirty millions of people, — of whom four or five millions were in open rebel- lion, and a million more were girded as soldiers, — yet, even amidst all these cares, he did not negledt the poor who were his neighbors, as the following incident will show: — A newspaper correspondent from Chicago one day dropped in upon Mr. Lincoln, and found him busy counting greenbacks. " This, sir," said the President, in his cheerful way, " is something out of my usual line; but a President of the United States has a multiplicity of duties not specified in the Constitution, or A6ls of Congress. This is one of them. This money belongs to a poor negro, who is porter in one of the Departments (the Treasury), who is at present ill with the small-pox. He is now in the hos- pital, and could not draw his pay because he could not sign his name. I have been at considerable trouble to overcome the difficulty, and get it for him, and have at length succeeded in cutting red tape, as your newspaper men say. I am now dividing the money, and putting by a portion labelled, in an envelope, with my own hands, according to his wish." Such unostentatious a6ls of kindness need no comment. Our Saviour said, when upon earth, "And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward." I doubt not that the good man is now reaping his reward in glory for be- friending the poor colored porter who could not write his name, — sick with the small-pox in the hospital. It is an interesting fa6t, that the American citizen, at home and abroad, however humble his lot, was not forgotten by him. When it was reported at Washington, through the correspondence of our minister, to Mr. Seward, that a sailor had been ill-treated at the Marquesas Is-» lands, Mr. Lincoln immediately dire6ls, that five hundred dollars in gold be devoted to the purchase of presents, to be distributed Rev. S. C. Damon. 69 among Hawaiian missionaries, and others, who had rescued the unfortunate man. It is an interesting fa6l, that the very last public address which Mr. Lincoln ever made, March 17, w^as in reference to colored soldiers being employed by the rebels. He remarked, that he hoped they would try the experiment. In all his efforts in behalf of the colored people of America, he has endeavored to manage the subje6l with an enlightened regard to the highest Christian duty to his country and to God. Having shown that Mr. Lincoln was a6luated, as a public officer, by Christian principle, I am fully confident that he was truly an experimental Christian, one whose Christianity did not begin and end in a mere formal acknowledg- ment of divine Providence. The following incident is reported by the Rev. Mr. Adams, a Presbyterian minister of Philadelphia. He was on a visit to Washington, and had made an appointment to call upon the President at the White House, at five o'clock in the morning. Says Mr. Adams, " Morning came, and I hastened my toilet, and found myself at a quarter to five in the waiting- room of the President. I asked the usher if I could see Mr. Lincoln. He said I could not. ^ But I have an engagement to meet him this morning.' — ^ At what hour? ' — ^ At five o'clock.' ^Well, sir, he will see you at five.' I then walked to and fro for a few minutes, and, hearing a voice, as if in grave conversa- tion, I asked the servant, ^Who is talking in the next room?' 'It is the President, sir.' — '^ Is an3'body with him?' — ^ No, sir, he is reading the Bible.' — ^Is that his habit so early in the morn- ing?' — ^Yes, sir, he spends every morning from four o'clock to five in reading the Scriptures, and praying.' " How beautiful an illustration this is of the injun6tion of our Saviour, " But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and pray to thy Father which is in secret " ! How beautiful an instance of one who follow^ed our Saviour's devotional habit, who, " in the 7© God putteth dozun One, and setteth up Another. morning, rising up a great while before day," went out and prayed ! "Prayer, ardent, opens heaven, lets down a stream Of glorj on the consecrated hour Of man, in audience with the Deity." The following incident, however, sets forth Mr. Lincoln's views upon the question of vital godliness, in the very strongest light. Several months before his ever-to-be-lamented death, a gentleman called upon him on business. After the business was closed, and they were about to part, the gentleman said to the President, " On leaving home, a friend requested me to ask Mr. Lincoln whether he loved Jesus." The gentleman makes the following report: "The President buried his face in his handker- chief, turned away, and wept. He then turned and said, ^ When I left home to take the Chair of State, I requested my country- men to pray for me. I was not then a Christian. When my son died, — the severest trial of my life, — I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg, and looked upon the graves of our dead heroes, who had fallen in defence of their country, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ. / do love Jesus^ " This simple and touching confession needs no comment. It opens to the world the heart and religious experience of the good man. The people felt that he was honest in all his dealings with them, and so he was equally honest with himself and God. These few simple utterances, welling up from the depths of his heart, and accompanied with tears, will ever be cherished by Christians of every name and se6l as the most precious sayings of his life. They touch the tenderest chord in the Christian's heart. Christians of every name will ever regard him as a brother beloved, but departed; and, when thinking of him as departed, the language of the burial service will not be inap- propriate: "It hath pleased Almighty God, in his wise provi- Rev. S. C. Damon. 71 dence, to take out of this world the soul of our deceased brother:" Think not, my hearers, that I have brought forward these fa6ls and incidents in the life of our lamented President, because I think it requires an argument in the style of special pleading to prove his adherence to the principles of Christianity, and the do6lrines of the New Testament. No: his Christian, as well as his public and political, chara6ler is known and read of all men. With him, there was no reserve or concealment. His character was perfectly transparent. His faults, as well as his virtues, were equally apparent; — " And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side." He went to the theatre on that fatal night, the telegraph in- forms us, because he wished to please his friends, and not disap- point the people, who were expecting the presence of General Grant. " His life was gentle : and the elements So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up, And saj to all the world, This zvas a man." In turning our thoughts from a contemplation of his character to our bleeding country, the question forces itself upon every thoughtful mind. What will be the efte6t of Abraham Lincoln's assassination upon the nation? Our latest dates afford us, as yet, no fa6ls b}^ which we can satisfa6torily answer this question. Time must determine. Our minds must for the present find con- solation in dwelling upon the great truth, that God lives and reigns; and that he is able and "will make the wrath of man to praise Him." We may also recall to mind some of those pages of history, wherein somewhat similar events are recorded. When Brutus and his fellow-assassins smote down Caesar in the Senate at Rome, they supposed, that, with Caesar's death, Caesar's 72 God putteth down One, and setteth up Another. influence would no longer be felt They were disappointed. Caesar disappeared; but, exclaims Cicero, " All the a6ts of Caesar's life, his writings, his words, his promise.., his thoughts, are more powerful after his death than if he were still alive." So, I trust, and doubt not, it will be with the life, writings, words, promises, thoughts, of Abraham Lincoln. His blood has stamped an im- press upon these, which will immeasurably increase their value throughout all coming time. When the hired assassin, Balthazar Gerard, brought to an untimely end the eventful life of William the Silent, Prince of Orange, on the loth of July, 1584, Philip II., and all the enemies of civil and religious liberty, imagined, that, with the death of the Prince of Orange, would end his usefulness. But, oh, how disappointed were these men! In the beautiful language of Motley, " The prince was entombed amid the tears of a whole nation. Never was a more extensive, unaffedted, and legitimate sorrow felt at the death of any human being. As long as he lived, he was the guiding-star of a whole brave nation; and when he died, the little children cried in the streets." The Common- wealth, which William had liberated for ever from Spanish tyranny, continued to exist, as a great and flourishing Republic, during more than two centuries, under the successive stadthold- erates of his sons and descendants. So, I doubt not, a similar result will follow the assassination of the illustrious man, whose most unexpected death we now lament. He died the martyr to liberty. He was assassinated by the hand of Booth; but it was negro-chattel slavery which nerved that arm, and prompted that basest of crimes in the annals of nations. This was the crown- ing a6t of the slaveholders' rebellion. Sumter was fired upon on the 12th of April, 1861. Booth shot President Lincoln on the 14th of April, 1865. The same bad animus that first struck down the flag in '61, fired the assassin's bosom, when he smote Rev, S. C. Damon. 73 down the President, — Commander-in-chief of all the military and naval forces of the Republic. No powers of metaphysical analy- sis can separate the two. Perhaps it was needed that this crime of crimes should be perpetrated to arouse the minds of the American people to the awful enormity of the crime of slavery and treason. The deed has been accomplished; and, henceforth and for ever, in the minds of all loyal Americans, and lovers of liberty throughout the world, a stigma has been fastened upon the crime oi slavery and treason^ which can never be wiped away. However much we may pity the unfortunate dupes of the leaders of that rebellion, the deeds of the instigators and leaders can never be palliated; for their crimes all culminated in Booth's assassination of Abraham Lincoln. How the perpetrator of that crime shall be punished, remains to be seen; but woe be unto those who arouse the wrath of a nation of thirty millions of people! Solomon compares the wrath of a king to "the roaring of a lion," and to "messengers of death;" but to what shall be compared the people's wrath .^ Mr. Lincoln could not execute that wrath. He found it, from the overflowing kindness of his nature, almost impossible to punish the guilty. Perhaps there was no trait of his chara6ler to which his enemies took more exception, and over which his friends more deeply mourned. It sometimes seriously embarrassed the regular administration of justice. The officers of the army and the Government said it was useless to arrest offenders and traitors, for Mr. Lincoln would pardon them. At the last meeting of the Cabinet, held only the day before his death, Mr. Lincoln expressed his determination to deal in the most liberal manner with the rebellious States. As it has been well remarked, " The great, capacious, manly heart of Abraham Lincoln was generous enough to have embraced all within the forgiveness of its loving nature; and, in their madness, they have killed him." The best friend of the rebels was assassi- lO 74 God puttetk down One, and setteth up Another, nated by one of themselves; and no doubt, if he could have again spoken, he would have prayed, in the language of our Saviour on the cross, " Father, forgive them: they know not what they do." The event to which our attention has now been called, will not pass into oblivion, and be forgotten. It was not done in a corner; but the crime was perpetrated, as it were, in the presence of a gazing crowd of spe6lators, infinitely larger than that gath- ered in the theatre where it took place. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on the world's wide stage. There was a great cloud of witnesses. What shall be its influence upon the nation and the world, we know not now; but we shall know hereafter. It will be overruled for good. How unspeakably thankful we all should be, that he was spared thus long to the nation, even to see a virtual ending of the rebellion! God per- mitted this stunning blow to fall for the accomplishment of some wise purpose. I do believe, that, in after years and ages, it will be seen to have been necessary for bringing about the final triumph of justice and truth, and the punishment of the guilty. For a season, clouds and darkness may surround the throne of God, and envelop his plans and purposes; but, ere long, he will make all clear and plain. If we are watchful, and take the word of God for our guide, we shall see the dark clouds revealing a rainbow of glorious promise. I am confident that a bright and glorious future is opening before our country. Let us be hope- ful. Great results must follow from these tragic events of war and commotion. Surely we have witnessed enough to make us trustful and confiding. It seems to be a law or principle which God observes in his management of nations, as well as indi- viduals, that, when he would bestow some signal favor, he pre- pares the way by severe chastisements. Surely I think we may hope that God has great good in store for that people, when he shall have chastised them for that great sin of slavery. That Rev. S. C. Damon. ycj must be removed before the millennium come, and the gospel shall everywhere triumph. In the appropriate language of Long- fellow, I would exhort you, "Look not mournfully upon the past: it comes not back again. Wisely improve the present: it is thine. Go forth and meet the shadowy future, without fear, and with a manly heart." Let us not go forth, however, trusting in an " arm of flesh," but in God, our Saviour and Deliverer, most fully believing the sentiment of the text, "What I do, thou know- est not now; but thou shalt know hereafter." — " God is the judged SERMON: PREACHED IN THE SECOND CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, HOLYOKE, MASS., ON WEDNESr^Y, APRIL 1 9, 1865 ; BY REV. O. H. DUTTON. Psalms xc. 6: "In the morning it flourisheth and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, dried up and withered." THE whirling swiftness of the events in the midst of which we live, takes us through strange scenes, and forces sudden contrasts upon us. We stand bewildered and doubtful among them. Man's importance dwindles. By a common instin6l, which puts aside with authority all the impious thoughts, all the blasphemous words of the scoffer, men turn their eyes to God, and pause in humble waiting on his will. Among strange scenes, and amid sudden contrasts, indeed, we move. Where are now the jubilant clang of bells, and the roar of answering cannon; the cheerful countenance; the mutual con- gratulations of men; the flashing illumination, — all the demon- strations of joy and gratitude which but ten days ago gave a bounding energy to every step, and caused us all to smile as we looked from the smoky past toward the bright sunshine of the future? Given place to muflSed sounds, to hearts bowed down, to heads shaking in foreboding, to breasts surcharged with grief for whose utterance even groans will not suflSce. Rev. O. H. Dutton. 77 The country has mourned before this day. A few here and there live who dimly remember the lamentation for the death of the first President. Many of us recall with ease the sorrow upon the land when the ninth ended his briefest term of office. And most of us distinctly recolle6t the death of our twelfth Chief Magistrate, with all the attending circumstances of the general grief. The nation has mourned before; but never as now. And where lies the pungency of our sorrow? Not chiefly in the loss of a wise man of far-seeing vision and of firmest will. That is a subject for calmer regret, but not for blinding, despair- ing affli6lion of soul. No: the thought which smote all hearts as the horrible tidings of last week's close swept over the land was, that we had lost a friend; a living, loving personality had been snatched away: 'twas as if some one whom we knew, and with whom we had taken sweet counsel together, had been laid low. Therefore we wept. Thence arises this weary moaning, which makes of the whole nation a grand ^olian harp, whose thou- sand strings vibrate in shivering unison, with tones of deepest woe. And now, the people of the country everywhere assemble, as we do here, to take part in the burial of this true fellow-citizen, this wise counsellor, this noble-hearted friend. In the nation's capital, the mortal remains are now passing amid tenderest care toward the grave; and, in every village where stands a house dedicated to God's worship, overflowing hearts are paying the tribute due to one whose memory shall ever be accompanied with blessing. While we need not to-day attempt to give what would neces- sarily be an imperfe6l sketch of the late President's life; and while we cannot hope to present any thing like a thorough resume of his character, or to make any thing like an intelligent group- ing of his great official a6fs, — we yet may properly and profita- 7 8 Sermon. bly refer to some of his more marked qualities as statesman and man. You know that honesty of his, which has become proverbial. It was not the mere honesty in pecuniary matters, but an upright- ness which pervaded all his relations with mankind; a desire to know the absolute truth, and a fixed determination to a6l upon that knowledge when gained. It was the honesty of a6lion as well as of intention: some men, you know, are honest at the out- set in their purposes, but through an imperfectly balanced charac- ter are twisted aside into a crooked line of aftion. This was by no means the case with him. He sought first to know himself, and all the dangers to which he was liable from his own personal peculiarities; then he endeavored thoroughly to learn the real bearings of every question offered to him: he would present it to all lights; would take the opinions of the enemies as well as the friends of any measure: he knew how to make allowances for the prejudices of those in favor of, as well as of those against, any line of a6tion pressed upon him. He was not to be pushed hastily into any step, nor was he to be restrained when the time seemed to his honest, justice-loving mind to have fully come. As a natural consequence, Mr. Lincoln was misunderstood for a long time, — a very long time. Radical men from one important State and another would post to Washington, have an interview with the President, and urge their most violent plans upon him: but then they would be chagrined to find, that, while they were more than courteously listened to; while every bit of valuable in- telligence or useful suggestion they had to offer was eagerly seized by him, and honestly used, — their pet schemes were not put in motion; and thereupon there would result dissatisfaftion. But then appeared the shining qualities of Mr. Lincoln's na- ture. He could be patient in the midst of the censures of his friends. Confident in his own integrity, and with a splendid trust Rev. O. H. Dutton. 79 in his true eye, this steady pilot kept his hand on the helm, and smiled amid all storms. He lived through several of these trying times; and the men who had blamed his slow^ness, thanked God that their impetuosity had not changed his course. I said that they complained of his slowness. There was a quality in Mr. Lincoln which was indeed remarkable in this head- long age, among such an irritable people. His honesty — another name for his sense of justice — made him seem slow. He wished to hear, and he zvoiild hear, every particle of evidence before the case was taken up for decision. Then he did what he felt to be right; that is, he first gave long and careful deliberation to the matter, and then moved with an absolutely inflexible purpose to- ward his end. He would not import the dash of the battle-field into the deliberations of the council-chamber. He knew that all important questions of State would gain by waiting. There he felt secure in his own judgment, and there he held firm. In mat- ters which, as we may say, were not legitimately within his pro- vince except by name, — as military affairs, — he was modest, and, though having opinions, allowed himself to be, perhaps not unfre- quently, overruled; when, even here, in most cases, I believe the fafts would show that his ideas were more judicious than those finally substituted. But, where questions of State were involved, he would deliberate long, and a6l with absolute independence. We used often to hear, two years ago, remarks like this: That hopes had been entertained that the President would take this or that step, but that such a strong pressure had been brought upon him on the other side, that the hope had been given up; but lately we have not heard such remarks, simply because men had begun to know that it was not an adverse influence which defeated their proje6ts, but simply the resistance of a strong and just nature to their own inordinate pressure. The honesty, sense of justice, which seemed an inborn, and was an absolutely fixed, principle of 8o Sermon. his being, was the sure moral foundation on which all his excel- lences rested. In patriotism he was a bright exemplar. Absolute modesty, utter self-abnegation, chara6lerized all his a6ls. He made no verbal professions of patriotism, more than he did of honesty. He seemed to think it as absurd for a public officer to advertise his love of country, as it would be for a judge to boast of fairness. In fa6l, he never thought of self A simple, single desire to serve the country, and to guide her safely through her sea of troubles, was the motive power of all his a6ls. With this unfailing honesty and this shining patriotism was joined a far-seeing wisdom, which — under God — has brought us again to the boundary of peace. Our late President was a wiser man than most of those around him, than most of those throughout the land. He could penetrate farther into the future than most. His wisdom seemed — like his honesty and his pa- triotism — to be an instinft; and where other men, wise in their generation, would have hastily taken a certain step, he waited and looked about him, usually seeing a reason for different aftion. Turn back along the history of the past four years, and see how man}^ afts there are, which, had they been otherwise done, would most likely have brought us to-day into another and surely worse condition than that which we now hold. The question of eman- cipation, upon which more pressure was brought to bear for and against than on any other, — emancipation was the dear wish of his heart. But not even to accomplish that would he take a step which honesty and patriotism did not approve. His wisdom showed him the difficulties before him, and dire6led him how to avoid them all. And now grandly that wisdom stands forth this day in conne6tion with the gi-eat result of the war, — Universal Liberty. There was a positive sublimity in Mr. Lincoln's calm stead- Rev. O. H. Dutton. 8i fastness and self-reliance, — qualities which nev^er deserted him, and of which he often had especial need. There have been man}^ dark days during this war, as you surely need not be told. There have been months of what the people thought ina6lion; times when every thing seemed slipping into chaos; moments when political manipulations seemed to be paralyzing the military arm, and making the Executive a merely nominal power. The opposi- tion presses throughout the country were joining in one yell of objurgation ; the friendly journals were fault-finding, changeable, lukewarm; the people fancied they saw imbecilit}' in the Admin- istration. Amid all this uproar, with the awful responsibility of the nation's weal on his shoulders, — under which, in such a mo- ment of anxiety, a timid man would have fled, and a nervous man would have died, — he remained firm, quiet, unruffled, certain that the future would justify the present, and willing to wait for the coming verdi6t. Try to place yourselves in imagination in the position he occu- pied, for instance, when some great military plan was coming to its development, and there was impending one of those series of bloody actions which you all know so well. The fighting begins. The moment for which the people have been clamoring has come. If the result of the battles be favorable, well; if the result be a defeat, then upon the head of the President is sure to de- scend a torrent of censure. Can you conceive any thing more trying than such an interval of anxiety and suspense ? It would have been hard enough to have endured it, if success should come: but perchance we are beaten; now what strength is like that which can stand up, unmoved in its conscious integrity, and outlive that overthrow? What courage like that which can pa- tiently clear away the ruins, and then sit down to construct another edifice, still hopefully? Such unfailing strength, such indomitable courage, chara6terized the man for w^hom we mourn. 1 1 82 Sermon. But — again disclaiming any pretence of having given more than an imperfe6t outline of Mr. Lincoln's chara6teristics as a statesman — let us turn to look at him in his personal traits. It was my lot to be one of the number who accompanied the Presi- dent ele6t on his circuitous journey from his Western home to Washington, previous to his first inauguration. At night, when we paused at some large town or city, there was, of course, con- fusion, and all the jargon of a public demonstration. But when, the next morning, we were once more under way, freedom of intercourse was again restored, and the inmates of the two cars which composed the special train moved to and fro as they chose. Thus, during the eight or nine days consumed before reaching New- York City, all had the opportunity of seeing much of the man upon whom the heart-hopes of the whole country then rested with a prophetic instin6t. Of course, political mat- ters were not discussed in any general way; and except for the three or four brief speeches during the day, when at some way- station the people would have colle6led to greet their President, no one would have known that so noteworthy a personage was there. But this very absence of official circumstance gave us all the more opportunity of observing his personal chara6teristics ; and these, as then developed to us, never changed, even in the atmosphere of the capital. Mr. Lincoln was essentially and thoroughly a kind man: his was a homely kindness, too, which made no one feel as '\{ sub- je6led to a condescension. While speaking to those j^ounger than himself, he was apt to put his hand upon the other's shoulder, and then would utter some bit of quaint wisdom, or make some personal inquiry, through which a magnetism would steal into the one with whom he conversed, drawing him along with gentle but resistless force. One of the most charmino' recolle6lions of the trip is of the peculiar love existing between the President ele6t Rev. O. H. Dutton. 83 and Colonel Ellsworth, who was of the party. As they sat or stood talking together, the former's arm would be thrown around Ellsworth with the air of an older brother; and, as if in return for this regard, the latter would constitute himself a special body- guard, and his vigorous strength would open a way through the densest crowd which gathered at the terminus of the day's ride to gaze at and hail with shouts the illustrious visitor. To people generally, Mr. Lincoln was by no means a demon- strative person, and his courtes}^ had not the finish of the polished man of society. But his genuine kindness was unfailing: it would show itself in the trip spoken of on seeing, at a station where no stop was to be made, a waiting crowd. He could not bear to disappoint the people, he said; and it was the same feel- ing which sent him, relu6lant, to the theatre, to meet his death. He would gladly have avoided the conspicuous display; but the cry, " We want to see President Lincoln," he could not resist. " I think I must say '^how d'ye do ' to them," he would remark to the manager of the excursion: and so he would step out upon the rear platform, acknowledging the greeting, and beginning an ad- dress which would most likely be quickly cut short by the moving off of the train; when, with a last pleasant word, and one of his peculiar smiles, which seemed to light up the whole assembly, he would return to his place, making some apologetic remark to the representatives of the press for the unfinished oration, and then for an hour or two more would be the plain and happy father of his children, of whose frolics he never grew weary. This broad, genial kindness of heart never left him through life. Those who were associated with him, — whether private secretaries or house servants, socially or officially, — all join in this, — that he was invariably a gentle man. He truly rejoiced with the joyful, and wept with the mourner. Whether reviewing the army, or visiting the bedside of the thousand inmates of a 84 Sermon. military hospital, or listening to the supplication of some poor woman who besought that the forfeited life of an erring son might be spared, — he was ever the kind friend, the sympathetic com- forter, the merciful-hearted ruler. His modesty was a most noticeable trait. An idea of display never entered his mind. He was entirely destitute of what we call " manner." There was no air of authority upon him. He never did any thing for effeft, or with a dash. He was never hurried, never heated ; never wore the look of anxiety which is so fatal to a nation's tranquillity, when seen upon a rulers face in a troublous time: he seemed to be cheerful from principle; and cheerful because he had a genuine trust in God, — the High and Mighty Ruler of the Universe. And this brings us to say a word of Mr. Lincoln's Christian chara6ler. The sources from which comes our present convi<5lion of his really genuine religious experience are open before all men. When a man so honest and so wise indicates, declares, plainly as words can say it, that his trust is in God, we have but to believe, and rejoice in believing, that he knows indeed the bles- sedness of such a hope, ever an anchor to the soul. I think that you who have taken note, even without especial reference to this point, of the late President's addresses and proclamations, will say, that there has been a gradually increasing spirit of piety manifested in those papers, a spirit which culminates in his last Inaugural Address, — that strangely solemn word, so unexpe6ted, so almost startling, which breathed a temper truly Christ-like, a trust in God grand in its sublimity of expression. But God, on whom he placed his hope, fulfilling his own righteous purpose, mysterious though it be, willed that his work on earth should cease. And so this honest man, patriot citizen, wise statesman, kind friend, modest ruler, gentle Christian, — this leader of our Israel, — died on the borders of the promised land, Rev. O. H. Button. 85 whither he was not allowed to go fully over, though he might see it from a distance. After, through much toil, and having borne the heat and burden of the day, he had labored to bring his coun- try through her perils, he was cut down in the evening of the strife, just as he w^as looking forward to rest under the vine and fig-tree of lovely peace. A strange life! A death wondrous strange ! Think of that humble origin ; that remarkable upward course; that four years of dust and smoke and blood, of turmoil, anger's writhing and disafTe(5lion's upheaving; that sudden suc- cession of flashing vi6tories won by his generals; the crowning triumph of his simple entrance into the rebel capital, — neither rebel nor capital longer; and then that swift destruction, — the quenching of a precious life in the murkiness and gloom of a hor- rible crime. Wonderful life! More wonderful death! Who but God can unlock its inscrutable meaning? It is impossible to think and speak of this visitation of the Almighty hand without going behind it, and looking for its cause. If a thunderbolt had slain him, or if he had fallen by one of the more common strokes which lay so many low^, the loss would have been still irreparable, men say; but the blow would not have been so sickening in its effedts. Had even a ruffianly hand, guided by an avaricious heart, stricken him, the same degree of horror would not have been aroused. But it is that this a6t is the final culmination in death of that sin which was brought forth of the lust of gain and power, — the sin of human slavery. We needed to have one truth forced upon us, — that the system which has borne the terrible fruits of the past does of itself destroy the moral fibre of humanity, and make any crime easy to him whose passions are influenced from such a source. We needed, I say, to have this truth forced upon us; and it has made slow prog- ress, even in the events of the last four years, till within this week which follows Friday last. We have been slow to be convinced 86 Sermon. that slavery in the nation, like habitual drunkenness in the indi- vidual, would, as a rule, destroy honor, and make of man a raging beast. We denied, and still denied, that the rules of ordinary warfare were violated ; that wounded men were butchered ; that captured men were subje6led to the terrible torture of a slow star- vation, which could end only in idiocy or death. We forced ourselves to doubt these things, till the truth of the awful tale was thrust upon us by concurrent, irrefragable testimony; by the tot- terino- return to us of brothers and friends, ruined by no wound of the battle-field; and by those sun-piftures which cannot lie, and which are so dreadful that we hide them from our wives and daughters in pure mercy. We tried not to believe that a Southern prison had been deliberately mined, and that, in a certain emer- gency, it was to have been blown into fragments, with all its famine-stricken inmates, — till we heard the a6l defended by Southern men. And yet, with all this accumulation of proof of the rottenness produced by the system, we were not prepared — I venture to say — for the dagger and the pistol, for conspiracy and assassination. God forbid that we, his ministers, standing here in the temple where his mercy dwelleth, serving under the orders of the Prince of Peace, and met together with you to commemorate the burial of one whose every word was kindness, — God forbid that we should seem to say any thing to inflame the passions of men, or to excite desires for a carnal vengeance ! Rather would we bring home to the consciences of all men the question. Am I guiltless in this matter? We have temporized too much in our halls of legislation, and in all the marts of trade. We have eaten, and wiped our mouths, and said, " I have done no wickedness." Did we think that the Almighty God would hide his face from sin, — would wink at the wrong-doing, — would prevent as by a miracle the natural outworking of the virulence within ? My brethren, Rev. O. H. Button. 87 when shall we learn that there is in truth a God of perfe6l justice ? When know that he really governs this world ? When be con- vinced that retribution must follow crime ? While Boards of Trade have bridged over awkward gaps in the body politic with resolu- tions; while men have gone about with trowels and mortar smoothing over the cracks which show the presence of the hidden internal fire, — the volcano has been working still, and all human contrivances have been but as tow before the fierceness of the furnace. Let us not forget to-day, that we are under the mighty hand of God. Do you not remember how ready we were but a week ago to discard humiliation, and rush into resounding joy, almost forgetful of the Lord, who is the only Giver of all vi6lory? Thoughtful men trembled when wave after wave of triumph rolled in upon us, and we seemed to have moved at a step from out of thick darkness into broadest sunlight. Some of us still feared that bitter trouble was coming; that we had not yet been sufficiently punished: and we asked ourselves. Will the blow take the form of financial disaster? Will perhaps a foreign war crowd upon us ? What will it be } For in the atmosphere there is something telling of danger. But we did not think of this. We did not dream that every loyal heart in the land would be pierced with sharpest grief; that even the brightness of the lovely spring would be changed into a light more saddening than an autumn farewell. God has his purposes, — and all are wise. Let us reverently ask to be taught his will. While mourning over the affliction he has sent upon us, let us thank him from the depths of our overflowing hearts, that he gave us this wise man and true- hearted leader — this second Father of his country — so long; that we are permitted to reap what he has sowed ; that through him — under God — we see, even in this sad moment, the virtual 88 . Sermon. 4^ end of that rebellion, which, four years ago to-day, shed the first blood of our citizens, — the virtual end of the war which was begun by a mob, which has been ended by an assassin. And now, while one simultaneous sound of wailing goes up from the length and breadth of the land; while through the sweet sunshine, and surrounded with all the fragrance of Na- ture's opening life, the mortal body of our ruler and friend is carried to the burial, there to rest in the hope of a joyful resur- re6tion, through Jesus Christ our Lord, — let us take for the guid- ance of our future steps, as private citizens, or members of the great body, — the State, those concluding words of his last mes- sage, — words which will for ever shine as a halo around the memory of him from whom we now for ever in this life take our leave : — " With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans; and to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations." .--^-»«a»Si THE NATION'S BEREAVEMENT: A DISCOURSE DET.IVERED IN THE UNIVERSALIST CHURCH, BUFFAEO, N.Y., SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 1 6, 1 865 ; BY REV. J. HAZARD HARTZELL. 2 Samuel, xxii. 28 : "And the afflicfted people thou wilt save." THIS is the language of David in regard to the people of Is- rael. They had passed through a terrible confli6t with the Philistines. Israel had emerged from the shock and blood, the commotion and destruaion, of war, mighty and viaorious. But some of their great men had fallen, and bitter sorrow came upon Israel. Their kingdom had been delivered by the hand of the Almighty; and, whilst they rejoiced over this deliverance, they were called to mourn over the great men who had perished in the struggle. David returned thanks to the Almighty for the viaory over his enemies, and, with the voice of the sublimest confidence, declared that God would save his affliaed people. Oh! it is grand and inspiring to see this old king, amid the sorrow and desolation of the people, with the light of viaory streaming all over his kingdom, which had been shaken by the tumult of war, looking up with a full heart, and thanking God for his timely intercession. With these introduaory remarks, we pass, with indescribable feelings, to speak this morning upon " The Nation's Bereavement." 12 ^o The Nation's Bereavement, Stunned by the terrific blow, and appalled by the unspeakable horror of a most wicked tragedy, we hardly know how to ap- proach the subje6t. The President of the Republic is struck down by the red hand of the midnight assassin, in the hour of our national triumph; and a loving people are in tears. The Secretary of State lies in a critical condition, with blood oozing from the wounds infli6ted by the relentless murderer; and rejoic- ing freemen are shocked and bewildered. The light of vidlory has given way to the darkness of death; and the angel of liber- ty hangs, with piteous look and sheltering wing, over the Repub- lic. We find our feelings expressed in the language of Macduff, when he discovered Duncan lying bloody and dead in his cham- ber: — " Confusion now hath made his masterpiece ! Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope The Lord's anointed temple, and stole from thence The Life of the building." A loyal people are wrenched with agony, and overshadowed with desolation. Bells have tolled their melancholy music, and every city in the country is draped in the deepest mourning. Tears are the eloquent utterances of a mighty people, who have conquered a rebellion, the most bloody and wicked that ever darkened the earth, and redeemed a nation, the most free and just upon which the sun ever poured its light. But, beneath these tears, so profuse and bitter, there is a firm, deep, steady purpose to punish treason and murder; to re-instate the Republic upon the everlasting foundations of justice and righteousness; to advance with a giant tread, and meet the momentous issues of the hour; to usher in the luminous period of law and order, and let the nation travel, with triumphant banners, up the prophetic highway of a glorious destiny. First treason, and then murder: how they follow in rapid Rev. y. Hazard Harfzell. 91 succession, shocking the heart, and bewildering the brain! Wickedness finds culmination in the massacre of the President; and in the fiendish attack upon the Secretary, when suffering intense pain upon his narrow couch. It is the deep, dark, dam- ning stain upon the escutcheon of American civilization, which will require the operation of centuries to obliterate. It will re- quire the attrition of a thousand reforms, and the polish of long years of education and refinement, to give this escutcheon its former brilliancy. Long will it be before the American people will outgrow this foul, rank disgrace, which clings to them, at this moment, like a cold, withering shadow upon their land, which is richer to-day, thank God ! with its golden sheaves and loyal hearts, than Europe is with its dusty thrones and burnished crowns. Not only has a good man fallen, but every citizen of the Republic has been struck. When the President fell by the cold hand of the assassin, every freeman in the country received the blotch of infamy upon his forehead. In the presence of law, Abraham Lincoln was not the President of this party, nor of that party, but of the people; and, as such, he fell. We say, with Mark Antony, — " Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen ! Then I and you and all of us fell down. Whilst bloody treason flourished over us." And what a commentary it is upon the civilization of this coun- try, when we reflect that the truth of the present, so full of horror and disgrace, is so forcibly expressed by the language of Mark Antony over the dead body of Caesar, as it lay in the proud city of Rome, speaking, with a terrible eloquence, to the frenzied multitude, from many a wound. This shocking tragedy occurred under the ruling civilization of heathenism; but it is not more cruel, bloody, and wicked, than the- one which has just been 92 The Nation's Bereavement. performed in Washington, amid the spiritual forces of Christiani- ty. Oh! respected freemen, it is a terrible misfortune to be thrown, by the puny arm of one man, back three thousand years into the cold and chilling atmosphere of barbarism. Oh! my afRi(5led countrymen, we have met with an awful calamity; and it behooves us, in this hour of trial and sorrow, to rise above all the prejudices of party and sectarianism, and awake to the important duties of the hour. " Awake ! Shake oft' this downy sleep, death's counterfeit, And look on death itself! Up, up, and see The great doom's image ! Malcolm ! Banquo ! As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites. To countenance this horror ! " This assassination of the President discloses a recklessness and a depravity, that must be humiliating to every American. It is the revealment of that contempt for law and order, which must lower the Government in the minds of Europeans. It is the development of that awful spirit of treason, which has been nurtured, for years, in malignant bosoms, under the diabolus of nullification. It is the same spirit which disgraced the halls of American Congress by its passion, despotism, and brutal vio- lence; and that brought sorrow to the hearts, and pallor to the lips, of millions of freemen, by firing into the honored flag on Fort Sumter. It has now risen to the climax of perfidy; and the blood of our Chief Magistrate is crying to us, in melting tones, from the ground. We hoped that we had passed from the period of violence and destruction, treason and murder. We had hoped that our great- est sorrow had been experienced, our heaviest calamities borne, our deepest darkness passed. But we were mistaken; for a shock of commotion, like a clap of thunder from a sky that looked beautiful and serene, has shaken the nation. We stood in Rev. y. Hazard Hartzell. 93 the morning light of the new era which had commenced to break over the country, with flags of triumph waving, and bells of gladness ringing, when the President was stricken down. The foot of the nation was upon the neck of the rebellion, and it was passing through its last spasm, rolling and struggling in the dust, when this awful calamity fell upon us. With the light of peace and joy beaming upon the land, in consequence of the glorious triumph of the invincible army of the Republic, we should have rejoiced if the life of the President could have been spared. But the Almighty, for some wise purpose beyond our comprehension, has allowed him to be removed, from a sphere of unwearied eftbrt and intense anxiety, to a sphere, we trust, of tranquil peace and heavenly rest, where dark clouds never lower, and the fire-storms never come. We scarcely know where to find a parallel to this crime, which is at this moment weighing upon the heart of the nation. William the First, Prince of Orange, who gave freedom to the Dutch, and was venerated and honored for his humane disposi- tion and sterling chara6ler, and who won the affeftion of his people by his kindness and uprightness, was murdered in the sixteenth century. The assassin was a young man from Burgun- dy, who fired a pistol, containing three balls, at the Prince, when he fell and died, with the words, Mon Dieu! Mon Dieuf Ayes pitie de moi et de ton pativre peuple! But, taking both periods into consideration, this crime does not equal the one before which America stands appalled this morning. Since the assassination of William the First, we have had three centuries in which to advance government, civilization, and religion, with no little monarchies quarrelling and contending around us. Contrasting the periods and the countries, the assassination of the President of the United States is a crime which has scarcely a parallel in history. 94 The Nation's Bereavement. True, a few men, conspicuous in the affairs of Government in various countries, have fallen by the hand of the assassin. The great Duke of Buckingham, w^hen about to embark at Portsmouth, to put himself at the head of a new armament, fell by the dagger of Felton. Percival, when Prime Minister of Great Britain, was killed with a pistol-shot as he was approaching the door of the House of Commons. Henry the Fourth, the best king of France, was slain by the dagger of Ravaillac, when he was riding in his coach through the streets of Paris. Many of the Czars of the old Russian Empire were assassinated when their soldiers bristled in their armor on many a field. But when before in the annals of history was there a man at the head of a mighty Republic, who had so much simplicity of nature and kindness of disposition, who ruled to elevate and not to enslave, who was venerated and loved by millions of intelligent freemen, removed from the sphere of his earthly existence by an atrocious murder at the very moment he was being hailed the Deliverer of his Country? Now that Abraham Lincoln is gone, let us put away all pas- sion and prejudice, and recognize and honor the sublime virtues of his character. We shall not look upon him as belonging to this party or to that party, but as an American and a Christian, who, rising from poverty and obscurity to a position more eminent and glorious than that of a throne, by his own industry, talent, and virtue, has demonstrated to us the worth of our institutions. We shall call upon him, not as a Republican leader, but as an Ameri- can citizen of a loft}^ purpose, a noble character, and a great heart, whose name will go down to unborn millions with an attractive splendor. Pure in every aim and aspiration, honest in every principle and measure, cheerful and benignant in the darkest days of the Republic, he carried himself forward in his work with a sublime grandeur. Just as Aristides, humble as Cincinnatus, humane and magnanimous as Constantine, he gained the confi- Rev. y. Hazard Hartzell. 95 dence, the admiration, and the affe6lion of the people. With his heart wedded to the attractive principles of justice and liberty; shaking hands with the humblest soldier and poorest bondman; having a word and a smile for all, even those in the lowest condi- tion, — he will pass into history as one of the greatest benefa6lors of the human race. With childlike trust in God, and with unwa- vering faith in the stability of democratic institutions, he toiled with a cool brain and a warm heart for the restoration of the Union, and the triumph of the Government. Oh! my affli6ted countrymen, remember in this sad hour, he was an American; that he rose from among us to his eminent office, under the aegis of the Constitution, and there venerated God. Take up his red mantle this morning, and press it to your affli(5fed hearts, and weep as you look upon the noble form of an honest man, cold in death, who served us all in this awakening period to the best of his ability. God, it seems from the revealments of history, when he has any great work to be accomplished for the good of the people, often chooses the humblest instrument. He calls his servant, stripped of all selfishness and arrogance, from the most obscure fireside, and guides and upholds him in a work which procures freedom, elevation, and happiness for the people. The simplicity and meekness of Abraham Lincoln, combined with his integrity and benevolence, gave an attra6lion to his character which won so many hearts. He will go down the dim aisles of the future with the torches of rejoicing flaming all around him, carried by four millions of a despised race from whose limbs he struck the chains! And whilst this sorrow hangs upon every se6t and party, upon every class and condition in the land, let us not despair of the Republic. The blood of the President will cement all se6ts and parties, and they will now stand like a tremendous barrier against V 96 The Naiiofi's Bereavement. the under-currents of treason. In the presence of the mufdered Chief, the entire North stands united this morning; and we be- lieve the nation is stronger this moment than it has ever been since the commencement of the dire conflict. The rebellion is now so crushed under the iron heel of war, that it can never rise again and shake its gory locks at freemen. The sparkling light of a new epoch is streaming upon us: the golden doors of a new era are opening to receive us. With firm- ness of purpose and concert of a6lion we can, as a people, now rise to the loftiest summit of power and glory. Let us not be discouraged, nor waver in our duty in this hour; for we believe the present emergency will develop that knowledge of diplo- macy, that willingness to endure, that readiness to obey, which shall make our people great in the eyes of all nations. But let us resolve, by homes desolated; by families broken up; by the heaped graves of a hundred battle-fields; by the pale forms of sixty thousand unconquered soldiers, who have wasted away in Southern prisons; by the precious blood of a million heroes; by the shocking murder of the President, whose broken body lies stiff and cold in the Capitol of our country to-day, — that the Republic shall live, and that the flag shall wave in perfect triumph over every State in the Union! Let us not be carried away by passion and feeling. This will only increase the waves on the sea of commotion. This will only swell these waves into billows of excitement, which will rock the old Ship of State. There is no power nor effectiveness in passion or feeling, uncontrolled and uncontrollable. The stream of water which makes the most noise in sweeping over the bed of its chan- nel is the shallowest and weakest. But the stream of water which flows on calmly and serenely is deep and strong, and has power to turn a million wheels. Let not blind passion, but enlightened judgment, rule the hour, and then effe6live power will be wielded. Rev, y. Hazard Hartzell. 97 Let reason and conscience be listened to in their appeals; for one is the counsellor, and the other is the preacher, in every soul. We need in such a period as this the calmest deliberation and the highest judgment. Blind passion was a leading element in devel- oping the French Revolution with its train of bloody scenes and frightful horrors. Enlightened reason, with a deep love of justice and liberty, was the guiding power of our fathers when they reared this Republic. Let their enlightened reason be ours, and with deep, calm feeling; with a strong, unbending purpose; with a firm, unwavering confidence in God, — we shall strengthen the Government, and bring order out of chaos. With every faculty, energy, and aflTeftion, consecrated in the cause of saving the country; with our hearts wedded to our beneficent institutions; with every a6l and word baptized in the living spirit of an intel- ligent purpose, — the nation will rise with potency and grandeur. Then the great car of progress will keep the track, and every thing in the shape of treason or secession, that shall come in con- tact with it, shall be ground into powder. Nature, yesterday, placed herself in harmony with the sorrow- ful condition of the people. The light of the sun was obscured by the dark cloud which gathered over the face of the heavens. The tears of nature mingled with the tears of the people, whilst the Genius of Liberty stood bleeding in the Capitol of the coun- try. The sad face of Washington peered through the gloom and darkness of the firmament, and looked down with pity and tenderness on his affli6ted children. And just so sure as the gloom and darkness of the firmament shall give way to light and glory, — light washing the feet of stooping constellations, and glory covering the mountains and the sea, — just so sure shall the gloom and sorrow of the people give way to the light and glory which the Almighty will bring to the nation in the birth of important events. 13 ^8 The Nation's Bereavement. The telegraph announced, that, after the Vice-President was sworn into his office as Chief Magistrate yesterday, he said, " The duties of the office are mi^ie: I will discharge them, trusting in GodP This is a blast from the trumpet, which strikes the right way, and sends a thrill through the heart of every American freeman. The first is a recognition of duty, amid the evils and dangers of the hour; the second is a reliance upon God, who guides the storm and holds the sea. If Andrew Johnson will only be faithful to duty, and rely upon the direction and power of God, the nation will sweep from the valley of desolation and darkness up to the mountain-top of eminence and glory. We believe he will ; for a nation of enlightened and patriotic freemen will hold up his hands, encourage every noble effort, applaud every sublime virtue, and surround him, as it were, with a bulwark of sympathy. Millions of true hearts will pray for him, and millions of strong arms will assist him and his Cabinet, if neces- sary, to carry forward the Ark of Freedom. Performance of duty, and reliance upon God, will insure success and inaugurate a golden period of peace and prosperity. The old Ship of State is on a troubled sea this dark morning. The mast is draped in the emblems of mourning, because her Commander lies dead in the cabin. The stars in the flag are obscured by the black crape, which speaks of the grief which weighs upon the heart, and of the gloom that hangs over the decks. She will outweather this storm of affli6tion, and will come into the harbor of safety and tranquillity with thundering wheels, breaking the waves and dashing them into foam, and her minute- guns firing their sad salute. Ma}^ God, who commands the tempest and controls the sea, pilot the Ship of State in her tumultuous journey, causing the billows of commotion to sub- side ! We do not believe that God is indifferent to the sublime Rev. y. Hazard Hartzell. 99 triumphs of the month, nor to the momentous issues of the hour. We believe with all the heart in his wisdom and goodness, and that he will eventually bring good to the people out of this national bereavement. He has a righteous purpose in the removal of leading men as well as in the marshalling of thrilling events. All may be dark with us, but all is light with him, who lives in the future as he lives in the present. The time for the removal of the President from this scene of a6tion had come, and he ascended to the bosom of the Infinite. The God who prote6ted our fathers in the dark days of the Revolution, we believe, will protect their children in the present time. We know that he is on the side of justice and humanity, and that nothing can defeat his great plans, mock his righteous purposes, or strike down his right arm. With David, we believe, as we look up this morning from a land filled with mourning and desolation, that the Almighty will save his afiSifted people. And here, at the close, we remember that many churches are celebrating to-day with a startling significance the resurrection of Jesus. We rejoice in this sublime ceremonial, which tends to keep alive in the heart the truth of immortality. And whilst we stand at the opened door of the empty sepulchre, rejoicing in the resurre6lion of Jesus, let us date from this very hour the resur- re6lion of the nation to a higher life, a grander power, and a more enduring glory. The Universalist, Boston, May 4, 1865. PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S DEATH: A SERMON DELIVERED AT THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN DES MOINES, IOWA, ON SUNDAY EVENING, APRIL 23, 186!; ; BY REV. D. L. HUGHES. 2 Samuel, i. 19 : " How are the mighty fallen ! " THE text originally referred to Saul. He was the chosen King of Israel. He was appointed and anointed of God to his official power. He reigned forty years; and, although guilty of many plain violations of duty, yet as the King of Israel he was entitled to honor. He was also a mighty man of war. He had often been vi6torious over the enemies of Israel, and " vexed them whithersoever he turned." His " sword returned not empty," but was satiated with blood and spoil. As said David in this funeral dirge, of which the text forms a part, " He was swifter than an eagle, he was stronger than a lion." Yet he was overcome by the Philistines, and fell upon his own sword " in the midst of battle." The finishing stroke to his life was given, it seems, however, by a reckless Amalekite. This mur- derous a6t, he thought, was sufficient ground for boasting, and over it he expe6ted King David, Saul's successor, to rejoice. But, instead of this, David and all the men that were with him, when they heard it, were filled with deep sorrow. They rent their clothes, and mourned and wept and fasted until even. They Rev. D. L. Hughes. loi thus manifested great propriety, as well as sound wisdom and true noble-heartedness, in refusing to rejoice over even an enemy that was slain, and especially, as one high in authority having fallen by violent hands. Solomon says, " Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth, lest the Lord see it, and it displease him." And again, " He that is glad at calamities shall not be unpunished." Public losses are most laid to heart by men of public spirit. But this strange Amalekite was sorely disappointed, not only in that neither did David nor his people rejoice in his murderous condu6l, but also that in the end it afforded no ground to himself for boasting. "And David said unto him, ^How wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand to destroy the Lord's anointed ? ' And David called one of the young men, and said, ^Go near, and fall upon him.' And he smote him that he died. And David said unto him, ^ Thy blood be upon thy head; for thy mouth hath testified against thee, saying, I have slain the Lord's anointed.' " This was a suitable punishment to the murderer of his prince; and let just such pun- ishment fall unerringly upon every such murderer. One greater than Saul in all the elements that constitute a wise and noble ruler was lately the Chief Executive of this nation; but now his lamentable death, at the hands of a fiendish assassin, has filled our land with gloom and sorrow. We exclaim, " How^ are the mighty fallen ! " It is wise and proper to observe God's dealings with us, and then to improve them by suitable meditations. " God's purposes are ripening fast, Unfolding every hour : The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower. " Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his work in vain : God is his own interpreter, And he will make it plain." I02 President Lincoln'' s Death. We live in times of great national agitation — of rapid changes — of stirring scenes — and of terrible events. Nor do w^e yet see the end. The future is big with aw^ful realities — with great demands upon men, and means, and efforts — and with grand re- sults. The year 1866, according to the expounders of prophecy, is to be a remarkable period; and already do we see something of the confli6t and trial, as well as the triumph and glory, that shall follow. The saying is often found true, — "Coming events cast their shadows before." But " The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe. Jehovah shall hide his people in his pavilion, until these calamities be overpast." The first reflection I offer from the text is. How is the Rebellion fallen ! This rebellion against the Government of the United States was inaugurated in i860, and ripened early the next year into full maturity. It has been well called " The Great Rebel- lion." Although President Lincoln was the choice of the people, and was constitutionally ele6ted and indu6ted into office, yet a multitude rebelliously declared, "We will not have this man to reign over us." It was an unnatural, unnecessary, and unjustifia- ble rebellion. It was " mighty," therefore, in its folly and madness, in attempting with limited resources to cope with a more formid- able enemy. " What king going to make war with another king sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thou- sand?" Solomon's wisdom was certainly disregarded: he said, " With good advice make war." I remarked at the beginning of this rebellion, to a hative of Kentucky, then residing in Nevada Territory, that the South might bring into this contest every man, woman, and child she had, if she wished, and every dollar she possessed, and then it would only be a work of time, — she must, under ordinary providences, jj/2>/«f. She had undertaken a contest Rev. D. L. Hughes. 103 which she was unable to carry through. The odds were fearfully against her. The rebellion was mighty, too, in its wickedness. Its secret springs were the lust of gain and the lust of power. It violated both civil and divine law. Its leaders had sworn alle- giance to the Con'Stitution and Government of the United States, and yet they trampled upon both with impunity. They rejected, too, the counsels of the -Most High. " Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for con- science' sake." It was awfully wicked to plot the entire destruc- tion, if possible, of the wisest and best Government under the sun; to resist a mild, good, and firm Magistrate in the execution of the high trusts imposed upon him; and to entail upon mil- lions of their fellow-citizens poverty, sickness, wounds, death, and a multitude of sorrows. The results of this rebellion also have been mighty; for millions of treasures have been expended, as well as thousands of precious lives sacrificed, to this insatiate demon of war. But it has not all been in vain. God has made the wrath of man to praise him, and he is restraining the re- mainder thereof. He is accomplishing thereby his own glorious purposes, in behalf of suffering humanity, and of the advancement of his own kingdom in all the earth. But this mighty rebellion \^ fallen: and how great is the fall of it! It is utterly broken, and "dashed to pieces like a potters vessel." The so-called Southern Confederacy, which was so rapid in its growth, spreading like wildfire, and in a few months embraced in its mazy folds eleven States; which was mighty in its united strength, in its military skill, bravery and efficiency, and in its varied resources and self-sacrificing delusion, — has all gone to decay. Its great lights have been extinguished; its I04 President Lijtcob'Cs Death. boasted armies are vanquished; its most powerful generals have surrendered; its principal cities are captured; its stolen property is recovered; and its chief officers are escaping, or humbly beg- ging for their lives. " Ichabod " is written upon her; for her glory has departed. The prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled in her case: "Associate yourselves, O ye people! and ye shall be broken in pieces: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces, — gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces. Take counsel to- gether, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us. For the Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand, and instru6led me that I should not walk in the way of this people; saying. Say ye not, a confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, a confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid. They shall look unto the earth, and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and shall be driven ' to darkness." Destruction awaits the disobedient and rebellious. " But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before me." " They that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. If thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." While rebellion and the Confederacy are thus broken and fallen, the loyal part of the land — true patriots everywhere — have shouted their hallelujahs, and rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory. 2d. How is American Slavery fallen! This was once mighty, and was the principal cause of involving a nation of twenty-four millions of people in deadly confli6l, — in a civil war of unprece- dented magnitude and ruin. It had long existed among us. It had made great progress; and it was mighty in its oppression of Rev. D. L. Hughes. 105 four millions of human beings. It has been upheld by the artifice of Satan and his ministers. Talent, wealth, and power have all been arra3^ed in its favor. Its influence has been felt on the floor of Congress, in the halls of our State Legislatures, and in many of our church. courts. Public opinion has not only winked at, but often strenuously advocated, the iniquitous system. Both reason and the Bible have been tortured for proofs of a divine warrant for its establishment, necessity, and utility. But the institution itself is an essential evil in human society. It is at variance with all the benign and redeeming principles of Christianity; and the only remedy for such an evil is its entire extirpation. This, we believe, God has purposed, and will finally and fully execute. The sentiment I uttered in your hearing nearly a year ago was true, and has been literally fulfilled thus far, • — that the wail of woe throughout our land was not likely to cease until we suitably humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord for all our sins; nay, it will be but extended and deepened, until " we break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free." Just in proportion as this grand consummation has been reached, has prosperity attended us, have light and hope and peace dawned upon us. The South themselves seem to have finally come to the conclusion, that the system of slavery can no longer be perpe- tuated among them; while those in the North who have long sympathized with it already exclaim, " It is gone ! " This is a remarkable attainment, and a wonderful concession for those parties to rnake. But all the solemn providences of God have tended more and more to its extirpation. His judgments have fallen heavily upon us for the last four years, to this end. "Be- cause sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." But " lift not up your horn on high; speak not with a stiff" neck: for promotion cometh neither from the East, nor from the 14 1 06 Presiden t L incoMs Dea th . West, nor from the South; but God is the judge. He putteth down one, and setteth up another. For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red: it is full of mixture, and he poureth out of the same; but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them." Retributive justice will not always sleep. Those that oppress, whether they be individuals, companies, or nations, shall sooner or later suffer vengeance. The history of all the past is sufficient proof of it. Pharaoh and Herod, Sennacherib and Judas, as specimens of individual oppressors, came to untimely and dishonored graves. And where are Babylon and Nineveh and T3^re and Sidon and Egypt and Rome? Their former glory is in the dust. And where is the chivalrous and slaveholding South? Scattered and peeled, humbled and desolate. " He that, being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." — "Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled; and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! When thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled; and when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee." The Saviour's rule was, "With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." The judgment of the wicked, says the Apostle Peter, " lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not." This is in accordance with an unalterable law of the divine Administration. A day of divine reckoning for sinners of every description will surely come. And it has already come, and may yet still more fearfully come, upon our own land, for its many crimes, and espe- cially for its unnatural, unscriptural, and oppressive violence. American slavery is evidently doomed. Every vestige of it shall, in due time, be rooted out. Its chara6ter, condu6l, and ruin are vividly portrayed by the beloved disciple, in the eighteenth chap- Rev. D. L. Hughes. 107 ter of Revelation, under the title of Babylon, which symbolizes a gross form, or system, of iniquity: "And I heard another voice from heaven, saying. Come out of her, my people, that ye maybe not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remem- bered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her; for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, — death and mourning and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her" (vs. 4-8). "And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying. Thus with vio- lence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all" (v. 21; also vs. 22 and 23, and chap. xix. 6). To President Lincoln, more than to any other human being, is the high honor due of the speedy abolition of the iniquitous system of American slavery. 3d. How is aristocracy fallen in both the Old World and the New! How is it fallen in its opinions, in its expe6lations, in its wealth and influence! When the rebellion first broke out, and the Southern Confederacy was formed, and civil war became a necessity, there were those, in both England and France, who stood high in official circles, who, through wealth and position, exerted a wide-spread influence, or who wielded the powerful " pen of a ready writer." In all our struggles, they sympathized with the rebellion. They spoke words of encouragement to the South, and did much, by their ships and stores, and munitions of war, to aid her in her nefarious work of destroying our republi- can institutions, of the most careful growth, and of the very io8 President Lincoln'' s Death. highest order; while, at the same time, they applied to the North coarse and opprobrious epithets, rejoiced over our adversities, and declared, time and again, that w^e could never succeed in our endeavors to conquer the South, and that there was no hope for us. And their desire evidently was to recognize the independ- ence of the South, if they could only have seen it most in the line of policy so to do, and had not the masses of the common people prevented it. No thanks to them for the kind Providence that frustrated their plans, and prote6led and blessed us in the hour of our peril. They expected our failure, and the success of the armies of the South. Hence, they indulged liberally in Confede- rate loans: they built steamers, and loaded them with all manner of provisions and arms; and then, in the face of all international law, would run our blockades, and traffic freely with our sworn enemies as with our true friends. But they sowed to the wind, and they have reaped the whirlwind. They are sunk down in the pit that they made: in the net which they hid, is their own foot taken. " They are snared in the work of their own hands." Their expectations are cut off, and their wealth will perish by evil travail. They are wofully disappointed in God's marvellous) doings in our behalf, and in the divine judgments that have been executed against them. In America, the boasted chivalry of the South, and the moneyed interests of the North that were in league with slavery, and that were a6ting in opposition to the well-being of a Government that was struggling with a giant's power to pre- serve its very existence in the hour of fearful conflict, are alike brought low. " And the kings of the earth, who have commit- ted fornication, and lived deliciously with this mystic Babylon, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning. Standing afar oft' for the fear of her tor- ment, saying, Alas, alas! that gi-eat city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. And the merchants Rev. D. L. Hus'hes. 109 ' of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more. The merchandise of gold and silver and precious stones, and of pearls and fine linen, and purple and silk and scarlet, and all thyine-wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious w^ood, and of iron and brass and marble, and cinnamon and odors and ointments and frankincense, and wine and oil, and fine flour and wheat, and beasts and sheep and horses and chariots and slaves, and souls of men, and the fruits that thy soul lusted after, are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find. them no more at all. The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, and saying, Alas, alas ! that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones, and pearls! for in one hour so great riches is come to naught." The harp and the viol of all those who have dealt treacher- ously, or who have engaged in unlawful traffic, are gone. They may now be hung upon the weeping willows, as mementoes of their owner's folly and wickedness, to be played upon only by the mournful requiems of the passing winds. 4th. President Lincoln has fallen. And he was mighty. Pie was mighty in intellect, — mighty in soul, — mighty in great plans and in noble deeds, — and mighty in the affeftions, confidence, and honors of a great nation. And, for one, I am not ashamed nor unwilling to stand in my lot, and testify before men, angels, or devils, that I love and respe6t the name and charafter of Abraham Lincoln. He possessed, in a remarkable degree, strong common sense. He was eminently a pra6tical man. With the clearest logic, the nicest skill, and the fewest words, he brought all his ideas down to living realities. He was mild, lenient, merciful, to no President Lincohis Death. his enemies, even to a fault. He was condescending to all that either approached him, or wrote to him; and he was full of good- nature and good-humor, without compromising either his principles or his dignity. He scattered his judicious opinions in every direc- tion, and bestowed his generous sympathies upon all classes, the poor, as well as the rich, — upon those at home in anxiety and sorrow, and upon those abroad in the tented field, or at the hospital. And he was, I believe, a God-fearing and a God- honoring man, — in other words, a conscientious Christian. He said to those who inquired his state of mind, after the battle of Gettysburg, " I do love Jesus." And he ever strove, honestly and faithfully, to do his whole duty, whether he received the smiles or the frowns of his fellow-men. The Presbyterian "Banner" of Pittsburg, Penn., says of him, " No man in this land had a kinder heart. He was not afraid to acknowledge God, or to confess his dependence upon him. He was a iirm believer in our holy reli- gion, and in the blessed Bible. He had great confidence in prayer, and asked the prayers of all good men in behalf of the nation, and also in behalf of himself His second Inaugural Address is a most remarkable paper. No other State paper on record, not found in the Bible, save, possibh', one or two from Oliver Cromwell, has so much of the Bible and the gospel in it." I have been told that the Rev. Dr. R. J. Breckenridge said, when he first visited President Lincoln, he thought him but a moderate man; but afterwards, when he became better acquainted with him, he considered him the greatest man in America. Accord- ing to my humble opinion, there has been no President, since this nation became a Republic, that took the Presidential chair under so many difficulties as did President Lincoln, or that assumed such mighty responsibilities as were laid upon him, or that exe- cuted them with more straightforward wisdom, firmness, and success, than he did. No monarch in Europe will compare with Rev. D. L. Hughes. iii him in the mighty trusts assumed, and in the vast amount of labor so well done in such a short space of time. He will be placed, notwithstanding all the calumnies of his enemies, not second to, but by the side of the Father of his Country, as his equal, if not his superior. And future generations shall do him justice. And yet, this great and good man, and most justly honored and patriotic ruler, in the midst of all his noble plans and herculean labors for the welfare of coming generations, has fallen, in an hour of unwonted national joy, by the hands of an unprincipled assassin. The calamity is felt to be a personal loss in every loyal household. Never has grief over the death of a faithful public servant been so heartfelt and so universal. I may here appropriately introduce a part of Governor Stone's procla- mation to the people of Iowa, calling them to humiliation and prayer, in consequence of this sad event, on Thursday the 27th inst. He says, " In the midst of joy and triumph, the nation is suddenly called on to deplore the loss of its greatest and truest friend, — foully murdered by a traitorous hand, — stricken down in the fulness of life, and when strongest in the hearts of the people. Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, — an honest man, an exalted patriot, — the friend of the poor and op- pressed, — the deliverer of his country, has been gathered to a martyr's grave." To this I wish to add an extra6t from an excel- lent address delivered at the Court, House of this city on the i6th inst., in my absence, by the worthy editor of our " Daily State Register," and upon which my eye has just rested since writing the above: "Men have sometimes said, in their enthusiastic admira- tion of Abraham Lincoln, that they believed him equal, in most qualities, to Washington. I believe, even be3^ond this, that in the discharge of the new, multiform, and weighty trusts com- mitted to him since he took the oath of office in 1861, he has developed a wiser and more comprehensive grasp of practical 112 President LincoMs Death, statesmanship than any other man ever invested with governmen- tal power." And again : " God only knows what might have become of the nation had Mr. Lincoln fallen a viftim to the plots of traitors and murderers at an earlier period of the war. A contest far more prolonged, more sanguinary, and more devastat- ing, might have been the result, and ending, may be, in anarchy and ruin. But it was ordered, in the good providence of Heaven, that his stronof arm and wise counsels should lead the nation through all its darkness and its dangers, and see its flag replant- ed on nearly every rampart from which it had been wrenched by treason. His mission was a high and holy one, and nobly has it been fulfilled." It becomes us to render thanksgiving unto God, that the life of our valuable President was spared to his country so long. For more than four years, he toiled nobly, wisely, and efficient- ly, to deliver her from worse than Egyptian bondage. It was marvellous to witness his power of endurance amidst his varied anxieties and labors by night and by day, at home and abroad. Neither his physical nor mental vigor seemed to flag; and, when he died, it may justly be said of him, as of Moses, the deliverer and leader of ancient Israel, " His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." He lived just long enough to accomplish the work the Almighty had assigned him. With a steady, skil- ful hand, he managed the helm in the threatening storm, and condu6led the sinking State in which all our interests were em- barked, within sight of the harbor of peace, safety, and glory, before he resigned the charge. He lived to see a vile rebel- lion broken to pieces, a powerful Confederacy irrevocably over- thrown, their boasted capital taken, their most skilful general humbled, his enemies put to shame, the rights of a faithful government vindicated, and — through his own official a6ts, and well-laid and executed plans, forced upon him by its very Rev. D. L. Hughes. 113 friends, — the death-knell given to American slavery. He fell on the very evening of that glorious, memorable day, — the 14th of April, 1865, — when was re-hoisted our countr3/'s flag at Fort Sumter, where, just four 3^ears previous, it had been, by traitorous hands, madly torn down, and trailed in the dust. He fell thus in triumph. As Moses, after successfully leading the children of Israel forty years through the wilderness, amidst a burden of care, and much opposition and rebellion, was not per- mitted to enter the promised land, but had the joy of seeing it from the top of Pisgah; so President Lincoln, after successfully guiding and controlling the affairs of this great nation amidst peculiarly troublous times, was not permitted to see the full re- sults of all his plans and efforts. But he was brought so near the promised land of peace and safety, that, from the hill-top of prosperity upon which he sat, he beheld it; and the sight of it doubtless filled his heart with joy. But, although dead, Abraham Lincoln yet speaketh. He lived and died a great and good man. His works will long follow him, for the well-being of both this land and other lands. The mighty changes in public sentiment, and in our social and national posi- tion, that, in the providence of God, he has effected; and the wonderful deliverance of four millions of slaves that he has almost wrought out, — in connection with his quiet, steady, masterly statesmanship, — are events that will stamp their impress upon both the present and future generations; are events that will make the period of his administration one ever memorable in the hearts of all loyal Americans. But where did he fall ? In a theatre. Alas ! for the place of his death. It is to me the only thing that tarnishes his martyr- glory. And, it is said, he was so interested in the play, and so amused too at it, that he did not even notice the approach of his cowardly assassin. What a preparation for the solemn realities 15 114 President Lincoh-Cs Death. of the future state! What miserable places are theatres to fit the soul for death and judgment and eternity! How little restraining and hallowed influences, too, are thrown around even human life in these places of revelry and mirth! Their tendency is to im- morality in all its forms. Had J. Wilkes Booth been trained under other and higher associations, and lived in a nobler sphere of effort, who doubts that the useful life of our late President might still have been spared? Had he fallen, however, by the hands of violence along the highway; or in the house of God; or in his closet; or in his bed; or in the discharge of his public duties; or at his desk, penning an outline of the settlement of our national difficulties, — I could have had some just and noble satisfa6tion in the contemplation of it, such as a death in the the- atre can never inspire. Two reasons are offered for the Presi- dent's visiting this place of amusement. The first is, that he needed relaxation from the severe studies and close application of his official position; and that, had he not possessed the happy faculty of readily laying aside occasionally his burden of care, his life and health would not have been preserved to us so long as they were. The second reason is a benevolent one, — that the public papers had stated that day, that General Grant would be present at the theatre that evening; and, as the President knew that he would be absent, he went himself, although with re- lu6tance, so that the audience should not be entirely disap- pointed. Religious decision, however, might have prevailed against all such reasoning, and additional safety and honor been .secured. But Abraham Lincoln has fallen. The work that was given him to do, he finished. We deeply mourn for him, and justly mourn; and we shall long mourn his early and lamentable death. Yet we mourn as those who have hope. Although President Lincoln was not without his iniperfe6tions, — was not without Rev. D. L. Hughes. 115 shade mingled with his light, yet we have some comforting evi- dence that our loss is his unspeakable, eternal gain, — that he has gone to that " better country " where " the wricked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest." And now, what shall we sa}^ of his murderer? I need only say, that such a wretch should not be permitted to live ; that his a6l was cowardly and awfully wicked, and was aimed not only at the head of the President, but at the very existence of our en- tire Government. It is the first assassination of one whom the people delighted to honor thus, that has ever occurred in our country. And, if Cain deserved to be punished sevenfold, surely this man deserves to be punished seventy and seven fold. He perhaps thought his murderous a6l would be aground of rejoicing and boasting, both for himself and others. Few, however, out of the mass have rejoiced at it. The aft was so contrary to reason and civilization, and so shocks the most common sensibilities of our nature, that it essentially forbids even the semblance of de- light in any well-regulated mind. Such an a6t could not have been approved, even if the . President had been a tj^rant, as his assassin so falsely declared him to be; much less when he was a man of such sterling qualities of mind and heart, and stood so high in the affe6lions, confidence, and honors of a grateful people, as was evidenced by his re-ele6tion to the highest office in our nation's gift. And the murderer will doubtless learn, before his case is finally settled, that it affords him no room either for rejoicing or boasting. Condign punishment will certainly, sooner or later, be visited upon his guilty head, and upon all his accomplices. But from the expressions that have fallen from the lips of a few per- sons, both male and female, we see the animus that lurks in some souls. All such have been the abettors of the foul deed. And, while I would be merciful, I cannot restrain my intense indigna- tion at those who, when the most atrocious murder of the age has ii6 President LincoMs Death. been committed, not only utter the most unfeeling epithets against the vi6lim, but openly approve of the horrible massacre. All such persons are " treasuring up to themselves wrath against the day of wrath." — "O my soul! come not thou into their secret: unto their assembly, mine honor! be not thou united." I would only add, that it would seem eminently wise and just for Andrew John- son, the successor of President Lincoln, and for civil officers everywhere, to treat all such persons as are found guilty of such gross violations of principle in speech and behavior, as Solomon, the successor of King David, treated Shimei, who shamefully re- viled his prince during his son's Absalom's wicked revolt. They should be known and marked; and, if not held really as prisoners at large, they should, at least, be forewarned of the certain conse- quences of their evil condu6t; while their names should be handed down, like that of Shimei, in perpetual infamy to the latest posterity. Let us now turn our eye to Vice-President Johnson. Sud- denly, and by " terrible things in righteousness," hath the Most High, who " ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whom- soever he will," paved the way for his promotion to the Presi- dency of these United States. He has now assumed the mighty responsibilities of his predecessor in guiding this Ship of State, and settling the great issues of the day. May the mantle of Elijah fall upon Elisha! Let our affe6tions, and our prayers, and our support be now extended to our new president. We regret his fall, and the reproach — deserved or not — brought upon him in his previous inaugural solemnities. But God no doubt permit- ted it all for wise and useful ends. Mr. Johnson was thus hum- bled, that he might be prepared for his exaltation, and for his wise and better administration. It will thus be overruled to his and his country's greater good. It will make him more watchful over himself; will secure to him more the prayers of God's people, — Rev. D. L. Hughes. 117 and will thus fit him the better for discharging aright his import- ant duties. We have rejoiced, however, in the testimony given by several eminent men, W'ho knew Mr. Johnson well, of his almost universally corre6t principles, habits, and expressions; and that the fall to which we have referred was an exception to his established course of condu6t, caused by sickness, and a combi- nation of depressing circumstances. We deeply regret President Lincoln's death, and especially the manner of it. But his w^ork is done, and it was well done. And now we rejoice that Andrew Johnson is at the head of our national affairs; for we believe that God has a special work for him to do, and he will be enabled to execute it well also. We believe he is " come to the kingdom for such a time as this," and that he will not be a terror to good works, but will be to the evil. Hence all that have done evil, and shall continue to do evil, may w^ell be afraid; for he will not bear the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. It is a remarkable providence, that the almost universal senti- ment is, that President Lincoln fell at the most auspicious time both for himself and for his country, — that although slain by the mad spirit of secession, yet in his death the South, and all w^ho sympathize with it, lost their best friend; for, in the overflowing kindness and magnanimity of his heart, he would likely have ex- tended an amnesty to all the guilty, which would have satisfied neither law nor justice, and which would have secured to our land neither an honorable nor a permanent peace. While the same common sentiment is, that God hath raised up and empow- ered Andrew Johnson to do what President Lincoln could not, or perhaps would not, do. The stern administration of justice is now demanded to meet the exigencies of the times; and, if Presi- dent Johnson should become, under existing circumstances, almost an extremist in the severity of his punishment (which we 1 18 President Lincoli^s Death. hope he will not) of evil doers, there would be many in the North who would uphold him in it. I here quote, as appropriate, the last of a series of excellent resolutions that were adopted by the Supreme Court of Iowa, during its late term at Davenport, on receipt of the news of Presi- dent Lincoln's death: — " Resolved^ That humanity, law, and religion unite in demanding, that there be visited vipon the heads of the wicked leaders of this most wanton and inex- cusable rebellion, which has filled up the measure of its iniquity by the murder of our President, as soon as the arm of the Government can lay hold of them, the swift and terrible punishment justly due to their enormous crimes." President Johnson is, I believe, the very man to execute this punishment. He is described by one who has long known him as " a man of full medium stature, compa6l, and strongly built, of dark complexion, and deep-set black eyes. He is of bilious tem- perament, strong intellect, indomitable energy, and iron will. In his chara6ler, I should say the strongest feature of all is that of stern justice, and a general hatred of all forms of aristocracy and oppression, and a patriotism so ardent that it amounts to a passion, — almost a religion. In Congress, on March 2d, 1861, speaking of traitors, he uttered this strong, and I may say prophetic, lan- guage, which in substance has been lately repeated: "Were I President of the United States, I would do. as Thomas Jefferson did, in 1806, with Aaron Burr. I would have them arrested; and, if convi6led within the meaning of and scope of the Constitution, by the Eternal God! I would execute them." These are solemn declarations, but eminently wise, just, and safe. Such a man is needed just now at the helm of State, and God has given him to us. Let no sickly sentimentality, no mistaken clemency, pre- vail. Let it be written upon our inmost heart, as with " the point of a diamond," that mercy to the ringleaders of this awfully wicked rebellion is cruelty to two hundred thousand of our brave Rev. D. L. Hzighcs. 119 officers and soldiers, who have fought, bled, and died to win our battles; cruelty to the thousands of weeping widows and helpless orphans, who have sacrificed their all to their country's cause; cruelty to loyal Americans everywhere, who have poured out their treasures, if not their blood, like water, to preserve our national existence, to preserve the honor of our national flag, and to hand down to our children, and to our children's children, all of our free institutions; and cruelty to all nations in destroy- ing the last hope of any noble example in successfully main- taining civil and religious liberty for the welfare of enslaved millions. When President Johnson says, " To the honest boy, to the deluded man, who has been deceived into the rebel ranks, I would extend leniency; I would say, renew your support to the Govern- ment, and become good citizens, — and the leaders I would hang; " I say, his sentence is just, — his decision is right. The honor of violated law, human and divine, must be vindicated; merited punishment must be infli6ted as an example to deter others from similar crimes: the public sense of justice demands it; and it is essential to the permanent peace and prosperity of our nation. " Righteousness and peace " must embrace each other. And with this decided, certain punishment staring the rebels full in the face, I would demand of them an tmconditional surrender and submis- sion to " the powers that be." Nor do I think that any other terms of settlement of our national difficulties should be offered by our Government to any rebel civilian, rebel officer, or rebel private, or be accepted by our military authorities, but that of an unconditional surrender. No property reserved, no diftation per- mitted, no arms granted, no paroles and escorts promised. They must yield unconditionally; their proud and rebellious spirit, as well as their military power, must be broken; the fatal do6lrine of State Rights being superior to Federal authority must be anni- I20 President Line olij!s Death. hilated, — otherwise, peace is a delusion. Otherwise, a multitude of rebels — like Judge Campbell, of Richmond, Va., and General Robert E. Lee, of the late rebel army — will still insolently attack our Government; will arrogantly claim exemption from all pun- ishment for the most ambitious and causeless arch - traitors w^ho have deluged our land with blood and tears, and will still strive to rule the destinies of our country. But we cannot bear to lose all the treasure that has been expended, and all the tears that have been shed, and all the blood that has been spilled for the last four years in this wicked war, to perpetuate our national life, for nothing. No, no! Never! Far better will it be to pro- tra6l the war, if necessary, four years longer, until our work is fully done; to subjugate the South entirely, if necessary to crush the wicked spirit of rebellion; better waste the inhabitants thereof almost totally, as Benjamin of old was wasted for first winking at a grievous crime, and then proudly defying their brethren, the children of Israel, who justly warred against it; yea, better, as a last resort, arm every slave, and give them not only their free- dom for fighting for their own and our country's deliverance from every species of bondage, but also the lands upon which they fight, many of which are justly their own, as they have been pur- chased b}^ the toil and the blood and the sale of their forefathers and of themselves, as their future homes, and let them rule them as they please, always, of course, under the control of the national Government, with which Government they would cheerfully co- operate, and to which they would prove also a strong bulwark. All this is a sad alternative. But, if the rebel South drive us to it, the whole work is feasible. It will certainly be easier to do all this, than it was to do what has already been done. Let there be, then, no wavering. Then will this nation have safety and peace; and we fear that she never will until her kingdom thus comes. Rev. D. L. Hughes. 121 Human governments are wisest and safest in their principles and actions in proportion as they pattern after the divine govern- ment. But God carries on, by varied and adapted agencies, a relentless and perpetual war against every rebel sinner, just in proportion to his guilt of violated light and law, until he 3aelds an unconditional submission. To be saved, he must give up every thing, and yield to God's own terms, before the contest ceases. Just so with our Government. It should continue its war against every rebel. North or South, without wavering and without ces- sation, until they yield an unconditional submission to the right- fully constituted authorities of the nation. And if any diiference is to be made in the degree of punishment infli6led, or in the favor shown, it should be in behalf of the deluded privates, rather than of the guilty leaders who have taught rebellion and ruin, and who deserve as justly to be certainly punished as did J. Wilkes Booth deserve it for his villanous murder. And, as Jehovah makes' rebel sinners " willing in the day of his power " to submit to his commands, just so will this Govern- ment, aided by that same Almighty Power, effectually subdue the spirit and the strength of that people who have so madly and so wickedly dared to rebel against its wise and just authority. Then will our triumphant and final song be, " Not unto us O Lord ! not unto us, but unto thy name, give glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake." — " This is the Lord's doing: it is mar- vellous in our eyes." I will close with three pra6lical remarks : — I St. Natiojial existence, national law, national order, must be preserved at all hazards, — at the risk and expense of life, limb and treasure. Those who violate or trample upon either will sooner or later be surely and sorely punished, the abettors as well as the perpetrators of deeds of enormous wickedness. Let all rebels, then, and murderers, and lawless and disobedient persons 16 122 President Lincoln'' s Death. beware; for the Chief Magistrate and civil officers everywhere do not bear the sword in vain. 2d. Let every man be a loyal man, — loyal to his country and loyal to his God. Let him feel his personal responsibility to man, and also his personal responsibility to God, — his duty to submit to and obey both human and divine governments. Let him " render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." Let him be a true patriot, and also a true Christian. They are not inconsistent. And he who loves God supremely, and his neighbor as himself, will love his country and government also. Wherefore " let every soul be subje<5l unto the higher powers, — not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake." 3d. If the mighty fall what shall become of the weak? If Princes lie in the dust, and go down to the dark grave, where shall the lowly be found ? The lesson taught each of us from these sad refle6lions is, " Prepare to meet thy God," whenever and however he comes. ^^Be ye also ready; for, in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh." Des Moines, lotva, Daily State Register, May 11, 1865. DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN: HALL, BATTLE CREEK, MICIL, APRIL ig, lbb5 , BY REV. MOSES HULL. OUCH deep and universal mourning as there is to-day the S history of the world has never recorded. Every loyal hear beats heaJly; every voice speaUs in a subdued --; every pulp. in the land is draped in deepest mournmg. ^^e crape on the door of the house of every loyal American fails to il ustrate the grief of the American people. We mourn not only the loss *f ofe who filled the highest office in the P-^ ^^^^^ j^^f „"f people to bestow, but the greatest man, absolutely the greatest, ot the ntn teenth century has fallen. Such mental wads such grie and indignation, as come to us from all portions of the Uni ed States and Canada, show the warmth of the attachment of the p opTe for their Martyred statesman. No event withm our nai's history has excited such deep and heartfelt emotions of '"Tlnguage fails to exhibit our loss or depia the <-e ch^raae of him for whom we mourn. An adequate 'dea of the magna niJ^tv and unselfish patriotism of our lamented President cannot be gen n:r can an'y eulogy place him in a higher position in the hearts of the American people. 124 Death of President Li7tc obi. The following, from the Chicago "Tribune," so perfe6lly ex- presses our feelings, that we cannot resist the temptation to quote it : — " Lincoln has been indeed a mild, loving father of his country ; and whether in the future it be possible to produce his equal, most certainly not in the past or in the present has a ruler ever lived who has adted with one-hun- dredth part of the magnanimity displaj^ed uniformly by our late President. Well may the rebels expedt to hear from the lips of Johnson the reply made by Rehoboam to the old men, ' My father did beat you with whips ; but I will chastise you with scorpions.' Subsequent events will show that they have jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire. The deed was altogether without excuse, — equalled only in enormity by the intent of Satan to pluck the Almighty from his throne. " Well may the nation weep, — fountains of tears. In Abraham Lincoln, we have lost one whose place can never be filled, either in the Executive chair or in our aftedlions. Who but he could have brought us safely through this fiery trial, landing us on terra Jirma^ yet so gently that we scarcely feel the shock? Our kind father and wise counsellor is gone. Our grief at his loss to ourselves is so great, that we can scarce spare a thought to his bereaved family. We were all his children. All loved and guarded equally by him. In his loss, we mourn a parent. His own family scarce loved him more dearly than the great heart of the American people." Yes, the greatest and best of men has been taken from us. He has fallen while in the zenith of his glory. Indeed, we only express the opinion we have for years entertained, when we say, that a glory belongs to Lincoln, compared with which, that of all other statesmen fades like the lustre of the stars before the rising sun. Washington, the Father of this Republic, was no more true, noble, and patriotic, than was Lincoln, its Saviour and Redeemer. " How are the mighty fallen ! " Lincoln is gone. It remains for us to trace his history, that we may realize the extent of our loss. Loss, did I say? I take it back. Lincoln is neither dead nor asleep. He is alive to-day, and as earnestly and patriotically Rev. Moses Hull. 125 working for the cause of human freedom as when he Avas here in the flesh. He has only ceased to preside over a Congress of mortals, to join the band of immortal statesmen. He has entered the heavenly Congress, and works as untiringly in behalf of the stars and stripes, as during the days of his earthly tabernacle. HIS HISTORY. I have only time to give a synopsis of his life, which I have condensed from the daily journals. He was born of poor parents, in La Rue County, Kentucky, in the year 1809. In 18 16, when he was eight years old, his father moved to Indiana. He perhaps received in all near one year's educating. In 1830, he removed to Illinois. After a trip to New Orleans, on a flat-boat, he became a clerk in a store at New Salem, Menard ( then Sangamon ) County. On the breaking-out of the Black-Hawk war, in 1832, he joined a volunteer company, and was elected its captain. He served for three months in the campaign, and on his return was nominated as a Whig candidate for the legislature; but, the county being Democratic, he was defeated, though his own ele6tion-distri6t gave him two hundred and seventy-seven votes, with only seven against him. He was after- wards appointed postmaster at New Salem, and then began to study law. During the same time, he practised surveying, although without any instru6lion beyond what he had obtained by reading a single treatise on that subject. In 1834, he was ele6led to the legislature, by the highest vote ever cast for any candidate; and was re-ele6ted in 1836, '38, '40. In 1836, he obtained a license to pra6lise law; and in April, 1837, removed to Spring- field, and went into partnership with Hon. T. Stuart. He rose rapidly in distinction in his profession, and was especially eminent as an advocate. In 1844, he was presidential elector in favor of Henry Clay, and canvassed the entire State, and the State of 126 Death of President Lincoln. Indiana, in his behalf, addressing large audiences with marked success. In 1846, he was ele6ted a Representative to Congress, from the Central Distri6l of Illinois. In Congress, he voted for the reception of antislavery memorials and petitions ; for the motions of Mr. Giddings for committees to inquire into the constitution- ality of slavery in the Distri6t of Columbia, and the expediency of abolishing the slave trade in the Distri6l, and other like propo- sitions. He voted for the Wilmot Proviso, every time it was presented to the House. In January, 1840, he offered to the House a scheme for abolishing slavery in the Distri6t, by com- pensating the slaveholders from the Treasury of the United States, provided a majority of the people of the Distri6t should vote to accept the proposal. He opposed the annexation of Texas, but voted for the Loan Bill to enable the Government to defray the expenses of the Mexican war. Mr. Lincoln was a member of the Whig National Convention of 1848, and urged the re-nomination of General Taylor. In 1849, he was a candidate for the United-States Senate; but the legislature was Democratic, and ele6ted General Shields. After the expiration of his congres- sional term, Mr. Lincoln applied himself to his profession, until the repeal of the Missouri Compromise called him again into the political arena. He entered with energy into the work which was to decide the choice of a senator in place of General Shields; and it was mainly due to his exertions, that the triumph of the Republican party, and the ele6tion of Judge Trumbull to the Sen- ate, was attributed. At the Republican National Convention in 1856, which nominated General Fremont for the Presidency, the Illinois delegation unanimously urged the nomination of Mr. Lin- coln for the Vice Presidency. The contest between Mr. Lincoln and Judge Douglas, in 1858, is familiar to all, and need not be recapitulated. It is only necessary to say, that, notwithstanding Rev. Moses Htill. 127 the friends of Judge Douglas secured a majority of the legisla- ture, the popular vote was in favor of Mr. Lincoln by over four thousand majority. On the eighteenth day of May, i860, the Republican National Convention, which assembled in Chicago, nominated Mr. Lincoln for President of the United States, and that nomination was rati- fied by the people at the following November ele6tion. The history of the dead patriot and statesman from that period to the hour when he fell a martyr to the cause of human liberty is as familiar to the world as household words. It might not be amiss here to say a word with regard to the CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH HE TOOK THE CHAIR. For years, the antislavery sentiment had been gaining ground, insomuch that the South had fully decided to use the first oppor- tunity to secede from the Government. This decision was made more than thirty years ago, long before Lincoln was ever thought of for President. His election, of course, gave them the desired pretext. When he took the chair, some of the States had already rebelled, and prepared for open hostilities. Three-fourths, yea, nine-tenths of the military strength of this nation was in the South. He enters upon his duties with a gigantic rebellion on his hands, without an army, without a navy, in short, without any resource whatever to extinguish the fires of the greatest rebellion since the fabled " Lucifer," " the son of the morning," rebelled in heaven. With all this on his hands, Lincoln undertakes to pilot the Ship of State through the storm. Has he succeeded? Let the history of the nation tell. Our lamented President entered upon his duties with an unflinching determination to put the rebellion down, and yet with a leniency such as human history never before recorded. To the South he said in his Inaugural Address, — 128 Death of President Lincoln. " In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. " You can have no conflidl without being yourselves the aggressoi's. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government ; while I shall have the most solemn one to ' preserve, prote(5l, and defend it.' " What more could they ask? With the positive pledge that the Government would not assail them, who could but think that they would ground their weapons.^ But the old proverb, " The gods first make mad those whom they would destroy," was good in their case. How pleadingly our President besought them to desist from their hellish designs! Hear him once more: — " I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of afledtion. " The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." Let copperheads, who have howled so long and vociferously about Lincoln and " Lincoln's war," " Nigger war," &c., read and and re-rea.d this, and hide their faces for very shame. Let them know that t/ieir 7nisreprese7itations of the patriotic Abraham have spilled his blood; their jourjials and speeches have stimulated such men as Booth to deeds they never would dared to have done under other circumstances. Let them know that they are responsible for the death of our President. Their misrepresentations of Lincoln and his administration are enough to make " e'en a devil blush." Mr. Lincoln's histor}'-, for the past five years. Is known and read by all men. I need not repeat it: only let me show that he has fairly earned the title of the Emancipator. 1st. In March, 1862, he sent a message to Congress recom- mending ^^ gradual emancipation^'' Rev. Moses Htill. 129 2d. In April following, he consummated an a6l which had been on his mind for many years; viz., abolished slavery in the District of Columbia: thus permitting thousands, who had never before drawn a free breath, to say, " We are free ;'^'' "for the first time in our lives, we own ourselves." 3d. Follow him but six months further, to Sept., 1862, and he makes known his determination to issue an order, on the first of January following, freeing every slave in the rebel States. "Will he do it?" was in everybody's mouth. "He won't dare," said some of the Copperheads; " there will be a bigger rebellion in the North than there is in the South." — " It's unconstitutional," said others; while many of us, who had for years been praying that slavery's chains might be broken, feared he would shrink from the task. But when the first of January arrived, true to his proclamation, he " breaks every yoke," looses " the heavy bur- dens," and says to the oppressed, " Go free P Truly, future gene- rations will call him blessed ; and those who have hitherto been manacled by the galling chains of slavery can regard him as no less than their Redeemer. Here permit us to take our leave of the life of the President, and for a few moments speak of his death. What shall we say of his murderer, — the fiend, who in cold blood robbed him of the remainder of his earthly existence, and our country of its Chief Magistrate and best man? Oh the blackness of his crime! One before which all others sink into insignificance. Even the crucify- ing of Jesus whitens into innocence, compared with the assassina- tion- of Mr. Lincoln. Christ had denounced wrath upon his cru- cifiers, and there was reason to fear that he would overturn their kingdom. Not so in this case; for, sustaining and q.\^w purifying the best government in the world, our President lays down his life. We feel justified in saying, that Judas, who betrayed his Lord, was an angel of light compared with — shall I say it ? I will ! — 17 130 Death of President Lincoln. the demon damned who robbed us of our more than immortal President. Are there tears, or is there blood enough, in all the Southern Confederacy to make atonement? No! As well speak of the viper expiating the crime of stinging an angel to death. The Chicago " Tribune " well says, " There can be no palliation, no mitigation, of the terrible deed. It was premeditated, cold- blooded, devilish; without the shadow of excuse, and perpetrated without the incentive of offence. History, ancient or modern, whether in the days of Csesar, or in the days of Borgia, furnishes no parallel to his bloody deed. He has damned himself to eter- nal infamy, and will live in history linked with "^the fool who fired the Ephesian fane,' — a name to be shuddered at, to be mentioned only with horror. His death will be no compensation for our loss, but will carry with it one consolation, — that the world has one less monster." But our President has passed on. Gone to his angel home. How I should like to have stood by his bedside, and mingled my tears with those of statesmen who sobbed aloud to know that he must leave them ! Yea; rather how much greater the privilege to be clairvoyant and claraudient, and see him pass from wife, children, states- men, and friends below to join the holy hosts of martyrs, and hear their glad greeting and welcomings! Oh, think of the happy meeting, as the spirits of '76 gather around him! As the "gates " open, and the "everlasting doors" to the eternal world swing back, I seem to see Washington clasp his hand, and welcome him to that better " country " where all anxiety is gone, and he is for ever beyond the gunshot of the traitor, or sabre of the assassin. Adams, Monroe, Hancock, Jefferson, Jackson, Clay, Webster, and Douglas, all bid him join their Congress, and work in a sphere where his labors will be crowned with tenfold the success ever Rev. Moses Hull. 131 known upon earth. Is that all ? No ! I see " Old John Brown," — who went before Lincoln, as John the Baptist went before Jesus the Nazarene, — whose soul has been marching on for six years, welcome Lincoln as slavery's last martyr. But this is not all: see the tens of thousands of soldiers, whose blood has stained every battle-field in the South, who died to save their country from the traitorous hands of those who would trample the Stars and Stripes under their feet, give him the right hand of fellowship, and wel- come him to their celestial land. But a more affedling sight is yet before us : the poor slave, whose bitter experience tells better than all things else the horrors and degradation of slavery, ap- proaches the Emancipator, — the last to drink the bitter cup of death in consequence of the institution; and, as he throws his arms around his neck, I hear him cry out, ^^ Br ess de Lord!'''' and thous- ands freed by his proclamations, join him in bidding him welcome to the " land of the free." The happy greeting of one freed slave is more than enough to repay for all blood that has been shed to get slavery out of the way. RESULTS. In the massacre of our President, the South have dashed the chalice containing the healing balm of mercy to atoms. Justice takes its place ; and to-day the olive branch, which was yesterday kindly vouchsafed, is withdrawn: the only cord of mercy has been severed by their own hands. Now that we have learned that mercy means nothing less than nursing a viper to sting us to death, the North is ready to say, in language backed up by every drop of Northern blood, if need be, "Let justice, stern and harsh, have its way." In the language of another, we say. Yesterday we were, with the late President, for lenity; he had been so often right and wise; he had so won upon our confidence that we were preparing to follow and support him in a policy of conciliatory 132 Death of President Lincoln. kindness : to-day we are with the people for justice. Henceforth, let us treat this hell-born outbreak of slaveholding fiends as a rebellion. We ask not vengeance, but the justice which Abra- ham Lincoln's clemency would have withheld. They have slain their mediators, their best friends; now let them feel the force of righteous, retributive justice. They have been barbarous before, — at Fort Pillow, at Andersonville, and at Libby Prison. They have massacred our troops after surrender, starved our prisoners, broken their paroles, andrfought us without exchange; they have laid plots to burn and massacre in our Northern cities; they have sunk to every depth of meanness. There is no manliness, no chivalry, no honor in them. From the fugitive Jeff. Davis, the royal Bengal tiger of this " den of uncaged beasts," down to the meanest Copperhead whelp that yelps about " tyrant Lincoln " and the " nigger war," they are all inspired by the same accursed spirit of murderous hatred for every thing that confli6ts with human slavery, and for everybody who thinks the Lord Christ better than Legree. Booth, who committed this murder, is but the representative of the class which made up the American Knights, Sons of Liberty, and other similar organizations. He was no more a Southerner than most of them. Born and bred in Baltimore, living among pro- slavery Democrats before the war, and among Copperheads since, he is just enough of a rebel to be a good sample of Copperhead- ism, — no more, no less. All he knows of politics is "to curse the nigger, and curse the Lincoln Government." This is the whole rebel and Copperhead creed. Whoever has this creed is fiitted, in all except courage, to do as Booth did. He hates lib- erty, and loves despotism. So far from hating the negro, this very class like slavery, mainly because it gives them a black mistress, and black servants at each elbow. The negro enslaved, they love, and will die rather than give him up. The negro free, Rev. Moses Hull. 133 they hate; and would exterminate not only him, but every white man who believes he ought to be free. So, then, it is not the negro, but his freedom, that the}^ hate; not the black man, but slavery, that they love. This proslavery creed is a crime against huinan nature, — an index of depravity in the heart. Whoever entertains it is an enemy of mankind, and lacks only Booth's courage to commit his crime. CONCLUSION. Lincoln still works. Think you he could be happy shut up in a heaven, " beyond the bounds of time and space," where there is nothing for him to do .^ No ! His voice will ring more melo- diously for freedom in the future than it ever has in the past. He will still blaze out the way for patriots: let us only follow in his footsteps, and soon our country will arise in a splendor hitherto unknown. As the blood of our martyred soldiers enriches the fields of the South, so will the lives lost enrich us in true Repub- licanism; and when our country shall have been redeemed, without the stain of slavery upon it, and we shall have learned the w^orth of a redeemed Republic by its cost, then will we be prepared as never before to appreciate the beauties of a Republi- can Government. Then, and not till then, will a halo of glory settle upon our country, with which the glory of the past will compare as the dim, flickering taper upon the hearthstone com- pares with the splendor of the noonday sun. " His toils are past, his work is done, His spirit fully blest; He fought the fight, the vidtorj won, And entered into rest. Then let our sorrows cease to flow, God has recalled his own ; But let our hearts in every woe Still say, ' Thy will be done.' " The Progressive Age, Battle Creek, Mich. NATIONAL JOY AND SORROW COMMINGLED: A SERMON DELIVERED IN THE SIXTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA, PENN., JUNE I, 1865 ; BY REV. GEORGE JUNKIN, D.D., LATE PRESIDENT OF WASHINGTON COLLEGE, VA. Jer. ix. I : " Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people ! " A NATION'S calamities, like an individual's, spring not up out of the dust. They are not a spontaneity in any infidel sense of the word; not accidents, as the world of unthinking men talk. There are none such in the Government as God. They have their root in sin, and hence the}^ spring up. Hath there been evil in the city, and the Lord hath not done it.'' Ph3^sical evils are effects of moral delinquency. By the former, the Governor of the world expresses his abhorrence of the latter; and here we have the elementary idea of moral government. Destroy the connection between sin and suffering, and you shake the very foundations of social order; and, if these be destroyed, what can ever the right- eous do? Where are there any guarantees for government? Hence the divine declaration, " Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not go unpunished." Social bodies, even those most in favor with God, cannot be exempt from this law. " You only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore will I Rev. George Junkin., D.D. 135 punish you for all your iniquities." Sooner or later, yet in this world, national sins must be punished. The Lord, who is the Governor among the nations, must and will vindicate in manifest- ing his justice. We have greatly offended, or we would not be as we are this day. April 14, A. D., 1865, — what a day of joy and exultation! Twenty millions of people send forth the glad sounds of thanks- giving to the Lord; for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he cast into the sea. April 15, A. D., 1865, — what a day of wailing, lamentation, and woe! Twenty-five millions of people fall down in the dust before the offended Majesty of heaven, and send forth the agonizing shriek, "How long, Lord? Wilt thou be angry for ever? Why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture ? " Oh, what a change was that! How sudden! how unexpected! how appalling! From the effulgent noon of a nation's glory and exultation, in view of union and peace, into a dark midnight of worse than Egyptian gloom and sorrow and wailing! Now, w^hence comes all this, under the government of a kind and gracious sovereign ? " Behold, the Lord's hand is not short- ened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated between you and your God; and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear." (Isa. lix. i, 2.) And the prophet proceeds to point out a variety of grievous offences against the divine law. Some of these are chargeable upon our people and nation. I St. Our tendency to idolize our public men, or rather the offices which they hold, and to glory in their wisdom and prowess, and thus to forget Him who assures us, " The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." (Ps. ix.) We have not kept it before our mind, that our fathers " got not the land in 136 National Joy and Sorrow commmgled. possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them; but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favor unto them. Thou art my king, O God!'' (Ps. xliv. 3, 4.) Beyond doubt, we have sinned in this our confident boasting. 2d. We have insulted the Son of God, "by whom kings reign and princes decree justice; by whom princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth." (Prov. viii. 15, 16.) We have said, "Let us break their bands asunder, and cast their cord from us." (Ps. ii. 3.) Virtually denying, that "unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David." (Isa. ix. 6, 7.) This divine Mediator and King we have offended in various ways. I St. In the grand bond of our National Union. The Constitu- tion of the United States contains no distinct acknowledgment of the being of a God. It is simply atheistical in the generic sense of the word. There is no God at all in it. And among the most aggravating points of this atheism is the fa6t, that many of the sovereign people, and not a few men professing piety, glory in this fa6l, and defend it. Under the delusion of the Devil's political maxim, " Religion has nothing to do with politics," they profess to justify this atheism. Nor is this a simple ignoring of God. On this ground, many attempt to apologize for the omission. It is, say they, an inadvertence.* It does not amount to a denial or rejection of God. After all, the Convention meant no offence. * This was the case with the date, ''in the vear of our Lord; " a mere inadvertence, although the most like a recognition of any thing in it. Rev. George Junkin^ D.D, 137 To this we reply, What they did must interpret their intention. They eje6ted God. He had been recognized four several times in the Declaration; viz., in the first paragraph; in the second para- graph; and twice in the last, the Declaration proper, — " appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world," " with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence." So the Xlllth Article of Confederation expressly recognizes " the great Governor of the world," and refers to his influence upon the hearts of the legisla- tors, in their inclination to adopt the Articles. Moreover, the fathers in the Continental Congress provided for, and attended to, prayers at their daily deliberations. Not so the men who framed the Constitution : they had no prayers mixed up with their assem- bly. The contrary has been asserted, but erroneously. Franklin made a motion — rather a suggestion — to invite the clergy, and open the sessions with prayer, as the fathers had done. General Hamilton could not see its use; made some difficulty: an adjournment soon took place, and ]Madison tells us the matter was never again called up. Yes, God was not ignored all through the doings of the Continental Congress, and in the Declaration and Articles. But " Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked; " the nation for- got God, and ejected him. This was undoubtedly — though we cannot here stop to prove it — the efle6t of French infidelity, which was eating into the vitals of the body politic. 2d. Another and quite a recent insult has been offered to the Son of God, — the appointment to a chaplaincy in Congress of a perstjn of a se6f; who, but week before last, in New York, declared their denial of Christ as ^Mediator, and in offensive terms deny that "this is the true God and eternal life." Thus the nation, by its representatives, voted to pull down Messiah's throne, and reject him as Governor among the nations. This oflence is aggravated by the consideration that this more than semi-infidel sedt is one of the smallest in the nation. 18 138 National Joy and Sorrow commingled. 3d. Our theatrical exhibitions are a stench in the nostrils of high Heaven. These dens of pollution, these synagogues of Satan, colle6t in and around them the concentrated abomination of all immorality and crime. Into these vestibules of the abyss, thou- sands and tens of thousands of our 3^outh of both sexes are enticed and inveigled by all the arts and wiles of the Adversary of souls, aided by all the embellishments of art and even of science. Places of amusement are planned and operated to occupy a mid- dle region between the house of God, and the hold of demons, — between the church and the theatre. The same building accom- modates a religious meeting or a musical exhibition to-night, and the genuine orgies of the Evil One to-morrow night. Thus, the revulsion of the Christian heart, with which less than half a cen- tury ago all pious people turned away, is abated; and the public conscience, even of church-goers, is often kept in an equipoise between the church itself and the opera; between the choir with David's harp, and the full swell of the orchestra; between Jesus Christ and Shakspeare. Are there no professors of religion in this City of Love who prefer Romeo and Juliet to John's Gospel } or Booth and Forrest to Paul and Peter ? Now, a great aggravation of these sins is found in the general fa6l, that the theatres are liberally supported, and all places of amusement are crowded with fascinated listeners; and that, too, while half the people of the land are draped in the habiliments of mourning. How unseemly all this! If Nero must fiddle while Rome was burning, must we Christians dance while the nation bleeds? 4th. Profanity, drunkenness, gambling, sabbath-breaking, and debauchery prevail over all the land; but, above all, in the army and navy. Many hundreds, indeed, have been dismissed the ser- vice for these crimes alone; but the expurgation has been only partial, and this by reason of the humiliating fa6t that some very Rev. George yunkin, D.D. 139 distinguished officers indulge in some of these criminal pra6lices, and thus seem to be above law. Indeed, the sentiment, that swearing and intemperance are militar}^ necessities, is not unfre- quently hinted at, if not distin6lly avowed. There is too much reason to believe that alcohol has destroyed more lives in this war than gunpowder. 5th. A fifth class of grievous sins against high Heaven is found connected with the avaricious spirit, engendering frauds against the Government. Sharpers, thieves, and plunderers of public property have taken advantage of irregularities in trade, and com- mitted depredations that would make a Hottentot blush. All kinds of rascality, if perpetrated against the public trea- sury, have been almost vindicated as smart and praiseworthy. Such evils are nevertheless hateful: "For among my people are found wicked men : they lay wait, as he that setteth snares ; they set a trap ; they catch men. As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit; therefore, they are become great, and waxen rich. Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord; shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this ? " (Jer. v. 26-29.) Such are the moral but adequate procuring causes of our nation's calamities; such delinquencies must bring down the wrath of God. Accordingly, what amazing commingling of emotions result: — I St. High joy. 2d. Deep sorrow. 3d. Burning indignation. 4th. Subdued humility. Analagous cases are suggested. Let us note a few: — I St. Henry of Navarre, the fourth Henry, and the noblest king 140 National yoy and Sorrow commingled. that ever sat upon the French throne. From principle, he was a Huguenot; but from polic}', after the St. Bartholomew's massacre, he threw himself into the arms of the Popish party, secretly however assuring the Huguenots that he was their friend, and would protect them. He had been solemnly warned by the Huguenot captain, that, if with his mouth he renounced the Pro- testant religion, God would smite him on the mouth, and destroy his life. Accordingly, whilst all things seemed settling down into a prosperous condition, he was smittten in the mouth, and killed, by a dagger in the hand of a madman named Ravaillac, w^hilst riding in the ro3'al coach in the streets of Paris. Thus he was snatched away from the highest glories of what appeared to promise a long and illustrious reign, — a sovereign of the rarest qualities, and of most hopeful promise. 2d. General James Wolfe, in like manner, closed a short and brilliant career on that illustrious day, when, on the Plains of Abraham, he sold his life for deathless renown. In the ebbing of life, his dying ear caught the exclamation, " They fly, they fly ! " He asked, "Who fly?" — "The French, the French !" — " Then I die happy!" and he breathed out his mighty soul in the very arms of a vi6lory which swept away French power from a conti- nent, and secured North America for ever to free government and the Protestant religion. Oh, how difficult to bring our feel- ings into quiet subje6tion to the ways of Providence in such mysterious dispensations! Why not spare Wolfe and Lincoln to enjoy their triumph.^ But peace! be still, and know that I am God. 3d. In the days of Charles Stuart, the second profligate prince of that name who disgraced the British throne, the Duke of Ormond was the King's viceroy for Ireland, where he had man- aged the trust with great wisdom and success. Nevertheless, an active and bold party, led by the Earl of Shaftsbury, assailed the Rev. George Junkin^ D.D. 141 venerable duke in Parliament, intending, if possible, to bring his life in peril. The Earl of Ossor}^, son of the duke, was a member of the Commons' House, and threw his young life into his father's defence, and with such vigor and skill as to confuse and utterly discomfit the party, and triumphantly vindicate his father's admin- istration. Not long after this the earl died, and left the noble and venerable duke in the deepest sorrow and anguish. Certain friends approached the bereaved parent with words of consola- tion. Whereupon, rising under his load of sorrows, and his heart swelling with a noble pride easily to be excused, the venera- ble father exclaimed, "I would not give my dead son for any living son in Christendom!" So a whole nation to-day exclaims, " We would not give our dead President for any living sovereign in Christendom or the world!" Why then, ah! why did God permit the assassin's hand to touch a life so precious? This I have already, in part at least, answered. Why did God permit wicked men to stone Stephen ? to crucify Peter ? to behead Paul? to burn John Huss and John Rogers and Patrick Ham- ilton? These, and millions more, heroic martyrs to the cause of truth and freedom, hath God removed just when their work was finished. Abraham Lincoln, like young Hamilton, and Rogers and Huss and Peter and Paul, the aged, had finished his work. He had, in the simplicity of his heart, and the honesty of his con- science, unconsciously written his rustic name higher than the loftiest heretofore known to history and to fame. He had filled up his share — and what a share! — in his country's glory. He had knocked the manacles oft' four millions of degraded bonds- men. He had called into the field the most powerful armies on which the sun ever shone; he had placed at their heads generals, called from obscurity, who may well look down with scorn on the Petit Corporal, the glory and boast heretofore of all the sons 142 National Joy and Sorrow commingled. of Mars. He had created a navy of prowess superior to any that ever floated in w^ater, fresh and salt. He had crushed a rebelHon organized against the freedom of the world; and with such talent and power as was never before known in human history. He had added this last and indispensable demonstration of the grand truth, that man is capable of self-government. Glory enough, this, for one mortal! And God called him away to higher and holier service, we most fondly and reasonably hope. We may, indeed we ought, and we do, regret the place from which he was called. We regret that so great a man and so good should have given the force of his example to encourage dens of pollution. But even here, it is obvious his failings on the side of virtue, his kindly temperament, and unwillingness to occasion disappointment to an audience, rather than deliber- ate choice, occasioned his presence. We may even go further consistently with our high admiration, and accommodate David's lament over Abner: "Died Abner as a fool dieth? Thy hands were not bound, nor thy feet put in fetters : as a man falleth before wicked men, so fellest thou. And the king lifted up his voice, and wept at the grave of Abner; and all the people wept." (2 Sam. iii. 32.) Whatever reasons may lie aback of this mournful mystery, it stands out a fearful faft in the movements of that divine Providence who doeth all things well, and that assured us that he will make all things work together for good to those who put their trust in him. Perhaps Mr. Lincoln would have been excessive in his lenity. His large-hearted benevolence had already led to many afts of clemency in the exercise of the pardoning power, which were, in the opinion of many of his best and most influential friends, of doubtful expediency. The opinion very extensively prevails, that, impelled by his noble sympathies for poor suffering humanity, he had enfeebled the nerve of discipline even in the army, by Rev. George Junkin, D.D. H3 extending pardon or reprieve to deserters and bounty-jumpers Perhaps this amiable weakness in a strong mind might have led to more serious evils when criminals of the h.ghest charaaei should stand condemned at the bar of justice It requ.red more nerve, and of a higher order, to sign the death-warrant of Dr. Dodd than to storm Fort Fisher. Pardon to a man P^tly con- demned is a judgment against Justice herself, and a bnbe to future criminality. The right and duty to pardon a murderer has never been placed in the hands of the civil magistrate by d.vme statute. "Ye shall take no satisfaaion for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death; but he shall be surely put to death (Num. x.4v. 3I-) Providentially, indeed, and m faft, this power is in the magistrate's hands, but not by express divine leg- islation. But the theory has grown out of the .mperfea.on of al human tribunals. It being possible that an innocent man migh be condemned, prudence has suggested the P;°P"^'y°[ ^j^f resort, to prevent the execution of an unjust sentence. Wherev er, therefore, a reasonable doubt arises as to the justice of the sen- tence that decrees a man to death, the pardoning power should nterfee; otherwise, never. I say, a reasonable doubt not a doubt created by our sympathetic emotions. "Justice and judg- ment are the habitation of Jehovah's throne: mercy and truth go before his face." (Ps. Ixxxix. 14.) Governments are estab- fished for the administration of justice, not for the dispensing of mercy; and for this God has put the sword into the magistrate s rand,'and he may not bear it in vain. Now, it is our duty a ways to scan the movements of Providence, that we may, 'f P°^f !^' disLver what he would have us to do. Watchman! wjat of he nicxht? But we shall press the inquiry no further. This is veiy probably the main reason of the mournful removal of our admir d and beloved Chief Magistrate, -that the executive power may fall ■ "to the hands of a mail made of sterner stuff, and whose experi- 144 A'a/iaMii/ joy and Sorrow commiMgUd. ciicos bettor tit him tor hearkening to the high and t'oartul behests ot" immutable and incorruptible Justice. We have telt the high jovs ot' gratitude to God tor the success he has bestowed on our arms. We have plunged from these heights into an almost abyss ot' sorrow. Our head dissolves in tears, and our e\es have become fountains of anguish. Our indignation at the honible rebellion, and its more horri- ble resort to the pistol, the dagger, the torch, and the poison of the assassin, tiames up into an unquenchable tire. And the very cause of our burning indignation suggests and prompts and urges on to the sure and etScient remedy, the simple administi'a- tion of justice. All tliese powerful emotions subside, at least, into a subdued humility. It is the Lord: let him do as seemeth to him good. But acquiescence in the divine Will by no means implies appro- bation of the agency by which it is accomplished. Joseph's brethren meant their cruelty for evil to him; but God meant all tor gv>od, that he might save Egypt itself, and Israel too, from most fe^u-tul calamity. So we humbly submit, in tlie contident expe«5tation that the nation's t'elicity and glory will spring up, a luminous and grand Shechinah. over the grave of Abraham Lin- coln. And, witli this buoy;mt hope in our he;u-ts, let us re- m;irk, — I St. We are not tighting for our own he;irthstones, for our owni wives ;md our children. If this were all, however praiseworthy some may feel it to be, it is narrow, seltish, mean, and bespeaks a soul devoid of the higher ;md nobler sentiments of a broad phihmthropy. 2d. Nor are we tighting for the broad acres of old Penns3"lva- nia, baptized with tlie blood of a heroic ancestry, shed in support Rev. George Junkin, D.D. 145 of the immortal Declaration issued from yonder Hall, in obedi- ence to a nation's will, on the 4th of July, 1776. Freedom here, indeed, and republican government, we claim and herald for all the people of this broad land. But even this were a conception too diminutive for the mustering of such forces, the authorizing of such vast treasuries. Oh, no! The Lord deliver us from these thoughts, suited only to the man of the little soul! for — 3d. We are fighting for freedom and republican government over all this nation, over all this northern continent and the world. Here is progressing the gigantic experiment upon human nature, for the solution of the stupendous problem of man's capa- bility of self-government. If our experiment fails; if this nation cannot govern itself; if it is to be divided, dissolved, and plunged into the gulf, the Charybdis of interminable anarchy, or shivered to atoms against the Scylla of military despotism, — then is the hope of freedom and republicanism for the world for ever ingulfed. The affirmative of this problem, God is writing out, may we not say, has written out, in the blood of three or four hundred thou- sand men. Can any man believe that these vast armies, and these hundred battles, in comparison with which Agincourt and Blen- heim and Austerlitz and Wagram and Waterloo and Sebasto- pol and Solferino are but the skirmishings of pickets on the outposts, — can it be believed that all this is merely to determine whether or not a few thousand slave-owners shall drive their human stock, and locate them, upon new lands on our Western borders? Is it for such a purpose as this, God has marshalled these terrible hosts of earnest and courageous men, to fling them upon each other in such awful and undistinguishable courage.'' Surely not. Surely he is completing the grand demonstration in the eyes of all the nations, that they may read and learn from the blood and fire of a hundred battle-fields, that freemen can put down rebellion and govern themselves. 19 146 National Joy and Sorrow commingled. Yes, my friends, amid this awful scene the true Christian phi- losopher recognizes the Lord of Hosts as levying and drilling and training the armies; as building the navies, as educating the gen- erals and the admirals, the soldiers and the seamen, for the last and greatest battles of freedom. Despotism, from her iron throne, the w^orld over, looks on in amazement, and trembles in the paralysis of approaching death, at the might that slumbers in a peasant's arm. Probably, — we say it with an eye upon the pro- phecies of Holy Scripture, — probably within five years from this time will be fought, on the field of Megiddo, the most fearful, terrific, and decisive of all the bloody battles for freedom and for God. And I cannot believe that the Lord of Hosts will order the general charge on that great and terrible day, until his own American contingent shall have formed its line on the left bank of that ancient river, — the river of Kishon. I cannot exclude from my mind the pleasing, dreadful thought, that the Stars and the Stripes will float , in grandeur and in glory amid the dust and smoke of that terrific contest. The fond fancy — it may be no more — still clings to my soul, that American blood will share largely in the glorious work of consecrating to religion, to free- dom, and to God, the great plain of Jezreel. But then, obviously, for this we must bring God upon the battle-field. We must honor him, or he will not honor us. Thus did Deborah and Barak on this same field, and he gave them the victory, whilst they ascribe their triumph to him. Not inconsistently with what I have said of our national sins and army corruptions, I now remark, that there never was a time when more prayer was offered up, more religious effort put forth, more of a liberal, giving, charitable spirit displayed in the churches of our land, than during this war. Whilst, it is true, we have some of the very worst men of the land in our army and navy, it is equally true, we have some of the best also. Our Rev. George Junkin^ D.D. 147 praying generals and admirals, soldiers and seamen, have wrestled mightily with God, and have prevailed. Books, tra6ts, religious newspapers have been read more than ever was done in any army under the sun. And these have been blessed, as means for the conversion of thousands. Assuredly hundreds of these army conversions will enter the sfervice of the Captain of our salvation, in aggressive wars against the powers of darkness. Moreover, it is an encouraging fa6l, that the popular voice of fhanksgiving ascended to God from parts and places new and strange. Who ever before heard the Christian doxology, — " Praise God from whom all blessings flow," — thundering out from ten thousand voices in Wall Street, in Chest- nut Street, and other places ? Yes, this is the right spirit. Let us bring God into every thing, — the army, the navy, the sea, and the land; the White House, the halls of Congress, the Courts of Justice, and the elec- tion polls. God has placed the sovereignty in the people, and therefore the sovereign cannot ever be assassinated. Let every freeman walk with God. Let him learn submission to Jesus, by whom kings reign and princes decree justice. With the Son of God as its king, the nation must ever be safe, must ever triumph. Amen. Philadelphia Inquirer, Jiitie 2, 1865. MEMORIAL SERTilON: DELIVERED IX THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, COLUMBUS, OHIO, THURSDAY, JUNE I, 1S65 ; BY REV. W. R. MARSHALL, PASTOR OF THE CHURCH. Rom. ix. 17 : " Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth ! " THE great Dr. John M. Mason began an oration on the death of George Washington, in language as follows, — "The offices of this day belong less to eloquence than to grief. An assembled nation, lamenting a father in their departed chief; ab- sorbing every inferior consideration in the sentiments of their common loss; mingling their recolle6lions and their anticipations, their wishes, their regrets, their sympathies and their tears, — is a spectacle not more tender than awful, and excites emotions too mighty for utterance. I should have no right to complain, Amer- icans, if, instead of indulging me with your attention, you should command me to retire, and leave you to weep in the silence of woe. I should deserve the reprimand were I to appear before you with the pretentions of eulogy. No! Eulogy has mistaken her province and her powers, when she assumes for her theme the glory of Washington. His deeds and his virtues are his high eulogium, — his deeds most familiar to your memories, his vir- Rev. W. R. Marshall. 149 tues most dear to your affections. To me, therefore, nothing is permitted but to borrow from yourselves. And, though a pencil more daring than mine would languish in attempting to retrace the living lines which the finger of Truth has drawn upon your hearts, you will bear with me while, on a subject which dignifies every thing related to it, ^ I tell you that which yourselves do know.' " Could I in more befitting spirit, or with more appropriate lan- guage, appear before you to-day, to speak of the man whom you bewail, with that same unison of unutterable feeling with which your fathers, sixty-five years ago, mourned for Washington, — the man who is enshrined to-day in the weeping heart of this great Republic, side by side with its first, its noblest, its matchless patriot ? The life of Abraham Lincoln was too closely related to the interests of us all, and bore too effectively upon the experience and prospe6ts of the generation, to be barren of theme for pulpit discourse, or of important lessons for the study of the Christian and the patriot. But I should utterly fail in the duty of this hour, imposed both by the peculiar nature of my office, and a consideration of the true interests of the public, if I were to represent that character only in its proximate reference to human society, and discon- nected from its higher and farther-reaching relations to that divine government which comprehends all the human, and whose prog- ress develops the history, and solves the destiny, of all men and nations. " The history of the world," remarks the historian of the Reformation, " should be set as the annals of the government of the Sovereign of the universe. God is ever present on that vast theatre, where successive generations of men and nations struggle. Shall we not recognize his hand in those grand mani- festations, those great men, those mighty nations, which arise and i£;o - Memorial Sermon. start, as it were, from the dust of the earth, and communicate a new form and destiny to the human race ? Shall we not acknowl- edge him in those great heroes who spring from society at ap- pointed epochs, — who display a strength and an activity beyond the ordinary limits of humanity, and around whom, as around a superior and mysterious power, nations and individuals gladly gather?" And our own Bancroft says, "Providence is the light of history, and the soul of the world." Then, through all that is unique, and all that is great, in his life; through all that is remarkable in his progress, and all that is important in the a6tion of Mr. Lincoln; and through all the scenes, stormy, confused, and chaotic, in which he mingled, — we look up to that omnipotent God, who sits enthroned above, and ruleth over all, and regard the man as a servant of the divine, the earthly ruler as a delegated agent of the supreme and universal pfovernment which has its throne in heaven. And as such I will speak of Mr. Lincoln's relation to the present and the future. As among the thousand stately spires that surmount a great and proud city, one towers highest in air; or, among alpine moun- tains, one lifts its bold summit nearest the skies, and reflects upon all below the earlier and purer rays of light: so among the thou- sands, who, by positions of influence and deeds of importance, have lately risen above the common level, and stand in the light of fame as towers of human greatness, Abraham Lincoln mounts to the loftiest altitude, and surrounds himself with the brightest and most imperishable halo of earthly glory. Amid the noise and confusion of these unparalleled times; in the hurried succession of transpiring events, that, like a train of supernal prodigies, has passed before us; amid scenes, in their thrilling, terrible aspects similar to, if not identical with, apoca- lyptic visions, our patriot President was the most prominent figure and most eflScient agent. If, over all this drama of human Rev, W. R. Marshall. 151 affairs, there is a universal Providence and a divine Sovereign, whose w^isdom, powder, and will control the confusion, and order the progress, — selecting the agents, and limiting the competition of ambition and power; balancing the collisions and combina- tions of interests and principles, so as to work out results of per- manent good and substantial advancement to the race of man, — as at creation he developed a world of beauty, order, and life, out of the formless void of dark chaos, — then Abraham Lincoln was, by that Supreme Ruler, appointed to his position and his work, created for and adapted to the exigencies of the times. What the man was as an apparent result of visible influences, God made him, by that infallible decree that not only ordains the end, but sele6ls and energizes all the second causes of its accomplishment. And as much as the times were eventful, and their occur- rences important, so in proportion is the importance of Abraham Lincoln's relation to the present experience and future prospe6ts of this nation and the world. The crisis through which our country has just passed, though not the first, was incomparably the most critical and threatening in our experience, and has, perhaps, no precedent or parallel in the history of any surviving government. The causes which produced it were at least connate, if they had not an existence anterior to the origin of our nationality. Like a slow poison they gradually spread through the body poli- tic, and long preyed upon its organs of health with only an occa- sional symptom of the coming terrible paroxysms. In the natural world, the elements of storm often colle6l quietly, slowly, and invisibly. The light, unseen vapors of water are lifted silently from the face of the ocean, and w^afted far away into the upper atmosphere by breezes so gentle that they stir not an aspen near the earth's surface ; and for days and weeks, while the sun, unobscured by a single cloud, shines gloriously on a 152 Memorial Sermon. serene continent and a calm sea, those watery vapors assemble in secret rendezvous, still gathering proportion and force, until a certain condition is attained; and then suddenly the storm-clouds are marshalled in the heavens, and irresistibly the flooding tor- rents, the sweeping winds, and the riving lightnings rush down to the assault of sea and land. Thus also, through many quiet years, the elements of strife, that lately issued in a storm of deso- lating war, were gathering far up in our national atmosphere. For many years together we rejoiced securely in the halcyon sun- light of unbroken prosperity and unhalting progress. Occasionally some difficulty would arise producing temporary excitement; and, while a few thought they heard afar off" the mut- tering thunders of an approaching storm, there was generally no apprehension of danger. Grandfathers still related the thrilling traditions of revolutionary times, and youthful hearts almost en- vied an experience which they supposed was passed for ever. But a few years ago, our national prospects began to change rapidly, and, in the judgment of all, to assume a threatening as- pe6l. Questions, upon which sentiment and pra6tice divided, began to be regarded as of vital importance, and to be discussed with moving ardor. Grave statesmen and patriot legislators trembled under the weight of their responsibilities, as on all sides they apprehended the fearful consequences. Compromises were resorted to, and served quite well for temporary relief. But as anodynes conceal the symptoms while the disease strikes deeper into the vitals, so in the lull of excitement, produced by concili- atory measures, se6tional differences extended themselves more widely, and settled down into more determined antagonism. At length, the fiery elements of strife refused to be longer re- pressed. The storm-cloud was completely charged with fury, and hung dark and imminent over a quaking nation. It was at such a time, and in such a critical condition of na- Rev. W. R. Marshall. 153 tional affairs, that Mr. Lincoln was called to the chief magistracy, from a position of comparative privacy, in which he had rarely or never indulged an ambitious anticipation of Presidential honors and responsibilities. That position, always important, indeed, had heretofore been chiefly regarded as a source of party advan- tage; and never till now had it been actually looked upon as the source of national life or death. But then the eyes of all the thoughtful and the patriotic were eagerly turned towards that seat of civil and military power, as to the only possible source of national preservation. Their anxiety, too, was increased by its great embarrassments, — some manifest, many only inferential. The disaffected se6lion had swayed the chief official influence for many years, and had deliberately weakened the powers of the Government, until that seat of authority was left to the new incumbent literally unsup- ported. And, looking forward into the unwonted darkness of the future, even minds of ordinary sagacity could foresee the rise of enfeebling divisions among the loyal, and of questions that w^ere likely to involve and complicate our relations to other countries. Well might the lovers of their countr}', though they were even friends of Mr. Lincoln, and had joined in his elevation, tremble with anxiety as they saw him assume that all-important seat. But with immeasurably more intentness did He who occupies the ' throne of universal empire regard our presidential chair. The interests of His great kingdom, of nations, and of worlds, were in some degree involved in our national crisis. And he too under- stood, far better than men, the proportions of that crisis. We were greatly mistaken about the probable magnitude and duration of the coming storm. But Ommiscience surveyed and computed all corre6lly, — saw each wasting campaign, and reviewed in ad- vance each bloody battle-ground; estimated the full effeft of every defeat, disaster, and disappointment; beheld all the un- 20 154 Memorial Sermon . sightly scenes of every Fort-Pillow massacre, and of every prison famine. He heard the lament of every mother, the v^ail of every widow, and the cry of every orphan. And he knew perfectly every exasperation of feeling, every confli6l of views and theories, and every gale of popular excitement which would be aroused by the horrid phenomena of the rebellion, and in mighty fury vie together in adverse, complicating pressure upon the President. And intending, by humane instrumentality, to bring the nation through all its troubles, chastened indeed, but unsevered, he knew just the sort of man needed for the all-important presidency. And, from among all the great and the good, the wise and the pa- triotic, he chose Abraham Lincoln, and thus placed him in the indescribably responsible relation to the present and the future of Conservator and Reformer. And now, that the office is accomplished, and the history made, a grateful but mourning people gladly consider how faith- fully and successfully he performed his mission. If, from a review of the embarrassments that sought to tram- mel him, and the mighty exigencies which pressed upon him, it be inquired whether he really succeeded in both aspe6ls of his v^ork, let the rejoicings of a regenerated nation, and the acclama- tions of liberated millions, nay, rather let the wailings of a whole people, who to-da}^ mourn his loss, answer. Men of all shades of political opinion and party, of all classes and conditions in social life, throughout the loyal North, sincerely grieve for the fallen great. And even from the charred and crimson fields upon which Southern treason played its cruel drama, we hear the re- sponsive echo of our mourning. One whose position enabled him to speak intelligently, and who had himself gone heartily and persistently with the rebellion, writing from his home in Rich- mond to a friend in Washington, a few days after the President's death, says, " Our city is gloom. You can form no conception of Rev, W. R. Marshall. 155 the extent and depth of our sorrow. I verily beHeve that the as- sassination of Jefferson Davis, at any time w^ithin the last two years, would not have produced a tithe of the sadness which the unwelcome intelligence from Washington has created." Within the whole limits of our national territory there is, I apprehend, not a heart in which abides a single feeling of patriot- ism which has not been pierced by the assassin who murdered the President. Yea: from far over the sea, we receive greetings of tender sympathy, the tribute of other peoples to the memory of our de- parted Chieftain, and tokens of their regard for his chara6ler and his work. But, aside from all this, as a sufficient testimon}^ of his success, and, I trust, perpetual monument to his worth, our nationality survives, after all the demons of insurgent war have spent their unparalleled fury, and is purer and stronger to-da}^ than it was when he seized the helm of its government. And its full history, glorious as I trust it shall be, will be the continued life of his character; and its prosperity, great and perpetual as I hope, will be the produ6t of his undying influence. And it is wise and profitable to study the elements of a char- after so worthy, and by the combined operation of which results of such importance are effected. I St. The first among his powers we recognize his mental char- acteristics. If the varying opinions which have so often been expressed, have not already harmonized, I doubt not they will ere long settle down into the unanimous conclusion, that he possessed a mind of extraordinary capacity. His perceptive faculties were peculiarly penetrating and far reaching; his reasoning powers, unusually strong and accurate: and these, associated with a mem- ory of rare excellence, constituted a very superior mind, and, made him within the sphere of his study an almost matchless logician. I C56 Memorial Sermon. Events, I think, have already proved, that no other man has more thoroughly comprehended the great questions which in these days confront the statesman, and none ever more triumph- antly mastered the great problems of social life and civil power which their times developed. There was a time when his genius was greatly doubted, and very many supposed that Mr. Lincoln was little more than the ignorant mouthpiece of the wise men around him. But I think it is now generally believed, by those possessing the best means of information, that, throughout his ad- ministration, his was the controlling mind in the Cabinet; and all the most important do6lrines maintained, and measures instituted, were peculiarly his o^vn. The well-known circumstances of his earlier life may have contributed some advantages to the foundation of his mental and moral character; but doubtless the disadvantages they imposed greatly preponderated. However much some are attributing his later greatness to his earlier experience, I do not suppose that any really regard such an education as his the best training for presidential duties, or would intentionally turn the ambition of youthful aspirants into such a channel. The common experience of the past will be the common experience of the future, — namely, "that the disciple is as his master." Generally, influ- ences will raise chara6ter to their own level. A rare mind will, by force of native genius, overleap its barriers, and lift itself far above the elevation to which its surrounding influences could carry it \ but even it under favoring circumstances would have mounted to a vastly nobler eminence. From what we know he was, we might reasonably indulge, what would otherwise seem to be very extravagant speculations, about what Mr. Lincoln would have been, had he enjoyed the best advantages for educa- tion. But it is better that we simply claim for him genius; while we admire the persevering industry and sterling morality which Rev. W. R. Marshall. 157 raised him far above the apparent ordination of circumstances, and conquered every obstacle that lay between his humble ori- gin and his glorious destiny. It is, I believe, universally conceded, that, vv^hile he did come short somewhat in the rhetorical elaboration, he was always re- markably clear in the enunciation of his premises, and the state- ment of his conclusions. And that may be in part due to his education. He knew little, and cared less, for those refinements of language, which the mere disputant often uses as the specious disguise of fallacy. Great facility in the use of language is often an element of weakness rather than power. Quality is often sac- rificed to quantity. But that feature of mental character was chiefly due to his power of discussive thinking. Language is but the form or articulation of thought; and a man's mental strength should be measured by his ability to express meaning, rather than by his facility in pronouncing sonorous words: for, although there must be exceptional cases, the general rule is, that, when a man understands a subject thoroughly, he will be able to express it clearly. Obscurity of language is a sure indication of insufl[i- ciency of thought, or want of candor. Hence, from the chara6ter- istics of his style, we argue his intellectual greatness. But, to present his mental capacity in its true light, we must for a little anticipate the view of his moral chara6ter. Civil and social questions always have their distin6t ethical features, which must also be corre6lly regarded, in order to their adequate com- prehensions. A man may have great intelle6lual powers, and yet, in the sphere of politics and sociology, he will fall short of the achievements of true greatness, unless he have corre6t and strong moral sentiments. And for this reason many a flashing genius has faded into obscurity, or gone out in the darkness of everlasting disgrace. As the eye that is color-blind may be keenly perceptive of some rays of the solar spe6lrum, or some 158 Memorial Sermon . \ of nature's beauties; and totally insensible to others : so some un- fortunate minds are keenly perceptive of some aspe6ts of truth, and totally blind to others. It was, however, manifestly not so with Mr. Lincoln. The principles of true. Christian morality pervaded his mind, and impressed their features upon all his thoughts. He looked carefully at all sides, until he understood the whole subjeft in its various bearings. And hence, as the sequel has • proved, he always excelled the champions of more partisan policy, or of one-idead fanaticism, who confine their con- sideration to favorite points in great questions. 2d. Another element of his power, and condition of his suc- cesses, was his very decided religious convictions. I am forbidden, alike by my own inclination, and by the order of the Master whom I serve, to consider the question whether or not his reli- gious convictions amounted to genuine Christian faith; whether or not he was a regenerated and san6lified child of God. I may only say, that the eminently pious and judicious gentleman who, durinof his administration, sustained to him the relation of reli- gious pastor, and enjoyed his intimacy, is fully persuaded that he was a man of prayer, and has strong and comforting hopes that he was a true disciple of Jesus Christ; while he deeply regrets that he never proved his allegiance to the Saviour by a public avowal of his religion. But it is certain, that his convictions of the whole truth of Bible doCtrines were profound and lively. A knowledge of his relations, and a sense of his obligations and ac- countabilities, to the living God, were never absent from him; and to this faCt was due the constant manifestation of some of his brightest virtues, — honesty, for instance, the proverbial character- istic of his life. I suppose a man may be honest and truthful without any Christian conviCtions; but the faCts of experience are rather against the supposition. It is said, that these qualities, as permanent traits of charaCler, are never exhibited among those Rev. W. R. Marshall. 159 families of mankind which have not enjoyed the revelation of Bible truth. And while Mr. Lincoln's natural impulses were honest, I doubt not it was his religious sentiment that developed in him a principle which no motive of terror or attraction availed to swerve from stri6t moral rectitude. Another of his chara6leristic virtues was an unfaltering cour- age to do and to endure. At times, when terrible defeat dis- heartened our armies and emboldened our foes; w^hen envious monarchs threatened alliance with the mighty insurre6lion, or gazed on in breathless expectation of seeing, under the rising battle-smoke, the ruins of our proud Republic, and friends quaked with despondent apprehension, — the President remained unshaken in his confidence of success, and in his determination to enforce the nation's authority, and maintain her integrity. When the clouds were blackest, the storm fiercest, and the sea roughest, as the old ship lurched and groaned until most faces around him were blanched with fear, the brave-hearted helmsman stood to his post, firm, calm, and strong to guide, order, and do. Doubtless, courage was native to him. But it was now fortified and rendered immovable by his profound religious convi6lions. He fully be- lieved, that the living Almighty God has a kingdom that ruleth over all, and that he is doing his pleasure in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; present in all places; governing all his creatures, and ordering all events, so as to bring out the issues of his own divine purposes. Fully, enthusiastically embracing that do6lrine of Almighty Providence; confiding in the justice of the nation's cause, and persuaded of her grand, heaven- decreed destiny, — he could not by any temporary reverses of for- tune, or by any combination of difficulties, be driven to despair of success. The courage which bases itself in patriotism will accomplish wonders of daring and enduring; but that which is rooted in religious convi6lion is unconquerable and immortal. i6o Memorial Sermon. Nor do I claim such a basis for the courageous manifestations of Mr. Lincohi's chara6ter without ample warrant from his own public declarations. In that affecting valedi6lory to the people of Springfield, he says, " I go to assume a task more difficult than that which de- volved upon Washington. Unless the great God who assisted him shall be with and aid me, I must fail. But if the same Omniscient mind, and the same Almight}^ arm, that directed and prote6ted him, shall guide and support me, I shall not fail, I shall succeed. Let us all pray that the God of our fathers may not forsake us now. To him I commend you all. Permit me to ask, that, with equal sincerit}^ and faith, you all will invoke his wisdom and guidance for me." In his first Inaugural, while marshalled soldiery and shotted cannon restrained present hun- dreds who thirsted for his blood, he said, " Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet for- saken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulties." On the dark Fourth of July, 1 86 1, he closed his first Message to Congress, with this language: " Having thus chosen our cause without guile, and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear^ and with manly heartsP His second Inaugural is little else than a reverent review of God's providence; a grateful recogni- tion of his infinite wisdom, power, and goodness; and an earnest exhortation to the people to trust in him, and abide his will. As the British " Standard " said, it is " the most remarkable thing of the sort ever pronounced by any President of the United States from the first day until now. Its Alpha and its Omega is Almighty God, the God of justice, and the Father of mercies, who is work- ing out the purposes of his love. It is invested with a dignity and pathos which lift it high above every thing of the kind, whether in the Old World or the New." I question much if Mr. Lincoln's Rev. W. R. Marshall. i6i whole character, the elements of his power, and sources of his eminent success, can ever be better described than it is done by his own pen in the closing sentence of that address: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans; to do all which ma}^ achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." He did not, as some of our officers have seemed to do, speak the language of religion only in proclamations of national fasts and thanksgiving, when such acknowledgments of God could not be avoided; but frankly and unhesitatingly embraced every suitable occasion to give distin6l utterance to his convictions, and by the confidence and courage which these convictions inspired, and by the a6lion they prompted, conserved our imperilled nationality, and the mighty interests of the times committed to him. Furthermore, in this phase of his character, he perhaps presents to the world its most distinct and complete realization of a truly Christian government, in its two cardinal principles of human liberty and divine sovereignty; and future generations on this and other continents, may we not hope, will experience the blessings of his illustration of new ideas in civil affairs; and future historians date his administration as the dawning era of a Christian Theo- cracy. And hence, in his relations to present and future history, I call him him a Reformer as well as Conservator. And, in support of my view, it gives me pleasure to quote from the funeral oration pronounced by his pastor. After enumer- ating his virtuous principles, and their noble exhibition, Dr. Gurley says, " All these things commanded and fixed our admiration, and the admiration of the world, and stamped upon his chara6ter and life the unmistakable impress of greatness. But more sub- 21 1 6 2 Memorial Sermon . lime than any or all of these, more holy and influential, more beautiful, strong, and sustaining, was his abiding confidence in God, and in the final triumph of truth and righteousness through him and for his sake. This, it seems to me, after being near him steadily, and with him often, for more than four years, is the principle, more than by any other, he being dead yet speaketh. Yes, by his steady, enduring confidence in God, and in the com- plete ultimate success of the cause of God, which is the cause of humanity, more than in any other way, does he now speak to us, and to the nation he loved and served so well. By thi^ he speaks to his successor in office, and charges him to have faith in God. By this he speaks to all who occupy positions of influence and authority in these sad and troublous times, and he charges them all to have faith in God. By this he speaks to this great people, as they sit in sackcloth to-day, and weep for him with a bitter wailing, and refuse to be comforted; and he charges them to have faith in God; and by this he zcz7/ speak through the ages, and to all rulers and peoples in every land, and his message to them will be, ^ Cling to liberty and right; battle for them; bleed for them; die for them, if need be; and have confidence in God.'" 3d. Another element of Mr. Lincoln's greatness, which, in its manifestation in his public life, arrays him with the chara6ter now attributed to him, was his strong emotional nature. I at least assert no more than the truth, when I say his heart- power was as great as his brain-power. The purer and better emotions of our nature, which tend to aftual and universal brotherhood among men; which sink personal ambitions into fraternal sympathies, subordinate self-interests to common enjoy- ments, restore to the race some features of the divine image, and recover for it some of the happiness and dignity of its pristine state, — manifest their presence and unusual strength, while they Rev. W. R. Marshall. 163 shed an enchanting lustre of beauty and lovehness over the v^ho e private and public life of the great man. He was proverbially crood-natured and affeaionate, benevolent and forgiving. True To the worthy, grateful to the friendly, charitable to the needy, forbearing to the erring, impartial as a father, patient as a mother tender as a child. Deep as it may be, the public impression ot his emotional charaaeristics is not equal to the faa. Incidents are related by those who saw the inner and more private side of his life, showing that he could not bear the consciousness ot havino- unnecessarily hurt the feelings of a human being or of having failed to alleviate when he might. It cannot be dis- puted that, by the exercise of these noble affeaions, he multiplied friends and diminished foes, and thus greatly strengthened his own arm of official power, and promoted the cause of his country. Nor can it be that his benevolent dispositions were excessive; unless we have entirely mistaken his charaaer in other respeas. Kindness never can be too great unless it displace wisdom and justice. If charity errs at all, it must be either through ignorance or disregard of the right. And, while I do not suppose our late President was in all instances correa in his judgment, I do main- tain that he was generally so, and perhaps always sincere in his intentions to do right. I have no sympathy with the morbid sentimentalism that in any case opposes the infliaion oi the righteous penalty of crime. I believe there is a principle of retributive justice, as immutable as an attribute of divinity, which demand a satisfaaion for guilt; and a principle of reaorial justice which guards the dignity and safety of Government. Nor do 1 indicate any opinion concerning the policy that should now be adopted as suited to the present or future condition of things; but I do affirm my belief that the principles which controlled Mr. Lincoln's treatment of his country's foes were wise and Christian in the main. Providence assigned to him the work of suppres- 164 Memorial Sermon. sing the rebellion, and saving the nation; and reserved for another the responsibility of prosecuting and punishing the captured offenders by due process of law. The history of revolutions w^ill never change until human nature itself changes. And the analogy of all recorded experi- ence certainl}^ establishes the fa6l, that the re-a6lion of sentiment among the common people after failure, particularly of a cause- less rebellion, is general, rapid, and extreme; and I doubt not that there w^ill be, ere long, in the hearts of many who have served in the insurgent ranks, a veneration for the old flag, and a loyalty to the old Government, as intense as the emotions which impelled the nation's defenders. And hence I have never believed, that our union of States, union of hearts, and union of hands was, or would now be, permanently severed. And I maintain, that the effe6l of Mr. Lincoln's benevolent policy will be to promote greatly the rapidity and completeness of that re-a6lion. He has prepared the people of the South, so soon as their leaders are disposed of, and the base falsehoods which deluded them are dis- sipated, to hurry back into happy re-union and hearty allegiance, as a prodigal son, allured by a father's kindness, hastens back to the shelter of his home, and to the blessings of his beneficent authority; while it is at least probable that a different policy would have aggravated the struggle, given excuse for the inter- ference of envious power abroad, and have crushed thousands more of the innocent, if not also the nation's life, under the cruel tread of bloody vengeance. And not only did he thus conserve the nation's life, but thus also he reformed the character of her civilization, illustrating do6lrines heretofore comparatively inoperative in civil ethics, and a6tualizing before the world the great social laws of the Christian religion. While with traitorous intrigue and blackest malice, the rebels sought our nation's life; and while with a savage cruelty, Rev. W. R. Marshall 165 more fiendish than human, they massacred and starved our soldiers when helpless captives "in their hands, — the President's kindness and the people's forbearance, nay, their charitable minis- tration of temporal comforts and spiritual privileges to all the M^ounded and the captive, the sick and the dying enemies who could be reached by the hundreds of Christian and Sanitary delegates who were always in the field, furnish the brightest, aye, the first such copy of the Saviour's chara6ler, the first instance of a great nation obeying the divine precept: "Love your enemies bless them that ciirse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you." And, if we still prove ourselves just as well as merciful, no human foresight can predi6l the blessing which our example may confer upon mankind by subdying the ferocity of war, — nor predi6l the influence in behalf of Christianity which it may enable the Church of this land to exert over the heathen mind. The missionary of Christ will now leave our shores with an indorsement such as the citizen of no other country can bear* and as, with the benighted and wretched, he maintains the truth and excellence of the gospel, he can refer to the history of his own country as an exhibition of gospel fruits in a form that will command the admiration of every human heart. Yea, he may quote that history as a living and unanswerable argument in favor of the Christian religion and republican liberty. Nor will he find that testimony any longer rebutted by the black record of Amer- ican slavery, or the gospel impeded in its progress by any thing in our political and social institutions so opposed to its spirit as human bondage; since under God, and at the proper jun6lure of providential events, our lamented President, in the justice, benevolence, and courage of his heart, by the immediate power and mediate consequence of his emancipation order, broke "every yoke, and let the oppressed go free." And now as a purified and 1 66 Memorial Sermon. Christianized nationality invites the contemplation, challenges the admiration, and entreats the imitation, of all people, hastening on the disinthralment of the race, Abraham Lincoln — at once the model and the architect of the new chara6ler — will stand out in all future history as a world reformer ; and succeeding generations will still continue the strain of honor to his memory, and thanksgiving to Heaven for the gift of such a man, to such a nation, at such a time. Thrice happy America! blessed with a Washington and a Lincoln! unparalleled patriots! unexampled leaders! What incredulous mind will now doubt her grand destiny ? What trai- torous arm ever again attempt to arrest her progress ? Let all her sons read, in the history of the glorious past, the prophecy of her more glorious future, and still revive their patriotism and their religion by memories of the fallen great! Let their spirit inspire all her sons, and their mantle rest on all her rulers ! And let her ever cherish, defend, and disseminate the noble, heaven- born principles for which Washington lived, for which Lincoln died ; and, with unwavering earnestness, and unswerving devotion to the cause of God and man, bear onward to all the w^orld that charming banner upon which the honored dead emblazoned the inscription, — a pure Christianity and universal Liberty. Ohio State Journal, Columbus-, June lo, 1865. DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN A SERMON ; BY REV. J. F. POTTS, B.A., LONDON, ENGLAND. Judges, xvi. 30: " So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life." THAT which is good never dies. In proportion as it is good, it partakes of the nature of God; and hence in the same proportion is eternal. Sometimes it seems to die, but in truth it is only removed to some higher position of life and power. It is on this account that in the Word, to die, when spoken of good- ness, denotes to rise again; and when man reads of death, the angels think of resurreaion. What is true of principles is also tru^'e of persons, for persons are principles embodied. A good man, therefore, never dies. He seems to die, — we miss him from his accustomed and familiar position amongst us; we say he is dead. It is a mistake: he lives more really than ever; for his thoughts are far more clear, his judgment is far more cor- rea his perceptions are far more vivid, and his affeaions far more intense and absorbing, than before. And thought and affeaion are the two constituents of our conscious life. On the other hand, that which is evil never lives. It seems to live, it " has the name to Hve; " but, just in proportion as it is evil, it is 1 68 Death of President Lincoln. dead," because in the same proportion it is separate from the only source of life. Hence, in the Word, by the dead, are meant the evil, whether persons or principles; and to slay the dead is to drive aw^ay the evil, to disperse the inventions of falsehood, and to subjugate the dark, impure passions of selfishness in all its various forms. These are " the dead," which it is our duty to slay, — errors, impure ideas, selfish machinations, desires which render us regardless of the welfare and happiness of others, bad habits, — all principles of death and self-destruftion; and, when personified, evil spirits, dead souls, who will slay us, unless we overcome them, and drive them far away. These are the dead which the good man slays in his life; but, when he rises above this earthly battle-ground, he at once, by the aft which we call death, disperses them for ever, and thus enters into a state of perpetual peace, where he is free from the suggestions of false- hood, and untempted by the influences of evil. True, therefore, it is, of every good man who has departed from amongst us below, as of the mighty Danite, that " the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life." The reason why these divine words apply to et^ery good man is, that they apply to the Lord, who is the divine pattern and forerunner of us all; for Samson represents the Lord in his chara6ter of a Divine Natural Man. It was by means of the natural degree into which the Lord descended when born into the world, that he engaged in personal conflict with the powers of darkness. It was in that degree that he fought his life-long battle with the spiritual Philistines who had enslaved his people, gradually driving them back, and releasing the human race from their tyranny, until the work was so far accomplished, and the vi6lory so nearly achieved, that it wanted but one signal effort to finish the one, and secure the other. That effort was made when the Lord underwent his last direful temptation on the cross. Rev. J. F. Potts, B.A. 169 When that was over, and his innocent earthly life had been yielded up, hell was not merely conquered, it was subjugated; it was not merely shut up, it was sealed: for that final a6t fully completed the Lord's glorification, and thus caused him to arise a Divine Man for ever, and to stand as the eternal Samson in his Divine Natural degree, — the eternal vanquisher of the hells, to " keep them in subjection for ever." It is therefore true, yea, infinitely true, of him, that the " dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life." The conclusion to be drawn from these considerations is, that what we call death is, to goodness, its vi6tory and completion; that it is more to its advantage than all its previous progressions, because it is their final finishing and ultimation, the fixing process of them all, and thus stands superior in the proportion that eter- nity is superior to time. Bearing this conclusion in mind, it will enable us to see why the great and good man who lately stood at the head of the great American Republic has been suddenly stricken down in his distinguished place, and removed from the position he had filled so well and with such signal success, at the very time when it seemed to us he was about to exercise its fun6tions with more success and usefulness than ever. And, in doing this, it is not my obje6t to pass any panegyric upon Presi- dent Lincoln; for a man's deeds, and the work he leaves behind him done, are his true panegyric, and one which is based upon a secure foundation, because it will stand or fall, will fail or con- tinue, according to the chara6ter of that foundation. I shall, therefore, merely quote well-established fa6fs, and endeavor to draw from them sound and instructive inferences, calculated to throw light upon the apparently mysterious a6tion of the divine Providence in this and similar events, and to heal over the cruel wound which has been stabbed in all our hearts by this afflidling blow and this seemingly irreparable loss. 22 170 Death of President Lmcoln. President Lincoln was the abolisher of slavery. It is true that only the will of a nation can abolish a national evil; never- theless, if that will has not its exponent and instrument in its administrative officers, it is not carried out. But he was not only the willing instrument, — he was the leader: he was not only the servant of that will, — he was, as far as a single man could be, the creator of it. At the commencement of his political career, — when to do so was unpopular, if not dangerous, — he raised his voice against that truly infernal institution, as the serpent that would destroy the children of his country. And, when he came into a position where he could show by his afts the sincerity of his words, he never failed to exert his influence against its exten- sion, until at last, when he stood in a position which gave him supreme authority over slavery, he published the edift which declared its end, and finally secured its destruction by drawing all his countrymen after him, and thus made his individual decree a national principle. But just at the moment that the dark and cruel system was overthrown, and, crouching at his feet, was awaiting its final extirpation, the great, guiding hand which had conferred freedom, and thereby humanity, upon millions, was in an instant powerless, and the voice which had uttered the noble and inspiring call of liberty was silent. Is, then, the work to remain unfinished? and are the millions to slide back into what is worse than death, because the giver of freedom died.'^ No! 77^^/ finished the work; that made the millions secure. There is not a man in all that vast country, who has learned to love Mr. Lincoln's principles, and whose heart has been made to writhe in anguish and inconsolable woe under the sense of so cruel a loss, but will swear himself in, from that moment of grief, to the complete and final accomplishment of all those objects, and the steady maintenance of all those principles, which filled the life, and constituted the chara6ler, of that great and good, — that Rev. y. F. Potts, B.A. 171 loved and lamented ruler. If, then, the influence of this truly illustrious man upon his fellow-countrymen was great whilst he lived, how much greater will it be now that he has sealed his devotion to his country with his life; and, if slavery received its death-blow from his living hand, how surely must that hand, though now unseen, crush out into non-existence its last misera- ble and dying remnants! May we not, therefore, say of President Lincoln, as it was said of the conqueror of the Philistines, that " the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life "? After a man's death, his principles are more respected, and his words have more w^eight, than during his life. This is a remark which applies equally to the boy who has lost his parent, and the nation which has been deprived of its head and leading counsel- lor. Therefore, the same result which we have seen to be likely to follow in the case of slavery is, by the same rule, likely to follow in the case of every other noble and useful principle of which the late President was the advocate. Where, then, is the loss that our sister nation has sustained in his removal ? It must be admitted, that, in regard to the principles which President Lincoln maintained during his life, there is no loss. It must be admitted that there is great gain, arising from that exaltation of feeling with which we have before seen the words and a6lions of the departed are regarded, especially when, as in this case, those feelings are of the most tender and the deepest chara6ler, — written indelibly on every heart by the grief and horror caused by such treatment, and such a death, of so innocent, so kind, and so gentle a man. But with regard to the future. It may be still feared that the great guiding-hand will be missed in those emer- gencies not covered by the principles which that hand had im- planted. And this brings us to consider briefly, the second reason why great men are removed in the midst of their useful career. 172 Dca th of P reside n t L incoln . No man contains in himself all perfection. It is therefore quite possible that he who is the best man to commence a great work may not be the best to complete it. The Lord alone can judge of a man's fitness to a6t in the future, because to him alone is the future known. We cannot, therefore, doubt for a moment, that, when the divine Providence removes a man from a useful post, it is because another can thereby fill it better, — that is to say, in the new circumstances which are about to be developed. We need, therefore, have no fear for the future. And we shall be still less disposed to harbor any such fear, when we come to consider the third reason why great men are removed from the scene of their useful labors here. It is that they may occupy a higher sphere of usefulness. A man's faculties are in no way impaired by death ; on the contrary, they are greatly exalted. The mind remains the same; and all its operations are in the highest degree facilitated by being divested of the material body. Surely, then, we are not to think of President Lincoln as dead; but rather, indeed, of his being more truly alive. He has doubtless already joined many of his compatriots who had before laid down their lives on the field of battle. It cannot be doubted that, for a considerable period at least, his thoughts and conversation will be about his countr}^; nay, there is every reason to suppose that his occupation will for the present be connected in some intimate manner with her atiairs. We know that spiritual beings are not distant from us, but exercise a constant influence upon our thoughts and affec- tions; and this not only in a general manner, but also by a6lual personal attendance upon us. Who, then, can say that the dire6t influence of their late President will not be far more powerful upon our American brethren, yea, upon all the world, than ever it could be before ? Who knows but that he may be permitted to infuse into his successors a double measure of all the great Rev. J. F. Potts, B.A, 173 principles which actuated himself, — the spirit of freedom, of order, of peace, of gentleness, and of justice not alien to mercy? If, then, his influence upon the minds of his countrymen was great when it reached them through their bodies, how much greater must it be when it a6ts immediately upon their spirits! It has been truly said by a distinguished statesman of our own countr}^, that great men never die. How true this is, is at once evident to us, when we elevate our thoughts for a moment into the spiritual world, ahd see the great departed still busily occu- pied in works of even greater and wider importance than while visibly living amongst us. These, therefore, are some of the reasons which, I think, may fairly be assigned in explanation of such apparently great national calamities as sometimes befall nations in the death of their emi- nent statesmen. But, in the case of President Lincoln, I think we may see a fourth and crowning reason for his sudden removal, which, if possible, surpasses all the others in the importance of its consequences. It is the union of good men. And surely there is need enough of such a union at the present time. If ever there was a period when some powerful agency was called for to spread abroad over a devastated and divided country the spirit of concord, surely it is now, when the thunder-clouds of war are just about to roll away from the horizon of a great, and hitherto a peaceful, nation. And, in the event which is the sub- ject of this discourse, I think we may see the creation of that agency. There is no good man anywhere, — no man whom we can recognize as worthy of the name, — no man whose chara6ter has not become utterly debased, by constant conta6l with infernal influences, — but will regard that cruel and dreadful assassination with unmitigated and inexpressible horror. The consequence will be that there will simultaneously exist in the breasts of all such men, whether in North or South, one common, one intense 174 Death of President Lincoln. and lasting, feeling. Thus there will be a true and general sym- pathy amongst them; and the ground will thereby be formed for a union of all right-minded men throughout the. country, and a general forgetfulness of all feelings either of triumph or disap- pointment. Let us all hope and pray that it may be so ! And, if events justify the prediction, will not the divine and prophetic words once more be verified, and will not a demon of death and disunion be slain by the death of him whose life would not have availed so effe6tually to destroy it? But we may take a wider view of the a6lion of this apparently calamitous event, in promoting the union of good men. And here we have to deal not so much with probabilities as with fafts. Here we have to view a most instructive, as well as a most de- lightful, phenomenon. It is the effeft which has been wrought by that event upon the entire body of our nation. Surely, if two nations ever had reason to be united in bonds of sympathy and love, or to be mutually desirous to stand by and assist each other, the two Atlantic nations have that reason. Nursed in the same cradle, speaking the same language, living under pra6tically par- allel institutions, working for the same objeCls, and engaged in the same pursuits, — surely, two such countries should ever consider each other as brethren, linked together by the most tender ties of relationship and mutual interest. And we, New- Churchmen, have a still dearer reason to desire the stri6t union of America and England; for these are the true lands of the New Church, and we feel ourselves shared out between the two. If, therefore, we are actuated by that lofty charity which tran- scends even the love of our country ( I mean the love of our Church), we shall be disposed to hail with the deepest thank- fulness and joy every manifestation of sympathy, and every strengthening of the natural union which exists between our respective countries. And probably no possible event could so Rev, 7. F. Potts, B.A, 175 have called forth that sympathy, and thereby strengthened that union, as that which the divine Providence has now permitted to take place. One universal feeling of grief and horror pierced our national heart; and every man, whatever side in the late war he may have espoused, was at once united with every other man in that grief and consternation. The consequence has been such a national message from us, sent across the Atlantic, as will deeply touch the heart of our sister country, and no doubt greatly soften the bitterness of her grief; for there is no time like the period of affliction for the power of heavenly sympathy to be felt, and hearts that have before been utterly estranged are often united in the presence of some common calamity. " Sweet are the uses of adversity." It is good for nations, as well as for individual men, that they should sometimes "be afflifted." Have we not, therefore, every reason to hope that from this time a new leaf will be turned over in our national relationship; and the two nations, which both have in them the capacity for such noble progress and momentous achievements, will henceforth stand side by side, willing to assist as well as to be assisted by each other, each willing to learn from the other, as well as each willing to teach, — willing to see that the progress and welfare of the one involves the progress and welfare of the other, and each willing, therefore, to dread and to avert disaster from the other, because its own disaster would thereby be insured.^ If this sad but memorable event, then, be the starting- point of so glorious a result, have we not reason to acknowledo-e in this dispensation, as in all others, — to acknowledge even with gratitude and joy, — the a6lion of that divine Hand of love and wisdom which is ever operating, with infinite solicitude, for the welfare of the creatures it has formed ? And can we not all truly say of the great and good man who knew how to wield power with gentleness; who could detest and destroy principles ot 176 Death of President Lincoln. death, at the same time that he could treat the men who main- tained them with mercy; who gained the respedt and love of all men, and who knew how to speak kindly of his enemies, — can we not say of him that " the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life " ? — the dead and death-dealing principles of slavery, of disunion, and of discord among nations. The Intcllcdual Repository, London, 'Jtinc i, 1S65. y r DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN: A SERMON DELIVERED AT THE FIRST PARISH CHURCH, BANGOR, MAINE, ON SUNDAY, APRIL l6, 1S65 ; BY REV. L. S. ROWLAND. 2 Sam. iii. 38 : "There is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel ! " HOW soon is our joy turned into sorrow, and our shouts of exultation into tears of mourning! Your hearts are full of the great sorrow, and so is mine; and you do not wish to have any foreign thoughts, however sacred in themselves, brought be- fore your minds this morning. Our President, the great and good man, is gone, struck down by the assassin's hand, in the flush of the nation's triumph and of his own, with the prospe6t before him of a speedy and triumphant termination of the great conflict in which he as the nation's head had been engaged so long: on the anniversary of the day in which the struggle began, and with the hemisphere resounding with the acclamations of four millions of bondmen, transformed by his a6l from chattels into men, his career is suddenly cut short by the hand of vio- lence. Perhaps it was fitting that he should die thus. For the fixing and perpetuation of his victim's fame, the assassin could not have chosen a more opportune moment for the deed. With no stain upon his chara(5ler, as a patriot and a man; when the nation was 23 178 Dca th of President L incoln . ready to acknowledge his wisdom as a statesman, as well as his honesty of purpose; when his polic}' in the condu6t of the nation had been proved by its brilliant success to be the wisest and the best; when he had received the highest of proofs, by his re-elec- tion to his responsible office, that he possessed the fullest confi- dence of the nation ; and when even foreign and covertly hostile powers had been forced to acknowledge his skill as a ruler and diplomatist, — at such a time, if fame, imperishable through all generations, had been the obje6l of his ambition, he might have chosen to die, and to die as he did. In a longer career he might have committed mistakes that would have cast some shadow on the brightness of his fame. If he had died in his bed by the power of disease, — though even then the nation would have mourned hiin as a father, — his departure would not have so im- pressed his memory into the heart of the nation and the world. But now, his name will be enshrined for ever among those who have sealed by their blood their fidelity to the rights of mankind. The martyr's crown is now added to his other claims upon the remembrance and the gratitude of posterity; and, in all the noble army of martyrs, no name will shine with a purer and brighter lustre in the pages of future history, than that of Abraham Lin- coln. We weep, therefore, not for him, but for ourselves and for our children. His fame is established for ever; but what is to be- come of the Ship of State, now left upon the stormy sea, without his wise guidance.^ He seemed to have been raised up by Pro- vidence for the purpose of guiding the nation through its present peril. His qualities of mind and heart were just what were needed for the direction of affairs in such stormy times as these. Without his cool judgment, his moderation, to temper the excited counsels of the other branches of the Government; without his kindness and conciliation in dealing with both friends and foes, Rev. L, S. Rowland. 179 — the nation would probably have been irretrievably ruined long ere this. We thought him, at the beginning of the confli6t, slow and vacillating. We longed for the will and boldness of a Jack- son at the head of affairs. But subsequent events have shown, that his moderation was the highest wisdom; that his slowness was the most speed}^ method of accomplishing the great work in hand. We had confidence in his honesty from the beginning; but we had learned to call him great as "well as good, and to view him as the centre of the nation's hopes for the future. His career ^ as a ruler is one of the most remarkable in history. His success in uniting the people in his support, and in so conducting the delicate and important duties of his trust as to escape all asper- sion upon his fidelit}" to his country, is almost w^ithout parallel. No public man in the history of the country, — not even Wash- ington himself, — in his own time, ever gained so deep a hold upon the afteftions of the people; and this was accomplished, not by any of the tricks of a demagogue, but solely by his complete devotion to the highest interests of the nation, and his eminent fitness for his post. Can the loss be supplied? We needed him in the future as much as we needed him in the past, perhaps more. In the great questions of reconstru6tion that are now coming before the Government, that same cool judgment and clear sagacity are needed quite as much as in the condu6l of the war. The great fear resting on the hearts of thoughtful men, after our military triumph over the rebels Avas felt to be assured, w^as, that mistakes might be made in the final settlement of our national difficulties, which would lose us all that we had gained, and sow the seeds of strife for 3^ears to come. Our great reli- ance, under God, was in the honesty and sagacity of our Chief Magistrate, whose past success we felt to be a guarantee for the future. No man can take his place at the head of the government, and inspire such confidence in the hearts of the people. We fear i8o Death of President Lincoln. now, as we look forward, lest in some way, through official in- competency or unfaithfulness, our recent triumphs over the enemy shall prove barren of their expefted fruit of blessing for the nation and the world. Our trusty pilot is stricken down just as we are among the rocks and shoals that line the shores of peace, and there is now danger that we may go down within sight of the desired haven. God in Heaven avert so dire a calamity! For the sake of humanity, and for thy kingdom's sake, save us from the evils of confusion and anarchy! As thou hast taken away our Moses, raise us up a Joshua to lead us unto the Land of Promise! It was no part of my purpose to dwell at length on the char- after of the President, or to prophesy the consequences that may follow his removal. It will be more fitting to consider for a mo- ment some of the lessons which this terrible event is adapted to teach. May we not believe, that one part of God's purpose in permit- ting this atrocious crime was to teach us still more impressively, even than by the events of the past four years, our entire depen- dence upon him, and to lead us to place all our hopes for the fu- ture in Heaven alone. We had learned this lesson partially, but perhaps not sufficiently. Perhaps we were trusting too much in the wisdom of the Government. Perhaps there was danger, that our military triumphs might turn away our thoughts from God, and that we might, without some further discipline, return to our idolatry of men and human agency. Perhaps, in the public re- joicings of the last week, there had been too much thought of the human agents by whom our vi6tories were gained, and too little recognition of the hand of God. Perhaps our reliance for the future was too much on human wisdom, and not enough on the God of Israel. It has been one of our greatest temptations to forget the ruler- Rev. L. S. Rowland. i8i ship of God in our national affairs. It has been our great sin as a people, through all the years of our history. Our trials during the last four years had done something in teaching us the fragility of reliance upon human wisdom and power; but perhaps this new stroke was needed to impress the lesson ineradicably upon us. If our President had been spared to us, he might have taken that place in our hopes for the future which belongs only to God. This support is now taken from us, and we must now put our trust in Heaven alone. God is a jealous God. He will not give his glory to another. Every idol that interposes itself between him and his creatures, he will destroy. How sad the thought, that it may have been our excessive love and reverence for the President, that made it necessary for God to suffer wicked men to execute their deed of blood upon him! May we not believe, also, that it was God's purpose in this event, to bring out more clearly to the view of the world the atrocious nature of that system of iniquity in whose interest the crime was committed. The fa6ts of the case, as thus far developed, will not warrant us in charging this deed of blood dire6tly upon the rebel Govern- ment. Perhaps they knew nothing of it, and would have dis- countenanced such a desperate deed if the plan had been revealed to them. But that the crime is a legitimate result of the cause for which they are contending, and that it is in harmony with their conduct through the whole war, is manifest. We ought not to have been surprised that a system, that could originate a rebel- lion against the best government on earth, should i-esort to any means to secure success, or to revenge defeat. The system of slavery itself was "the sum of all villanies;" and why should its abettors hesitate to assassinate any one whom they feared or hated as an enemy of their cause ? It was in its very nature a system of violence, the nurse of every deed of outrage and shame. 1 8 2 Dea th of Presiden t L incoln . It seems to have been a part of God's purpose, from the beginning of this conflict, to exhibit to the gaze of the world all the foul enormities of the s3'Stem. It is wonderful how slow we have been, to heed the teachings of Providence in this respe6l; how blind the e3'es even of the people of the North have been, to this monstrous iniquity. At the beginning of the war, we looked upon its radical opponents as fanatics and madmen. The very- principles of the institution ought to have fixed us in deadly hos- tility against it; but we refused to look at it in the light of princi- ple, and were willing to temporize and compromise with the infernal system. God determined, therefore, to use measures of instru6lion that would be heeded. He permitted the upholders of the system to rend the Union asunder, and to deluge the land with blood. He gave our sons and brothers into their hands to be tortured and starved in their prisons. He suffered them to send their piratical ships out upon the ocean to burn our shipping, and transform the mariner's signals of distress into signs of warn- ing. He permitted them to send incendiaries to burn our cities; and now, to impress the lesson still more deeply, he permits the assassin to take the life of the first officer of the Government. No stroke could have been more impressive. Nothing could have struck more deeply. If this crime does not awaken us to a sense of the atrocity of the rebellion, and of the system which originated it, nothing can. It was perhaps needed to fix the na- tional heart more unchangeably in its purpose ; to root out the evil, utterly and for ever; and to lead even us of the North to a deeper penitence before God for our past complicity with the great crime against humanity and Heaven. If there is now in the loyal North a man who can longer apologize for slavery, let him be declared a reprobate, lost to all the feelings of humanity, blind to all the teachings of God's providence. If there is a man who can think of this deed of blood, and find it in his heart to utter Rev. L. S. Rowla7id. 183 one word of sympathy for the rebellion, let him receive the name of traitor, and suffer a traitor's doom. This atrocious crime will also, I trust, lead us to see the need of greater sternness in dealing with traitors. It should awaken the Government and the people to the necessity of visiting upon the originators of the rebellion, to which this deed of assassina- tion is but a fitting accompaniment, the severest penalty of the law, if they shall fall into our hands. An ill-timed demand for clemency on the part of the Government towards the rebels had begun to pervade the public mind. Let no blood be shed; let us deal with the rebels as with erring brethren, — has been the exhor- tation to the Government, of would-be philanthropists. In the generous exultation of victory, there was danger that the claims of w^ar and justice might be utterly forgotten, and that posterity might be left to the inference that treason against a righteous government law was not a crime deserving of punishment. We needed some further manifestation of the awful guilt of this rebellion. We needed some stroke of crime that should, by its atrocity, startle us from our gentle mood. We needed some devel- opment of the diabolical spirit of the rebels, that should force the conviction upon us of the necessity of the sternest exercise of retributive justice, — positive in our dealing with the responsible authors of the rebellion. " Now let justice be done," was the suppressed utterance of all loyal men yesterday, as, with tearful eyes, they spoke together of our beloved Lincoln lying in his blood. That utterance was inspired by a principle implanted within us by the Creator, and its mandate should be heeded as the voice of God. We read in the Bible of a sin against God, which can never have forgiveness, either in this world or in the world to come. If there be a crime on earth that stands in a like relation to human law, of that crime have the leaders of this rebellion been guilty; 184 Death of President Lmcoln. and they should find no place for mercy, though they seek it care- fully and with tears. The blood of our murdered President is upon them. Even if they were not cognizant of the plan of assassination, they should be held accountable for the crime as the legitimate issue of the wicked cause for which they are contending. The guilt of a hundred thousand murders is upon them. They are guilty of all the blood that has been shed in the course of this war, and of all the evil which it has brought upon the land; and it would be a sin against humanity, and against high Heaven, to remit one jot or tittle of the penalty they deserve. The blood of our murdered President, and of tens of thousands of our sons and brothers who have fallen on the field of battle, cries to Heaven for justice upon the guilty. We cannot disregard the cry, with- out making ourselves guilty before God. I encourage no spirit of revenge, no feeling of hatred toward our enemies. I simply urge the claims of justice. I believe it is, one of the lessons which this event should impress upon us, that they should have justice without mercy who have shown no mercy. We look to the future, my friends, with anxiety. Our trusted leader is gone, and we are not sure that his successor possesses the qualities required for the discharge of such responsible du- ties. Let us put our trust in God. He will not suffer the cause of righteousness and truth to fail. He will give the needed guid- ance to our rulers, if w^e humbl}' ask it for them. His hand will guide us through the perils that are now before us, and yet bless our bleeding land with prosperity and peace. In the midst of our sorrow for the murdered President, let us not forget to pray for him upon whom the duties of the Government now devolve. He takes his great responsibility, he says, trusting in God. May the mantle of the departed Lincoln fall upon him ! May he have the wisdom, firmness, and moderation, which are needed to guide Rev. L. S. How land. 185 the Ship of State through its dangers into the haven of peace! And may the whole nation, taught by this awful event the frailty of human hopes, put its trust in the God of Israel, and look to him as the source of national strength and prosperity! Bangor Weekly Courier, April 25, 1865. 24 PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S DEATH A SERMON DELIVERED IN THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, NATCHEZ, MISS., ON SUNDAY, APRIL 23, 1865 ; BY REV. JOS. B. STRATTON, D.D., PASTOR OF THE CHURCH. Psalms, xi. 3 : " If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do.'' A GLANCE at the stru6lure of the Psalm will show that David in this passage is quoting the language of some party, supposed to be in conference with him, — a tempter, we may call him, who is seeking by his suggestions to shake his fortitude, and corrupt his fidelity, as a servant of God. His opening remark, " In the Lord put I my trust," is his answer to these suggestions. " Why try to overthrow my faith," he seems to say, " by revealing to me the perils and calamities by which I am menaced? Why try to drive me into unbelieving despondency by arraying before me the machinations or the triumphs of human and satanic malice.^ Why tell me that the wicked are bending their bows, and making ready their arrows upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart? Why remind me, that the foundations are destroyed; that lawlessness and iniquity abound; that social order is broken up; that justice is driven from her tribunals, and even the majesty of Govern- Rev. Jos. B. Stratton, D.D. 187 ment profaned in its san<5luary, and then ask me, what can the righteous do, and counsel me as a helpless and abandoned thing to flee like a bird to the mountain ? My answer to all this is, In the Lord put I my trust! " The drift of the query in the text, b}^ taking it thus in connec- tion with the preceding part of the Psalm, may easily be discov- ered. It is, in fa6l, no query at all, but rather a statement, — an allegation. It means to declare, that, in the case proposed, — in such a conjecture of alarming and depressing circumstances as had been set forth, — there was absolutely nothing for the right- eous man to do. And with his interlocutor in this conclusion, the Psalmist joins issue. He maintains that there is something for the righteous man to do, even when the foundations are des- troyed; and he assumes that flight, retreat, a resort to silence and seclusion, are criminal dereli6lions from his duty, — an inex- cusable failure to bear his testimony, and a6l his part, as a right- eous man. The idea which seems to be enunciated in this answer is, that the righteous man or Christian, as such, has a special work to do, or fun6lion to exercise, at every period and in every posi- tion in which he may find himself placed. The idea is an important one, and I wish to set it before you this morning, with all the emphasis that I can give to it. The righteous man or Christian has that chara^er to exemplify under all possible cir- cumstances. He can never drop it, or suspend it, or compromise it. It must appear in his thinking, his judging, his feeling, his speaking, and his doing. As the Lord's servant, his work is simply and exclusively to fulfil his Lord's will; to be the man whom his Lord would have him be. Should " the foundations be destroyed;" should his own mind be driven from its balance by the onset of natural passion; should the community with which he is identified, like a ship torn from its moorings by the rush of the hurricane, be swept wildly hither and thither 1 88 President Lincoh'Cs Death. by convulsive excitements, — he must maintain his principle, hold fast by his rule, and, like the compass on that ship's deck, tranquilly fulfilling its office amidst the tumult of the storm, remain true to himself and God, though every thing else seems surrendered to turbulence and disorganization. He must show himself the righteous man, the Christian, though a thousand impetuous forces within him and around him are impelling him to the assumption of a different chara6ler. The religion, as I have a hundred times taught you, which does not keep you abiding in Christ, and Christ abidifig in you, is no religion in the judgment of the gospel. The religion which does not keep the spiritual branch steadily and permanently united to its stock j which does not evidence itself, steadily and permanently, by phe- nomena in the life of the soul, identical with those which appear in the life of its divine Head, — is not the religion which the Saviour gave to his disciples. That religion contemplates difficulties in the practice of it; nay, is required to establish its genuineness in any case, by its readiness and ability to sustain itself under difficulties. What else do those two great features in it, so broadly delineated in the Scriptures, — the obligation to self- denial, and the obligation to unlikeness to the world, — mean? If you are not prepared and accustomed to deny self, to repress the passions and mortify the affections of the flesh, when these are at variance with the law of Christ; if you are not prepared and accustomed to differ from the world, when, through sympathy and complicity with it, you are liable to be wrought into tempers and urged into a"g' ^ be devoutly thankful that God in his goodness has withhe d the assassin's hand so long. As we stand now we can on^y see hydra-headed treason rearing his head in the capita . We can only see in this damnable deed, the Devil's black hand. But wait a little, we shall see God's back of it. Marching along with the armies of the Union, with your pros- pea and view shut out by the dust of the march, you have found [t difficult, if not impossible, to discern the point of your depar- ture, or to correaiy discover your future destination. 32 250 Eulogies^ Speeches^ and Letters. It Is only when you have gained the height of some command- ing eminence that you can review the region over which you have journeyed, and see the destination of the long lines of 3'our fellow-soldiers, which were wending their way along the valleys and through the mountain passes; and so now, walking wearily and sorrowfully in the shadow of the great mountain of grief which rises before us, with our eyes dimmed with tears for the nation's loss, we cannot see what lies beyond. When, through toil and suffering, we shall have climbed to the summit of the mountain, with wondering eyes, we shall then see stretched out before us the valleys of peace; and, far beyond, in the blue sky, above the purple hills, the cloud which seems so dark to us now, turning to silver beneath the rays of God's transcendent love. I have said that in our great sorrow we have, as a nation, rea- son to be devoutly thankful to God, that in his goodness he has been pleased to withhold the assassin's hand until so much of the great work of annihilating this fiendish rebellion has been accom- plished. It is too late now for treason's bullet or the assassin's dagger to stop the wheels of liberty's engine, to arrest the nation in its onward march towards the accomplishment of its glorious destiny. Nay: the assassin's dagger will rather hasten it onward in the accomplishment of its purpose. It may be the age of bullets, but it is also the age of ideas. It will open the eyes of those who have been crying "Peace, peace! when there is no peace," to the realization that we are fighting to save the life of the nation against a barbarism — the child of slavery — which is not less, but more to be dreaded that it finds its home in educated and cultivated minds. It will strengthen the knees that have knocked together or kneeled down at the mention of slavery. It will give vigor to hands and arms that have hung paralyzed in its presence, and bid them lay hold of the roots of the stump of the tree of slavery, that has fallen beneath the giant blows of the Surgeon R. H. Gilbert. ' 251 great man whose loss we deplore, and tear them for ever from American soil. When in the history of nations has one so illustrious begn stricken down from so exalted a position ? When has so true and honest a patriot — one so enshrined in the hearts of the people — been torn from a nation's heart by a murderous hand? Looking back through the ages, to revolutions that have swept over the earth, and changed the destinies of the world; searching the his- tories of empires that have risen to power and greatness, and crumbled to dust, — we shall find none of all the great names of those whose lives have been handed down for the admiration of posterity, stamped more indelibly upon the age in which they lived, or that will live longer in the grateful remembrance of future generations. His colossal proportions will best be seen in after times by the light of history. It is not the dwellers upon the mountain sides that fully realize their magnitude; but to those who are farther removed from them, they appear in all their sublimity and gran- deur. But we, to-day, remembering all his greatness in the past; his voice of wisdom, from which all men their omens drew; his firm will, true to the times in which he lived; his great goodness of heart, his broad humanity, his noble honest}^, and integrity of purpose, — can weave no wreath of words to crown his brow, or express the universal woe. America's leader has fallen! The wail of mourning of a mighty nation fills the land. It comes to us from the prairies that stretch in airy undulations far away to the North-west, from the pioneer's rude hut on the frontier, from the crowded mart of every city, from Maine way round to the gulf, from the golden gates of California to where Oregon rolls its waters to the sea, from every ship that unfurls its white sails and starry flag to the breeze. It rises in solemn, sorrowing anthem from the hearts 252 Eulogies^ Speeches, and Letters. of four millions of freedmen, whose chains have fallen by his hand, and from the oppressed of every clime. Everywhere the friends of liberty weep. " Lead out the pageant, sad and slow, As fits an universal woe. Let the long, long procession go, And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow, And let the mournful martial music blow, — The great American lies low. Yea, let all good things await Him who cares not to be great, But as he saves or serves the State. Such was he : his work is done ; But, while the races of mankind endure, Let his great example stand Colossal, seen of every land. And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure, Till in all lands, and through all human story. The path to duty be the path to glory." Daily Union Pfess, Louisville, Ky., April 21, 1865. SPEECH OF MAJOR-GENERAL HURLBUT: AT NEW ORLEANS, LA., APRIL 21, 1S65. FELLOW-CITIZENS, — With all these outward demonstra- tions surrounding me; with those flags — the flags of our common country — at half-mast; the habiliments of woe, and dra- peries that surround the balconies and porches of our fair city; the still, steady countenances of this vast assemblage, with the burden that every man feels at his heart, — we are assembled here this day to express our sorrow for the greatest calamity that has ever befallen human progress since the world was. It is well that here, in this city- of New Orleans, from the banks of this magnificent river, the child of the Union, the creature of that vast commerce that sweeps back to the Rocky Mountains on the one side, and the Alleghanies on the other, — it is well that you, citizens of this city and this State, the spoiled and petted child of this Union, should recognize here to-day the obligation and duties that fall upon you as citizens of this great Republic, whose head and front has been stricken down by the hand of the assassin. It is well, too, — as the remarks that have fallen from my friend who led us in prayer on this solemn occasion have indicated, — it is well for us all to peer deeply down into our hearts; for, since the day when unholy men crucified the very Lord of grace, no such crime has been perpetrated, or known in the pages of his- tory, as this which has brought us here to-day. The parallel 254 Eu/ogieSj Speeches, and Letters. holds good, be it spoken with due reverence ; for the truest and best, most thorough and most powerful, friend to the madmen who, in their frenzy and fanaticism, have laid him low, was Abra- ham Lincoln, late President of these United States. Let me then, here, to-day, in the first place, recognize the deep detestation and horror which should fill every heart, wher- ever it is, under whatever sun, at the atrocity and enormity of the horror which has darkened this country with grief. We meet here for the purpose of paying some fit and feeble tribute to the memory of the great man who has led our country through these last four years of agony and sorrow. We meet here as citizens of a common Union, as children of the same soil, by birth or by voluntary adoption. And it may be there are those here who come under neither of these descriptions, but are the denizens of these United States, remaining under their national flag, while quietly dwelling under the broad prote6lion of our banner; and to all of these classes of men this day is momentous. I do not propose to speak at length here, and on this occasion, of the life and public services of Abraham Lincoln. I dare not trust myself with the task. I but little thought, years ago, before he was elevated to the presidency of the United States, — be- fore war had spread her blood-stained wing over our country, — when I used to meet him in the ordinary course of civil life in my own adopted State, — rl little thought, that, after four years of ser- vice under our flag in suppressing a rebellion, I should stand in this central park of New Orleans, in the service of my country, to speak words of eulogy upon the death of him, the President of these United States. But of the past we are secure. Glory, honor, the praise of all good men, have crowned his eventful career; and when in the providence of Almight}'' God, to whose inscrutable decrees we must all bow, — just as the ruby dawn of peace was breaking upon our distracted country; just as the Major- General Hurlbut. 255 arms of the Confederacy, fairly beaten, were being laid down; just when that gentle heart, that true, affe6tionate, honest man, seemed most required to throw the impulse and pressure of his power upon the question of reconstruction, — just then it pleased God that a cowardly and brutal murderer should strike down this great man by a blow, dastard-like, from behind, and in the very presence of his wife. These things make it my duty, fellow-citizens, to say frankly and broadly to you here to-day, that however the investigation of this matter may turn out, it is written in the destinies of all men, that no man can commence upon a career of crime, and know at what enormity he will stop;, and this is, whether the result of a wide-spread conspiracy or not, the natural and inevi- table result of the great crime attempted four years ago against the nation. From being traitors, it is the easiest gradation down- wards to be murderers and assassins. And let me say to you another thing: I trust in God, that the investigations that are now going on may not fix the guilt of this enormous offence upon any persons who may be considered as representatives of the Southern people; for, if that thing does come, no power but the Almighty can stay the just vengeance of an outraged nation. I hope, as a man anxious to see bloodshed, ruin, and devastation cease, I hope that this great crime may be proven to have been the offshoot of some individual baseness, — some single criminal. Yes, I hope it. Fellow-citizens, — The record of President Lincoln is before the nation and the world. I affirm, that in the whole history of the world, not excluding him who, by common consent, is known as the Father of his Country, was there ever presented so spot- less, so pure, so generous, so simple, so truthful, so energetic a charadler. Politics have ceased: there are no politics in these United States; there are no parties in these United States. 256 Eulogies^ Speeches, and Letters. Ele6led originally as the representative of a party, this great man became the representative of every loyal heart in the nation! No one, but some old hack, whose back is like that of an old horse in a bark-mill, adheres to politics now. There is nothing now but a nation; nothing that divides us but the national quarrel. How widely and how entirely did he spread his inviting arms to call in all these wanderers! What has he not done for this place and this people? It is to him that you owe your existence as a State and a city; and thus it is that this occasion is so moment- ous. Whatever you have of civil order, of civil law, is the free gift of Abraham Lincoln, the tendernesses and charities of whom were as inevitable to his nature as light to the sun. They came from him as water boils from a spring; the deep fountains of his nature yielded uncounted supplies of all kindness and benevo- lence: such a man, so clothed in graceful form; such a man, so surrounded by all pleasant influences; such a man, in the very pride and dignity of his great office, — has fallen by the hand of a cut-throat and a bravo; and the American nation, which has held its head high for its civilization and its courage, is disgraced by the knowledge that the crimes of all the old worn-out barbarism of Europe are to be repeated and renewed among us. We, the officers of the arm}^, and the soldiers here, revered him as our comrade. A man wholly unused to military affairs, he has yet taken so deep an interest that probably no man in the Cabinet at Washington could more closely follow, and more thor- oughly understand, the movements and combinations of our great leaders. A man who never had mingled much in the craft of statesmanship, he yet, having assumed those duties, recognized at once that the true policy for a bold and brave people was to fol- low the righteous instin6ls of a just heart and an enlightened in- telle6t. He has educated this people up to the position they now i^tSutit^ Major-General Hurlbut. 257 hold; and, at last, crowned with honor, having reached the very topmost round of the ladder of human ambition, he has stepped from that to heaven, there to receive that which will be his re- ward, — the plaudits of "Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." Let me remind you of one thing more, and I am done. The President may die; the nation lives! Individuals perish; the su- perstructure of our Government stands! Stands, and will stand; and the gates of Death and Hell shall not prevail against it. We are now rebuilding the shattered portions of that glorious fabric, and it stands based upon the throbbing, pulsating joy of the brave hearts of millions upon inillions of freemen; and while God's mercy continues, and while God's law continues, this American Republic, founded on universal right and universal freedom, will challenge the admiration, the applause, and if need be the fear, of the world. Thus, then, we are led to the fa6l that our duties are still as incumbent upon us as ever. The great gap that has been made in the ostensible leaders of Government will be filled. The glo- rious memory of the President will remain to us ; but the solemn, assured, onward, determined, inevitable march of this great peo- ple to the consummation of her destiny shall not and will not be stopped. While, then, we mourn the lost man, brother, and ruler, we know that the blow that struck him cannot strike the vitals of the nation. Here we are, here we are ready to be, each man in his place, — officers, soldiers, citizens, workmen, — all, every- where, of all complexions and castes, working for the one straightforward object, — the perpetuation of human freedom, the progress of human destiny, through God's great agent, the Amer- ican Union. Netv-Orleans Times, April 2^^, 1S65. ADDRESS BY ALFRED T. JONES, ESQ^^ FRIENDS, — The President of the United States has recom- mended this day to be set apart throughout the land as one of humiliation, fasting, and prayer, commemorative of the mourn- ful death of our late Chief Magistrate, Abraham Lincoln, on the fifteenth day of April last; and at this moment its millions of people are assembled around the altar of their God, with sad- dened spirits and chastened hearts, uniting in solemn supplication and prayer, — a mournful, a noble, and imposing spe6lacle. Although on this holy festival of Pentecost the scattered fol- loM^ers of Israel's faith are commanded by their holy law to repair to the house of prayer to rejoice before the Lord, and to lay upon his altar the offerings of grateful hearts for number- less blessings enjoyed ; although they are not permitted to make it a day of fasting or public mourning, — yet it cannot be improper or inappropriate to recall and refle6t upon the great event which sits so heavily upon the nation, thereby evincing to the world that our hearts beat in unison with our fellow-citizens of other denom- inations; that, although a peculiar people in many respefts, we feel ourselves a component part of this great community of States, exulting in their triumphs, deploring their defeats, rejoicing in their joys, and partaking of their sorrows. * Mr. Jones is of the Jewish persuasion, and has always been an aftive political opponent of Mr. Lincoln. Alfred T, Jones ^ Esq. 259 X -^>4 By commenting on the death of Mr. Lincoln, the people are called upon this day to yield the homage due to his exalted sta- tion and to his humble virtues ; to confess the common debt due to him by mankind, as well as by ourselves ; and to pronounce to millions yet unborn that eulogium which will re-echo through all time to come. But can one who has warmly and earnestly opposed the policy and measures of Abraham Lincoln speak kindly of him, or eulo- gize his memory? I answer, yes: when such opposition has been promptly solely by patriotic considerations, then will the man rise superior to the partisan. It is one of the beautiful traits in our national chara6ter, that, after the rancor of partisan contests has passed awa}^, men readily and frankly recognize the ennobling qualities of political opponents. Like all who have attained prominent stations, and assumed the responsibility of daring enterprises and independent measures, it was Mr. Lincoln's lot to see many of his a6fs condemned, and himself reviled, by a portion of his fellow-citizens. ' The fire of party resentment raged around him with unprecedented violence, yet he remained calm and unmoved amid the uncontrolled fury of the flames, steadily adhering to, and pursuing, the measures he deemed best adapted to the true interests of the nation. The grand obje6l of his administration, and which has encountered the fiercest opposition, has been achieved. Human bondage has been virtually banished from the land. ' The inexorable will of the majority, and the exigences of the times, had decreed it; and now that the work has been accomplished, all good citizens should gracefully submit. It is not the part of sensible men to reproach and cavil at the past, but to aid in reconstruaing and strengthening, not alone the national Union, but also that unity of feeling among our countrymen which has been weakened, but not destroyed. 26o Eulogies^ Speeches^ and Letters. Prior to Mr. Lincoln's death, a change had come over the feelings of his opponents. It seemed as if He whose all-seeing eye pervades all space, penetrates the innermost recesses of man's heart, and views his actions before they are conceived, foreseeing the awful tragedy about to be enabled, was in reality prepar- ing the hearts of the people to love and venerate the one so soon to meet a martyr's doom. Many weeks before that fatal day, truly patriotic men of all shades of opinion, in all parts of the land, had beo-un to regard Mr. Lincoln with confidence and esteem. ' So kind and conciliatory an attitude had he assumed towards our enemies; so determined and honest a purpose to preserve the integrity of the nation was daily exhibited; so firm and unwaver- ing a resistance to the radical measures and aims of political adherents was indisputably manifested, — that the very men who had resisted his ele6lion during the intense excitements of two political campaigns were constrained, first, to place implicit faith in his patriotism, and integrity of purpose; and, next, to yield a (perhaps unwilling) tribute to his sound judgment and ability. His noble qualities inspired their confidence, and commanded their respe6l. Nowhere was grief more unaffe6led and sincere than in the hearts of his political opponents. No more unselfish and pro- found mourners witnessed the sad funeral rites, than those who had honestly opposed his measures; and, indeed, the entire nation, as with a single heart bursting with one universal sense of over- whelming grief, with one wide-spread voice of sorrow, gave vent to a united wail of horror and lament. Mr. Lincoln's public career is well known, and has been of late continually referred to. I need not speak of it. ' With but limited education, through indomitable perseverance and self- reliance, he rose gradually on the ladder of life, from the humblest round to the topmost pinnacle. Strong and clear in intelle6l, he Alfred T. Jones ^ Esq. 261 grasped at the questions of the day with surprising vigor. No fatigue was too great for his iron frame; no labor too much for his indomitable will. Though he may not have possessed the dazzling talents of some of his predecessors, or the courtly man- ners and stately dignity of others, yet he was one of " God's noblest works." What he said, he meant, and on that all could rely. Plain and unassuming in his manner, he was kind, courteous, and affable to all, and full of generous impulses. It was this latter trait in his chara6ler of which his enemies took advantage, and which his friends most feared. No one so humble but that he gave him audience; accessible to all, he seemed indeed to feel that he was in the stead of father to his people. If he had no higher claims upon us, certainly as Israelites we should entertain a high regard for his memory. ^ While many occupying high positions have either ignored our existence, or turned a deaf ear to our claims for protection or redress, his just, kind, and generous nature was never appealed to by us in vain. On every occasion (and he has been several times appealed to) he promptly recognized our claims as a religious body to national prote6lion, and acceded unhesitatingly to all our just demands. So strong and noble a contrast to others did he exhibit in this respe6t, that we should be guilty of gross ingrati- tude not to acknowledge it. On his accession to power, he found the country involved in a formidable and unjustifiable rebellion. Of the cause or condu6t of the war, it is not my purpose to speak. There have been wide differences of opinion agitating the public mind, inseparable from contests of that nature, where those of kindred birth have been arrayed against each other. Bitter words have been uttered and WTitten. While many are disposed to censure him for errors com- mitted, for harsh measures pursued, or extraordinary proceedings 262 Eulogies^ Speeches^ and Letters. instituted, they should refleft on the trying difficulties continually encountered, the existence of unknown and deadly foes in the very heart of the capital; untried men necessarily placed in responsible commands, and, proving incompetent, replaced by others; continued pressure by radical extremists among his poli- tical adherents, and other innumerable perplexities. As events progressed, however, he became better appreciated, because better understood. Gigantic as was his task, he shrank not from it; but, with a firm self-reliance, with determination to pursue the course he deemed a corre6t and righteous one, "with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right," he overcame difficulties apparently insurmountable, and, with un- wavering confidence in the justice of his cause, pursued it unfalteringly to its final triumphant issue. Most great men owe their great renown to opportunity, and times of greatest calamity often serve to develop the greatest minds. It was opportunity which framed and created Abraham Lincoln. Prior to the four eventful years of his presidential term he was comparatively unknown; but, in that short epoch of his y^ existence,. he earned an imperishable fame. Truly do "we live in deeds, not years," for centuries of life could not more indelibly have written his name among the illustrious ones of history. What tongue can explain the mysterious fate which reigns on earth; or why the great Ruler of all, in his inscrutable providence and infinite wisdom, has permitted the accomplishment of the appalling crime which our countr}^ deplores ? " He doeth all things well." No mortal eye can penetrate the tortuous paths of joy and woe through which man's feet must wander, nor fathom the incomprehensible decrees of heaven; so, while we see in our afflidlion nought but dire calamity, we know not what great purpose it is intended to subserve, and which the future may develop. Alfred T. Jones, Esq. 263 Thus far, it has chastened our joy in the hour of triumph. It has caused all loyal men to cease political strife, and devote them- selves to strengthening the hands of Government, and to yielding a firm and united support to his successor; and certainly the time and manner of his death has immortalized the memory of Mr. Lincoln, and on the pages of our history he stands recorded as a patriot and a martyr. Had he died but a few months earlier, after a brief space of mourning the memory of his loss would have passed away to be simply placed on record among the annals of the times. But the crowning a6t of his life had been completed; a war unprecedented in magnitude and withering desolation had been brought to a successful issue : the entire nation stood in admiring gaze at the noble magnanimity of his course towards a defeated and unscrupulous foe, when, on that ever memorable night, the assassin's bullet sped with unerring aim upon its fatal mission. The fourteenth day of April ! Terrible day in the annals of our country. How pregnant with important events to the Ameri- can people is that memorable month! On April 19, 1775, on the fields of Lexington and Concord, the first blood was shed in the War of 'Independence. On the nineteenth day of April, 1783, just eight years afterwards, peace was proclaimed in the American army. On the 14th of April, 1861, Fort Sumter was surrendered to the rebel forces; and five days afterwards the Mas- sachusetts soldiers were inhumanly murdered in the streets of Baltimore. How brightly opened the early days of that eventful month in 1865. Four years of bloody warfare, with its attendant vicissi- tudes and horrors, had passed, when came the joyful tidings of the evacuation of Petersburg; then quickly followed the flight of our enemies from Richmond; next, the unconditional surren- der of the rebel army and its greatest general. 264 Eulogies^ Speeches^ and Letters. What a universal jubilee prevailed throughout the loyal States! Joy sat enthroned on every countenance; each glance shone w^ith expe6lation bright; friend greeted friend with heart- felt w^armth ; political opponents, with united hands, joined in the universal exultation; women wept for joy, and children shouted in exuberant delight. Where'er the eye could reach, the beloved banner of the free floated gaily in the breeze; the bells chimed forth their merry peals, and the blaze of joyous lights, enlivening night's darkened shades, attested a grateful people's joy. Vi6tory, bloodless and complete, bright harbinger of sweet and gentle Peace, announced her welcome coming. Thus was it when the sun sank to rest on the eve of the four- teenth day of April; but on the advent of the following morn how changed the scene! What rumors, gathering sound, fall on the ear! O'er the ele6lric wire, from shore to shore, sped the dread tidings, — our ruler slain! Hushed were the sounds of revelry and mirth; mute was each voice, and tearful every eye; mournfully waved the gay flags in the bright light of day, decked in the sombre emblems of grief; stilled were the pealing chimes, while in their stead the solemn requiem knell fell heavily on the heart. Fell messenger of death! could no presaging sign, no warn- ing voice, announce thy coming? Swift and unforeseen, like the lightning's flash, thou camest when least expe6ted, and threw thy lengthened shade over years to come. Doubtless you all can recolle6l your own sensation at hearing the sad intelligence; but never, while memory retains her seat, can I forgot my own. Little beings that I love ran into my room, their eyes beaming with consternation and concern, exclaiming, " Mr. Lincoln has been killed! " I grasped the paper that they bore, glanced at the fatal words, and, opponent as I was, the unbidden tear would start. I wept to think of the kind-hearted ruler so inhumanly murdered ; wept, that beneath the sacred banner of our country Alfred T. Jones, ^^9\ 265 wretches so vile as these assassins had been born and nurtured* wept when I reflected on the unparalleled crime, and the inefface- able stain infli6led on our nation's fair escutcheon. And, as the day sped on, the multitudes, with awe-struck hearts, thronged the busy streets with saddened mien, as if within each home the destroying angel had set his stamp of woe. Why was his loss thus mourned ? Other precious lives have fallen vi6lims to insatiate war: he was but one of the people, temporarily intrusted with power and authority. True. Many a bright exist- ence has been quenched in the' glow and fulness of its prime. We have lost heroes upon the field of battle; we have mourned when soaring genius died in mid career: but, in the humble spirit that had fled, the hopes of millions were centred. The destinies of the nation were in his keeping: powers never before conferred had been invested in him; and, at the moment of his death, he held within his grasp the mightiest desti- nies man ever controlled. Upon the utterance -of his thoughts and will the Republic's future rested. On him was riveted the nation's gaze as on a radiant and worshipped shrine, watching with fearful anxiety the close of the great work of pacification so auspiciously commenced. He was the typical Father of the Republic, the great head of the nation; and for him, as such, we mourned. No event of this nature that ever occurred on earth has created such intense and wide-spread regret. While our own great nation mourned its illustrious Chief, and ere his remains had reached the sepulchre, all Europe was ele6trified with the sad intelligence. Wonderful and unaffe(5ted were the evidences of _ sympathy and grief wherever Civilization has her home. The masses, the nobles, the monarchs of the world, paid homage to the memory of that honest, humble man. Americans may well be gratified, and feel an honest pride in this great tribute to his 34 < 266 Eulogies, Speeches, and Letters. sterling worth and unpretending virtues, as well as to the impor- tant position our Republic holds among the powers of the earth. No funeral pageant that the world has ever witnessed ap- proached in grandeur that which attended the coffined body of the illustrious dead. Never were such heartfelt honors paid to any potentate. Slowly and sadly was he borne through the heart of this great nation to his final resting-place in the mighty West, amid the silent, tearful homage of millions of his fellow-citizens. Marbled monuments, with grateful inscriptions, may arise; statues of bronze may attest the love of his people to future ages : but the memory of his a6ts, the triumph of his policy, and his cruel death, will raise a monument within the hearts of the present generation that will endure while life or memory shall last. Springing from the people, and raised by his exertions from the humblest station to the > proudest rank on earth, he was a noble representative of true American chara6ter. To his career every American youth should point with admiration. It is our duty to extol the virtues of our great men, and -strive to emulate their good deeds. The clamors of war have ceased: that fell destroying power, to which the lives of thousands have been sacrificed, which has raged over many a verdant plain, and desolated many a happy hearth, has been at length allayed. And now, hail, blessed Peace! Once more unclouded will she shine upon us, as bright and cheering in her rays as the fair orb of day: man will no longer seek to destroy his brother man; nor shall the tender eye of Pity shrink from Victory's crimsoned ban- ners. No longer shall the streets of beleagured cities echo with the cries of pursuers and pursued, nor the azure vault of heaven be illuminated with the glare of peaceful homes fired by the relent- less torch. No longer shall rich harvests, Heaven's noble bounty to ungrateful man, be trampled and destroyed by invading hosts. Alfred T. J ones ^ Esq. ' 267 while gaunt famine and pale distress follow their desolating steps. Hail, blessed Peace! Again will the busy hum of industr}^ be heard over our wide domain; again will the plough of the husband- man glide tranquilly over fields now blasted with the fires of war, while a bright and glorious future dawns upon us. Doubtless within the breast of our martyred President arose many a bright anticipation of tranquil and happy times approach- ing. Guided in all his. a6ls "with malice toward none, with charity to all," no undue exultation over vanquished foes pervaded his kind and noble heart; but it glowed with a quiet joy and Heat^en-dire6led gratitude that his work had nearly ended, and that, beneath his guidance, quiet and happiness was once more about to bless his country. In my address to you, I have confined myself solely to eulo- gizing the memory of Mr. Lincoln. The moral and religious instruction to be gleaned from the various circumstances attend- ing his cruel death have been eloquently dwelt upon on former occasions by our respefted minister, far more ably, and by fitter lips than mine. According to the will of the everlasting King, our President has been taken from this earth. May the great God of Israel have mercy on his soul! may he pardon his iniquities, and keep his good deeds ever in his sight! In the language of our beauti- ful ritual, " May his soul enter the resting-place of the patriarchs ! may our God guide him to the cherubim; and may he be decreed the happiness of paradise! May the repose established in the celestial abode, a forgiveness of trespasses, favor from Him that throneth on high, and a goodly portion in the life to come, be the resting-place and the reward " of Abraham Lincoln ! Philadelphia Inquirer, June 2, 1865. ORATION BY REV. HORATIO STEBBINS: DELIVERED AT SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., APRIL I9, 1865. AFFLICTED PEOPLE ! — In pathetic imagination we have taken up our march, following the dead corpse of our great leader, till at length we are come beneath this prote6ling canopy, reared like a sky above the arts and industries of a great people. Little did we think, when from the vigor of abundant life we extemporized this edifice, and in very play of childhood lifted this dome toward the sky, that it was to give us such shelter, and receive such consecration. Sweeter than the odor of all pleasant fruits, more precious than the wine of the vintage, more beautiful than the work of the cunning artificer, this tender and reverent respe6l, this aroma of a people's tears. Oh temple of peace, in a land of war! open wide thy gates, that the men of the city may weep at thine altars for the sorrow of the land! Our great leader still leads us well; for we keep time, in our march, with the throbs of that precious heart which, though it has ceased to beat in the breast \vhich bore it, still sways the tides within us as the sea sways beneath the stars. It is the quality of all lofty virtue, and distinguished excellence of public administra- tion, to be embodied in principles, sentiments, and convi6lions, which appeal to all men on the broad ground of reason and truth. Rev. Horatio Stebbins. 269 All great and good rulers are the representatives of ideas and principles which lie very near the common heart. The wise and beneficent ruler of a State enters into that humanit}^ over whose life he is called to preside. Men call him theirs by kin- dred tie of universal justice. They say they love him because by happy instinft. They know that the fountains of his soul are in the mountain summits of the same truth with theirs. His life is in some sense the life of mankind, — the personification of the best hopes and the best beliefs of men. When such an one is brought from great elevation, meekly borne for the good of men, to. join the great equality of death, he seems greater to our minds in that equality than in his exaltation; for the powers that made him dear to us then are set free in us, and through our tears we see the setting glories of our love. Among all imposing scenes and events of which the earth is the theatre, the most sublime is a nation in tears, — in tears for a man who represented its principles, and to whom it had confided its noblest trusts. It testifies that there is such a thing as public faith; that there is such a thing as the public good; that there are principles of justice, honor, and truth, which sway all hearts, which are worth living for, and which are worth dying for. It testifies that while good men die, wept and honored, principles have an unending life, pervading humanity, and passing from man to man, from generation to generation, and from age to age; and, while we join to-day the vast procession of a nation's sorrow, we find comfort and consolation in the thought that we stand also in that other procession, whose ever-onward motion is the progress of mankind. We have been obliged to reconcile our minds as best we could to the relentless fa6l that the President is dead, and that he died by the hand of an assassin. At first, the shock was too great to bear. The mind could not admit the fa6l, with all its attendant 270 Eulogies, Speeches, and Letters. appalling circumstances, as a part of its intelligence; but we are so constituted, that whatever is we must confess, and no success- ful defence can be made against the patient persuasions of reason. The death of the President, had it come by divine appointment unmixed with human instrumentality; had he died in his own house, upon his own bed, surrounded by all the charities which bless the last moments of earthly existence, — it could have been received and borne with a certain patience, and equanimity of mortal anguish. We could have said, " Death has all privilege, and the freedom of the earthly realm." But when the shock of this dark wickedness is over, and the mind assumes its serenity once more; looks out upon the world of thought and life; thinks, compares, reasons, and judges, — the first intelligent impression it receives from refle6tion is a sudden sur- prise at its own former shock and wonder. Why should the assassination of the President fill us with astonishment and dis- may? If I am told that it is the appalling crime at which the blood congeals, I reply, that it is of the same nature with that power against which we contend, every throb of whose life is a crime against mankind. The assassin is the finest, the intensest expression of organized barbaric passions. Defeated in princi- ples, and compelled to retreat before the smallest ray of truth, he lets loose his insane rage upon persons. Never did assassin's blow strike so noble a head; yet never did assassin's blow fall so helpless. What crime has not the rebel power committed? It would seem, from the shock to our sensibilities, that we were not aroused to the enormity of that wickedness until we had seen it displayed in all its infernal intensity of malignant passions. The plot to murder the President — whether it be intrigue and conspiracy of individuals, or whether it be the design of the rebel powers — is of the same quality as the rebellion itself, and has its roots there. The assassin carried the same fire that first flashed Rev. Horatio Stebbijts. 271 the lurid glare of war upon the sky at Sumter, and the same perfidy in his breast, with Davis and Floyd and Breckinridge. The import and meaning of the assassination are not any qualifi- cation of the death of the President, — not any new element of embarrassment in the fun6lions of government; but it is the strong flash of light which it throws into the sunless caverns of perfidy and wrong in the powers against which we contend. Did we need such an admonition? I will not forestall Providence by saying that we did not. Of one thing I am sure: the philosophic historian will record with pungent moral satire the insensibility of the American people to the deep wrongs of human slavery. He will record too, that, after years of devastating war, there were still some of moral dulness so great, and political sagacity so short-sighted, that it required the blood of the President, drawn by the hand of a hired assassin, hired by the power with which they would strike hands, to rouse them to the awful realities of outraged laws, and to feel the presence of events such as inaugu- rate new eras. Men are mightier in their death than in their life when they die exponents of principles that live for ever. If it is true that nations have no immortality, it is for the same reason that the human body has none. Its forms are too gross to sustain that exalted intelle6lual and moral life. But they are the theatre for the display of all that is human; and nothing human ever dies. They are a part of an almighty and benignant purpose for the education of man; and whatever mingles in that stream is perpet- ual. Our intelligence refers this universe to the government of a Power all-mighty, all-wise, and all-good. Our religious faith rests in that, by moral instin6ls as natural as those which lead a child to cling to its mother; and we are not permitted to believe that any wild and random power of evil is let loose upon the earth. The assassin is the most malignant and hideous form of 272 Eulogies^ Speeches^ and Letters. human passions; and, as he sele6ls his vi6tim by the caprice of bad powers, it seems that his success is the triumph of unmiti- gated evil. But that dagger may point in the dark to principles that men have imperfe6lly comprehended, and bring out clearer still the latent meaning of ideas and events, as night reveals the upper deep of stars and space. The President, for himself, indeed, is not unfortunate in his death; though we cannot in imagination look on that dear heart, drooping and heavy under the blow of the assassin, without a shock to our sensibilities. If we contemplate him in that event which comes alike to all, we must indeed feel that his was a singular felicity, by which he was enabled to win a place as preserver of States, and benefa6tor of mankind, not less than to make himself secure in the hearts of his country-men. We should indeed have wished that he might have lived to see the Republic once more united and happy; and at length, returning as an American citizen to the place frorn whence* the people called him, he might have passed the mellow autumn days in the ripen- ing glory of the people's love. But since, in the inscrutable providence of God, he was to be taken from our sight on swift chariot of fire and blood, let us lift up our minds to him as he sits among the immortals, victorious over the pains of death, and powers of hell; and from that throne, exceeding high and lifted up, let him still sway the empire of our loyal hearts. Concerning our country, let us be as strong men, who beneatb their tears can hide the thunders of an unconquered will, and the consecrated powers of justice and truth. We have new cause of gratitude in the principles of our Government, that they are not an arbitrary enactment, but live in the people's love. Let us gird on our armor, and, following the lead of our immortal President, " if God wills that the war continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen in two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil Rev. Horatio Stebbins. 273 shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago," — so let us say, that " the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." Steamer Bulletin, Sa/i Francisco, Cal., A/iril 22, 1S65. 35 SPEECH OF REV. JOSEPH P. THOMPSON, D.D.: AT THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB, UNION SQUARE, NEW YORK, APRIL 15, 1S65. T HAD thought that we had already derived from this war all ^ the lessons that it was designed to teach, whether by its dis- cipline of suffering and sacrifice, or its fruits of triumph and rejoicing, — lessons of humiliation, lessons of patience, lessons of endurance, lessons of courage, lessons of faith, of hope, of beneficence, and lessons of ever-growing confidence in our Gov- ernment and in Almighty God. But it seems that that voice and holy Providence which has guided us at every step of the war had yet other lessons for the nation, the necessity and the fitness of which we recognize to-day. First, amid the rejoicings of vic- tory, and the feelings of magnanimity and forbearance called forth by the humiliation of the enemy, there was needed one final reve- lation of the atrocity of this treason, at which the nation and the civilized world should stand aghast. From first to last this conspi- racy has been one stupendous crime, without plea, of ignorance or of provocation, and without a shadow of justifying motive; but it was left for its expiring hours to unveil to us the horrible depths of its atrocity. For, whatever the motive or impulse of the assas- sins, they represent the spirit of the conspiracy. Vanquished in the field, its pretence of a government overthrown, its military power broken, its political leaders fugitive, its finances scattered to the winds, it comes with stealthy tread into the scenes of socia Rev. Joseph P. Thompson, D.D. .275 festivity, and from behind drives the bullet of the assassin through the head of the mildest, gentlest of men, as he sits beside his wife in a circle of friends; and then, with an infamy yet more horrible, it invades the sacred chamber of sickness, the awful sanftity of impending death, and there butchers a feeble, maimed old man, upon his bed. It is the monster crime of history. Yet it was needful that this conspiracy should thus reveal itself for the final, righteous condemnation of the civilized world. Henceforth all nations will know with what we have have been dealing in these four weary and terrible years. The nation needed another lesson of unity, which could be learned only through a great sympathetic sorrow. We bow to-day before the majesty of sorrow, and feel that we are one. We have felt the spontaneous thrill of patriotism, when the vast area in front of this building was thronged with citizens outraged F at the fall of Sumter. We have felt the sympathetic throb of common dangers, and have been pressed together by our perils and our fears. And w^e have felt also the thrill of exultation, and the community of joy. But nothing so fuses and welds human souls together as participation in some great sorrow. Henceforth our souls are one. Even the tone of opposition journals has been melted to-day into the pathos of this mighty grief Henceforth this nation is fused into one, in the crucible of calamity, and is cemented by the blood of its Head. A third lesson impressed upon us to-day is the imperishable vitality of Government, and the grandeur of our Constitution under all emergencies. We have seen it tested in conflia with foreign powers ; we have seen it tested by the fearful strain of civil war, and by the scarce less anxious trial of a presidential eleaion in the midst of war, — and it has stood. And now, under this severest shock, — a shock that might shatter a kingdom or an empire into chaos, — it still stands. 276 Eulogies^ Speeches, mid Letters. That mysterious, invisible, impalpable entity, we call the State, — that intangible something, that we call Government, stands forth to-day in awful reality. The sovereignty of the people lifts its next representative into the just-vacant chair. The State moves on, without pause at the nation's grief, — without concussion from the blow that struck down the nation's Head. The bullet and knife of the assassin did not touch its vitality. The life of the Constitution was not endangered. The State moves calmly, steadily onward, with no jar in any of its fun6lions. It seems to me that the statue of Liberty which crowns the dome of the Capitol, — that worthy and typical memorial of Abraham Lincoln's administration, — looking calmly down upon the august presence of death, beckoned to the State beyond, saying, " Let the dead bury their dead: follow thou me." And the State moved on, and will move on, in the line of freedom and of justice, unshaken for ever. Such are the dire6t teachings of this providence. The time, the men, the manner, all conspired to make these lessons most impressive. The time: just when the power of the conspiracy was broken; just when Abraham Lincoln's policy and fame had rounded into fulness; just when there was no furthur hope from organized resistance to the Government, — came this wanton cruelty of revenge. The men: the two men in all this nation whose personal tone and spirit were least obnoxious to the rebels, whose forbearance and mildness were stretched to the utmost limits of our charity, < — these are the men thus butchered for sustaining Government and law. The manner: had the President fallen by the bullet of a marksman when he was at the front, or by the dagger of an assassin at Richmond, our grief at his loss Rev. yoseph P. Tko?npson, D.D. 277 would have been mingled with regret for the needless exposure. But this crime, perpetrated in a place presumed to be safe from violence, and at an hour devoted to festivity, and repeated at the bed of death, makes these lessons stand out before us in chara6ters of blood. This is not the time for eulogy of the illustrious men whose names are blended in this sorrow. For Mr. Seward, I shall not anticipate the tribute of history. He himself has anticipated its verdi6t in his speeches in the great debates on slavery, in the Senate. In one of these he gives this as the rule adopted for the government of this conduft: — "Let thj scope Be one fixed mind for all : thy rights approve To thy own conscience, gradually renewed : Learn to make Time the father of wise Hope ; Then trust thy cause to the arm of Fortitude, The light of Knowledge, and the warmth of Love." And, in a speech against the iniquity of fastening slavery upon Kansas, you remember that, forecasting a period- of fifty, of one hundred, of two hundred years, he summoned before him the millions who would be affefted by the a6tion of that hour. " I shall not meet them," he said, "here on the earth; but I shall meet them all on that day when I shall give up the final account of that stewardship which my country has confided to me." Then, enu- merating the various considerations arising from his early patri- otic and Christian training, his study of history, his political observation and experience, he added, " If I were now to consent to such an a6t, I should be obliged, when that last day shall come to me, to call upon the rocks and the mountains to fall upon me, and crush me and my name, detested then by myself^ into endless oblivion." Then, in the name of the Constitution, of justice, and of humanity, protesting against the crime, he took his solemn 278 Eulogies^ Speeches^ and Letters. appeal to the great Searcher of hearts; and there we may safely leave him as he hangs trembling on the verge of eternity. Of the chara6ler and virtues of the President, it is not necessary that I should speak. We had learned to lean upon his judgment as we had always leaned upon his integrity; to confide in his sagacity as a statesman, no less than in his honesty as a patriot. His kindliness and gentleness of heart, his candor and magna- nimity, had commanded the respeft even of his enemies, and all had come to confess him wise and prudent, where once they had thought him slow and timid. Firmness he had when firmness was needed; and it may be said of him, as Motley has so finely said of his great prototype, William of Orange, " whether origin- ally of a timid temperament or not, he was certainly possessed of perfect courage at last: he went through life, bearing the load of a people's sorrows upon his shoulders, with a smiling face." . That cheerful heart sustained him under burdens and trials hitherto unknown in our history; and we can add no higher eulogy than the story of the good Prince of the Netherlands, that repeats itself to-day: "As long as he lived he was the guiding- '^ star of a whole brave nation; and, when he died, the little children cried in the streets." Above all, his was the strength of religious faith. Abraham Lincoln read the word of God for his daily guidance, and was not ashamed to have it known that he was a man of prayer. That solemn, almost prophetic, utterance of his at his inaugura- tion, so puzzling to mere politicians, will stand in history as the grand testimony of a true, human soul. There was but one thing more that Abraham Lincoln could do, — not for himself but for us, — that he should lay down his life for the country whose Union and freedom had become the very essence of that life. By that sacrifice the redemption of the nation is hallowed, is perfe6ted, is sure. Rev. yoseph P. Thompson. D.D. 279 I return for a moment to the historic parallel just cited. Wil- liam of Orange was assassinated in the quietude of his own home, and just as he " had established the emancipated Commonwealth upon a secure foundation. But here the parallel fails : the death of William frustrated the just-approaching union of all the Neth- erlands; but the restored unity of these United States, which Abraham Lincoln had almost accomplished, is made, if possible, more certain by his death. Through the gloom of this morning, there flashed upon me an almost instantaneous ray of light, reveal- ing the possible purpose of divine Providence in this event. We had reached a moment more critical even, more thickly set with perils, than were the doubtful issues of the battle-field. The political aspe6l of Virginia foreshadowed serious complications; and there was danger that the very virtues of the President would be so circumvented and abused that the authors of this conspi- racy would go "unwhipped of justice." God meant not so; and, therefore, when he had led Abraham Lincoln up to the full height of his sublime, immortal mission, he took him to himself And now, from the thick cloud that drapes his body, there reaches forth the red right arm, not of vengeance, but of justice. For justice there must be, if the nation is to live in peace. This rebellion drew its life from these two roots, — pride of social caste, and lust of political domination, — both springing from the great tap-root, slavery. We must exterminate these, every fibre of them, from our soil. The perpetual alienation of the estates of the conspirators, the perpetual disfranchisement of the conspirators themselves, cutting them up root and branch, is indispensable to the peace, yes, to the life, of the nation. And for that work of inexorable justice we have a man who hates the rebellion and hates slavery with a perfea hatred; who has had that hatred burnt into his soul; who himself has been hunted by assassins; who knows the rebel leaders, their crime, and their cunning, and 28o Eulogies^ Speeches^ and Letters. who will not be balked of justice by their devices. At Nashville I was shown the estates of two rebels, one of whom offered the Confederacy a site for its Capitol, the other gave \\. fifty thousand dollars, and offered to mortgage his property for its support; and both these had sneaked back under the amnesty proclamation. Andrew Johnson knows such men, and their perjury. With nothing vindi6tive in our spirit, we must save the masses of the South itself by annihilatmg the slave oligarchy. I am happy to say here, that, on careful inquiry at competent sources, I believe that the infirmity which so distressed us a few weeks ago was not the indication of a habit, but the fault of an hour. Let us rally with a generous confidence about the new President, strengthening him, not only against his enemies and ours, but, if need be, against himself. Less than a year ago, I expressed to 'Andrew Johnson, in his own home, the gratitude of a Northern man for the sacrifices he had made for the country. " Sir," said he, " there have been hours in this dark and terrible struggle when nothing sustained me but faith. I had seen my property seized, my friends scattered, my life in jeopardy, my State in chaos; reason failed me, experience failed me, and I should have given over in despair had I not believed that some- where in the universe there is a right, and that behind it there is a God who will maintain it." That God, I doubt not, will main- tain Andrew Johnson in the path of rectitude. Let none of us be wanting in fidelity. Friends, it is night, — a dark and dreary night; a fit close of such a day of gloom. The clouds drop sympathetic tears. But to-mor- row comes the morning of the resurrection; and, even now, I see Him who is the resurre6tion and the life summoning this nation to a higher and a holier life, for our salvation and to his glory. SPEECH OF HON. CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS AT A MEETING OF AMERICANS HELD IN LONDON, MAY I. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, — I have been desired to call you together, for the sake of giving some common form of'expression to our emotions, stirred up as they have been by the late fearful calamity. In presence of such an awful event, we are forcibly impressed, not merely with the commonplace idea of mortal vicissitude, but with the more solemn duty of keeping ourselves wholly free from the indulgence of any unworthy pas- sion. The ordinary jars of human life are hushed before such a catastrophe. A great Virginian statesman once said, that " he trembled for his country when he refle6led that God is just." The dreaded visitation appears to have come upon us in the third and fourth generation. Let us endeavor to bear ourselves with pa- tience and humility. But, whilst acknowledging our shortcom- ings, let us draw closer and closer together, whilst we unite in one earnest wail of sorrow for* our loss; for I may be permitted to observe that, in this loss, the bereavement is wholly our own. We are entirely to bear the responsibility of it. The man who has fallen was immolated for no a6l of his own. It may well be doubted whether, during his whole career, he ever made a single personal enemy. In this peculiarity he shone prominent among statesmen. No: he who perpetrated the crime had no narrow 36 282 Eulogies^ Speeches, aiid Lcttcis. purpose. It was because Abraham Lincoln was a faithful expo- nent of the sentiments of a whole people that he was stricken down. The blow that was aimed at him was meant to fall on them. The ball that penefa-ated his brain was addressed to the heart of each and every one of us. It was a fancied short way of paralyzing the Government which Ave have striven so hard to maintain. It was. then, for our cause that Abraham Lincoln died, and not his own. If he was called a tyrant, who was ele- vated to his high post by the spontaneous voices of a gi-eater number of men than had ever been given in any republic before, it was only because he was obeying the wishes of those who elected him. It is we who must stand responsible for his deeds. It is he who has paid the penalty for executing our will. Surely, then, this is the strongest of reasons why all of us should join, as with one voice, in a chorus of lamentation for his fall. It was one of the peculiar merits of Mr. Lincoln, that he knew how to give shape in action to the popular feelings as they developed themselves under his observation. He never sought to lead, but rather to follow; and thus he succeeded in the difficult task of successfully combining conservatism with progress. This, surely, was not like tyranny. His labor was always to improve. Hence it was that he conducted a war of unexampled magnitude, alwavs bearing in mind the primary purpose for which it had been com- menced, at the same time that he associated with it broader ones as the opportunity came. He had pledged himself, at the outset, to accomplish certain objects; and he never forgot that pledge. The time had at last arrived when he might honestly claim that it would be fulfilled. It was in that very moment he was taken away. On the very same day of the year when the national flag, which just four years before had been lowered to triumphant ene- mies at Fort Sumter, was once more lifted to its original position by the hand of the same officer who had suffered the indio^nitv Hon. Charles Francis Adams. 283 that commenced the war, Abraham Lincoln fell. His euthanasia is complete. For him we ought not to mourn. His work was done; he had fought the good tight; he had finished his course. The orief is all for ourselves alone. And now, we who stand around his body may well cry, " Go up, go up, with your gory temples twined with the evergreen symbols of a patriot's wreath, and bearing the double glory of a martyr's crown. Go up, whilst for us here remaining on earth your memory shall be garnered in the hearts of us and our latest posterity, in common with the priceless treasures heaped up by the great fathers of the Republic, and close by that of the matchless Washington.'' But although we profoundly lament this loss, it must not be presumed that we do so as having no hope. We have parted with a most faithful servant. But the nation has not lost with him one atom of the will which animated others of its servants as fully as it did him. It is one of the notable features of this great struggle, that it is not particular men who have attempted to lead on the people, but rather that the people have first given the tone, to the level of which their servants must come up, or else sink out of sight and be forgotten. They have uniformly designated to them their wishes. To one man they have said, " Come up," and to another, " Give way,'' and in either case they have been as implicitly obeyed. Whoever it be that is employed, the spirit that must animate him comes from a higher source. The cause of the country, then, does not depend on any man or any set of men. It has now called to the front the individual whom it had already elevated to the second post in the Government. He had been pointed out for that place by a sense of his approved fidelity to the Union, at the moment when all around him were faltering or falling away. In the national Senate he stood, Abdiel like, firm and determined, in encountering with truth and force the fatal sophistry of Jefferson Davis and his associates, and in denouncing 284 Eulogies^ Speeches^ and Letters. the course of action which was leading them to their ruin. Four years af intense and continued trials within the borders of his own State have been passed in the effort to reconstruct the edifice of civil government, which they had overthrown. No one has braved greater dangers to his person, and to all that was held most precious to a man in this world, than he. Those four years have not been passed without at once proving the firmness of his faith, and the progressive nature of his ideas. He, too, has been susceptible to the influence of the national opinion. He, too, has gradually been brought to the convi6tion, that slavery, which he once defended, has been our bane, and the cause of all our woe. And he, too, will follow his predecessor in making the recognition of the principle of human liberty the chief pathway to restoration. Maybe, that he will color his policy with a little more of the sternness gathered from the severity of his own trials. He may give a greater prominence to the image of Justice than to that of Mercy, in dealing with notorious offenders. But, if he do, to whom is this change to be imputed? Lincoln leaned to mercy, — and he was taken off. Johnson has not promoted him- self The magician who worked this change is the enemy him- self It would seem almost as if it were the will of Heaven, which has interposed the possibility of this marvellous retribution. Yet, even if we make proper allowances for this difference, the great fa6t remains clear, that Andrew Johnson, like his predeces- sor, will exert himself to the utmost of his power fully to re- establish in peace and harmony the beneficent system of govern- ment which he has already hazarded so much to sustain. And should it happen that he too — which Heaven avert! — should by some evil design be removed from the post now assigned to him, the effe6t would only be that the next man in the succession pre- scribed by the public law, and inspired from the same common source, will be summoned to take his place. And so it would go Hon. Charles Francis Adams. 285 on, if need be, in a line, like that in Macbeth's vision, " stretching out to the crack of doom." The Republic has but to command 'the services of any of her children, and, w^hether to meet open danger in the field, or the perils of the more crafty and desperate assassin, experience shows them equally ready to obey her call. So long as the heroic spirit animates her frame, the requisite agents will not fail to execute her will. Any attempt to paralyze her by striking down more or less of them will only end, as every preceding design to injure her has ended, in disappointment and bitter despair. Let us, then, casting aside all needless apprehen- sions for the policy of our land, now concentrate our thoughts for the moment upon the magnitude of the offence which has de- prived us of our beloved Chief in the very moment of most inter- est to our cause; and let us draw together as one man in the tribute of our admiration of one of the purest, the most single- minded and noble-hearted, patriots that ever ruled over the people of any land. London Daily News, May 2, 1865. SPEECH OF BENJAMIN DISRAELI IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, LONDON, MAY I, 1865. SIR, — There are rare instances when the sympathy of a nation approaches those tenderer feelings that, generally speaking, are supposed to be peculiar to the individual, and to form the happy privilege of private life; and I think this is one of them. Under all circumstances, we should have bewailed the catastrophe at Washington; under all circumstances, we should have shud- dered at the means by which it was accomplished. But in the chara6ter of the vi6lim, and in the very accessories of his almost latest moments, there is something so homely and so innocent that it takes the subject, as it were, out of the pomp of history, and out of the ceremonial of diplomacy. It touches the heart of nations, and appeals to the domestic sentiments of mankind. Sir, — Whatever may be the various and var3nng opinions of this House, and the country generally, of the policy of the late President of the United States, of this, I think, all must be agreed, that in a trial which, perhaps more than any other, tested the moral quality of the man, he performed his duty with simplicity and strength. Nor is it possible for the people of England to forget at this moment, that he sprang from the same fatherland, and spoke the same mother-tongue. When crimes of this char- after are perpetrated, the public mind is apt to fall into gloom and perplexit}'^ ; and that has arisen because it is as ignorant of the Benjamin Disraeli. 287 causes as it is of the consequences of such an aft. But it is our part, I think, to re-assure them under any unreasoning panic or despondency. Assassination has never changed the history of the world. I will not refer to instances of remote antiquity, although an accident has made the most memorable example of those times familiar at this moment to the mind and memory of most gentlemen present. Even the costly sacrifice of a Caesar did not propitiate the inevitable destiny of his country. But in more modern times, with whose feelings we are more familiar, men were animated and influenced by the same interests as our- selves. The violent deaths of two heroic men, Henry IV. of France, and the Prince of Orange, are conspicuous illustrations of this great truth. Therefore, at this moment, while I second the address to the Crown, and express upon my own part, and, I hope, on the part of every member of the House, feelings of un- afte6led and profound sympathy with the citizens of the United States at the untimely end of their elefted Chief, I would not sanc- tion any sentiment of depression. I would rather take this oppor- tunity of expressing my fervent hope, that from these awful years of trial the various populations of North America may come out elevated, chastened, rich in that accumulative wisdom, and strong in that disciplined energy, which a young nation can only acquire in a protraaed and perilous struggle. Then will be open to them again, not merely the same course of power and prosperity which they have heretofore pursued, but they will pursue that course of power and prosperity for the general happiness of mankind. It is with these feelings. Sir, that I now second the address to the Crown. Loudon Dai'lv Nczva, May 2, 1865. SPEECH OF SIR GEORGE GREY: IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, LONDON, MAY I, 1865. I VERY much regret that in the unavoidable absence of my noble friend at the head of the Government, in w^hose name notice was given of a motion for an address to the Crown, to express the sorrow and indignation of this House at the assassina- tion of the President of the United States, and to pray Her Ma- jesty to communicate their sentiments on the part of the House of Commons to the Government of the United States, — I very much regret that it has devolved upon me to move this address. I feel, however, that it is comparatively unimportant by whom the mo- tion is made, because I am confident that this address to the Crown, to which I am about to ask the House to agree, is one that will meet with its cordial and unanimous assent. When the news, a few days ago, of the assassination of the President of the United States, and, I hope, I may now say, of the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Mr. Seward, reached this country, the first impression was that the intelligence could not be true. It was hoped by every one, that no one could be found capable of com- mitting a crime of so atrocious a nature; but when the truth was forced upon us, when we could no longer entertain any doubt of the fa6ls of the case, the feeling that succeeded was one of deep and universal sorrow, horror, and indignation. We felt as if some" great calamity had befallen ourselves. In the civil war, the ex- Sir George Grey. 289 istence and long continuance of which we so sincerely deplore, it is well known that the Government of this country, aaing, as I believe, in accordance with the almost unanimous — or I may say the unanimous — feeling of the country, has maintained a strift and impartial neutrality. But, Sir, it was notorious, — and it could not in a great community like this be otherwise, — that dif- ferent opinions have been entertained by different persons with reo-ard to the question at issue between the Northern and the Southern States of America. And, while I believe that the sym- pathy of the majority of this country has been with the North, I wish to avoid any thing likely to excite dissent; therefore, while I say that different opinions have been entertained, and different sympathies felt, and in this free country the freest expression has been, as it ought to be, given to those sympathies and opinions, I am sure I shall not excite any difference of opinion when I add, that, in the presence of the great crime which has sent a thrill of horror through all who heard of it, those differences of opin- ion and those confliaing sentiments have been suppressed. I entertain the strongest confidence, that it will be regarded by every man of position in the Southern States with the same de- gree of horror as it has been in other parts of the world. What- ever our opinions may be with respea to the past, whatever may have been our sympathies, we should all cordially unite in ex- pressing our abhorrence of this crime, and in tendering our sym- pathy to the nation which is now mourning the loss of its chosen and trusted Chief, struck down by the hand of an assassin at a most critical period of its history. While deploring the war, while lamenting the loss of life which has been its inevitable con- sequence, it is impossible, whatever our sympathies may have been, to withhold our admiration of the many gallant deeds which have'been performed, — those aas of heroism which have been displayed by both parties in that contest. And it is a matter of 37 290 Eulogies, Speeches, and Letter's. bitter refle6lion, that the page of history which will record those gallant achievements — the deeds of men who have shed their blood and laid down their lives — should be stained by the record of a crime such as we are now deploring. A new era seemed at hand; the time had come when there was reason to hope that the war might speedily be brought to a close. Victory had crowned the efforts of the statesmen and of the armies of the Federals; and all of us entertained a feelino- of relief on being: able to turn from the records of so sanguinary a contest to the correspondence which had recently passed between the generals commanding the hostile armies. I know that Mr. Lincoln, as President of the United States, warranted the hope, I may say expe6tation, — and I have reason to believe, that that expe6lation would not have been disappointed, — that in the hour of vi6lory, and in the triumph of vi6lory, he would have shown that wise forbearance, and that generous consideration, which would have added tenfold lustre to the fame that he had already acquired, amidst the varying fortunes of the war. Unhappily we have not had the opportunity of real- izing those expectations. But let us hope that the good sense and right feeling of those upon whom the discharge of those ardu- ous and difficult duties in this conjuncture of affairs has devolved will, in addition to their sense of respe6f and veneration, lead them to a6l in the same spirit, and follow the same counsels which, we have good reason to believe, would have guided the conduct of Mr. Lincoln, had he been left to complete the work which he had begun. Sir, — I believe I am expressing the general opinion when I sa}^, that nothing could give greater satisfaction to this country than to see, by firmness mixed with conciliation, the union of the North and the South again accomplished; especially if it can be accomplished by common consent, and free from that which has been the weakness of all nations, — the curse and disgrace of slavery. Sir George Grey. 291 Sir, — I wish it were possible for us to convey to the people of the United States an adequate idea of the depth and univer- sality of the feeling which this sad event has occasioned in this country. From the highest to the lowest there has been but one feeling entertained. Her Majesty's Minister at Washington will, in obedience to the Queen's commands, convey to the Govern- ment of the United States an expression of the feelings of Her Majesty, and of Her Majesty's Government, on this deplorable event. And Her Majesty, with that tender consideration which she has always evinced for the sorrows and sufferings of others, in whatever rank and station, has, with her own hand, written a letter to Mrs. Lincoln, conveying the heartfelt sympathy of a widow to a widow, suffering from an overwhelming calamity that has so suddenly come upon her. From every part of this coun- try, and from every class of the community, one voice is now raised, — a voice of abhorrence at the crime, and of sympathy and interest in that countr}^ which has this great loss to mourn. The British residents in the United States have met, as may have been expected, to express their feelings against the crime commit- ted; and we read that our British North-American Colonies are vieing with each other to give expression to the same sentiments of sympathy. And not only is it from men of that race which is connected with the inhabitants of the United States by the tie of origin, language, and blood, that a feeling of this kind arises; but I believe that every country in Europe is giving expression to the same sentiments, and sending them to the Government of the United States. But I am sure, therefore, I am not wrong in an- ticipating, that this House, in the name of the people of England, of the people of Scotland, and of the people of Ireland, will be anxious to record its expression of the same sentiments and feel- ings to the Government of the United States. Of this I am con- fident, that this House could never more fully and never more 292 Eulogies, Speeches, and Letters. adequately represent the feelings of the people of this United Kingdom than by agreeing to the address which it is now, Sir, my duty to move, expressing to Her Majesty our sorrow and indigna- tion at the assassination of the President of the United States, and praying Her Majesty, in conveying her own sentiments to the Government of that country upon this deplorable event, that she will express at the same time upon the part of this House their abhorrence of the crime, and their sympathy with the Govern- ment and the people of the United States, in the deep affliction into which they have been plunged. I^ondon Daily News, May 2, 1S65. LETTER FROM JOHN STUART MILL; TO A FRIEND IN PHILADELPHIA, PA. Avignon, May 13, 1865. DEAR SIR. — I had scarcely received your note of April 8, so full of calm joy in the splendid prospe6l now opening to your country, and through it to the world, when the news came that an atrocious crime had struck down the great citizen who had afforded so noble an example of the qualities befitting the first magistrate of a free people, and who, in the most trying circum- stances, had graduall}^ won, not only the admiration, but almost the personal affe6tion of all who love freedom or appreciate simplicity and uprightness. But the loss is ours, not his. It was impossible to have wished him a better end, than to add the crown of martyrdom to his other honors, and to live in the memory of a great nation as those only live who have not only labored for their country, but died for it. And he did live to see the cause tri-- umphant, and the contest virtually over. How different would our feelings now be if this fate had overtaken him, as it might so easily have done, a month sooner! In England, horror of the crime, and sympathy with your loss, seem to be almost universal, even among those who have dis- graced their country by wishing success to the slaveholders. I hope the manifestations which were instantaneously made there 294 Eulogies, Speeches, and Letters. in almost every quarter may be received in America as some kind of atonement, or peace offering. I have never believed that there was any real danger of a quarrel between the two countries; but it is of immense importance that we should be firm friends: and this is our natural state; for, though there is a portion of the higher and middle classes of Great Britain who so dread and hate democracy that they cannot wish prosperity and power to a democratic people, I sincerel}" believe that this feeling is not general, even in our privileged classes. INIost of the dislike and suspicion which have existed towards the United States were the effe6t of pure ignorance, — ignorance of your histor}^, and igno- rance of your feeling and disposition as a people. It is difficult for you to believe that this ignorance could be as dense as it really was. But the late events have begun to dissipate it; and, if 3'our Government and people a6t as I fully believe they will in regard to the important questions which now await them, there will be no fear of their being ever again so grossly misunderstood, at least in the lives of the present generation. As to the mode of dealing with these great questions, it does not become a foreigner to advise those who know the exigencies of the case so much better than he does. But as so many of my countrymen are volunteering advice to 3'ou at this crisis, perhaps I ma}' be forgiven if I offer mine the contrary way. Every one is eagerl}^ inculcating gentleness, and only gentleness, as if 3'ou ' had shown any signs of a disposition to take a savage revenge. I have alwavs been afraid of one thing only, — that }'ou Avould be too gentle. I should be sorry to see an}' life taken after the war is over (except those of the assassins), or any evil inflifted in mere vengeance; but one thing I hope will be considered absolutely ne- cessary, — to break altogether the power of the sl^veholding caste. Unless this is done, the abolition of slavery will be merely nominal. If an aristocracy of ex-slaveholders remain masters of the State John Stuart Mill. 295 Legislatures, they will be able effe6lually to nullify a great part of the result which has been so dearly bought by the blood of the Free States. They and their dependants must be effectually out- numbered at the polling places; which can only be effe6led by the concession of full equality of political rights to negroes, and by a large immigration of settlers from the North: both of them being made independent by the ownership of land. With these things, in addition to the Constitutional Amendment (which will enable the Supreme Court to set aside any State legislation tend- ing to bring back slavery in disguise), the cause of freedom is safe, and the opening words of the Declaration of Independence will cease to be a reproach to the nation founded by its authors. I am, dear sir, yours very truly, J. S. MILL. RESOLUTION OF HON. F. H. MORSE, UNITED-STATES CONSUL FOR LONDON : AT A MEETING OF AMERICANS, HELD IN THAT CITY, MAY I, 1 865. THAT we have heard with the greatest indignation, and the most profound sorrow, of the assassination which has deprived our country of its beloved Chief Magistrate, as well as of the murderous assault which has greatly perilled the lives of the Secretary and Assistant-Secretary of State; and that we regard the taking of the life of our chief executive officer, while our country is passing through unparalleled trials, after all loyal Americans had learned to love him, and all good men the world over to confide in him, and when so much of national and individual welfare and happiness depended on his exist- ence, as the great crime of the nineteenth century, memorable in its atrocity, and entailing on its perpetrators the execration of mankind.'' He denounced the assassination in terms of ap- propriate indignation, and paid a warm tribute to the memory of President Lincoln, who, he said, had fought not only for the maintenance of the Union, but had struggled wisely and success- fully to wipe out the one black stain from his country's banner, slavery. He worked the point little by little, until he had brought the country up to a state of feeling which had resulted in the pro- hibition of slavery throughout the length and breadth of the American land. And it was after the war was virtuall}^ over, when Richmond had capitulated, and the surrender of the gener- alissimo of the South, with the elite of the rebel army, and when Hon. F. H. Morse. 2<^'] Abraham Lincoln was engaged in the work of reconstru6lion, — the first step in which he had so successfully carried, — that he was stricken down by the hands of the assassin. But the princi- ples of Mr. Lincoln as the successful champion had not died with him. They would be carried out by his successor. He (Mr. Morse) had long been intimately acquainted with Andrew John- son, and could, from personal knowledge, refute the calumnies which had gone forth against his chara6ler. Twenty years ago, he entered the Congress of the United States, a young man, with Andrew Johnson, then a representative for Tennessee. That was in 1844. He sat upon a committee with Andrew Johnson for two years, meeting three or four times a week; and subsequently, during three or four years, he had a6led with him up to the year 1 86 1, and all that time he never heard one word whispered against his fair fame. He had seen him day by day, and knew him well, and could safely assert, that the charge of habitual in- temperance against him was one of the vilest and most unfounded slanders that had ever been cast on man. There was no need of the slightest mistrust in that noble-minded man, who had thus, by the force of his chara6ter and of his talents, raised himself from the lowest ranks of the people up to the highest position in the nation. His antecedents were a sufficient guarantee for his future condu(?t:. If ever the hand of Providence had been seen in guiding a nation in its great trials, it was in the events which had marked the history of America during the last four years; and they might rest assured that that divine Hand would not fail them now, — that it would not place at the head of the Government a man to undo all that had been done. It was the will of Heaven to deprive them of their beloved and well-tried chief magistrate, and to appoint another to carry out the good work which he had so successfully commenced; it was their duty to bow to that will in all humility and in all confidence. 38 SPEECH OF LORD JOHN RUSSELL: THE HOUSE OF LORDS, LONDON, MAY I. l86c;. MY LORDS, — I rise to ask Your Lordships to address Her Majesty, pra^'ing Her Majesty, that, in any communication she may be pleased to make, expressing her abhorrence of the great crime which has been committed in America by the assas- sination of President Lincohi, Her Majesty may at the same time be pleased to express the sorrow and indignation felt by us at the great crime which has recently been committed. My Lords, — Her Majesty has already dire6ted me to express to the Government of the United States the shock which she felt when the intelligence reached this country of this great crime, and also of her sympathy with the Government and people of the United States. Her Majest}^ also has been pleased to write a private letter to INIrs. Lincoln, expressing her sympathy with her on her great and sud- den bereavement. I think Your Lordships will agree with me in saying, that in modern times there has hardly been any crime of so horrible a chara6ter committed. President Lincoln had been legally elected President of that great Republic; and, after the secession of a part of the States, he was re-ele6led President by the large majorit}^ of those States which remained faithful. He bore his honors meekly; and he was in the discharge of his func- tions at the very moment when the assassin attacked him in the theatre, — where he had gone, in order to please the people of Lord John Russell. 299 Washington. There he was foully murdered. There are cir- cumstances conne6ted with this crime which, I think, aggravate its guilt. President Lincoln was a man who, although he had not been distinguished before his eleaion, had from that time dis- played a charaaer of so much integrity, sincerity, and straight- forwardness, and, at the same time, of so much kindness, that, if any one could have been able to alleviate the pain and animosity which have prevailed during the civil war, I believe President Lincoln was the man to have done so. It was remarked of him, that he always felt indisposed to resort to any harsh or severe measures ; and I am told that the commanders of the army often complained, that, when they passed a sentence which they con- ceived to be no more than just, the President was always sure to temper its severity. Such was the man required for this particu- lar moment. The conduft of the armies of the United States was intrusted to other hands; and upon, these commanders fell chiefly the responsibility of conducing those armies in the field, and making them successful against those with whom they contended. But the moment had come when those armies were vidlorious; and no doubt the reputation of President Lincoln was greatly increased by the success of those armies. But, though it was not for him to lead those armies, it would have been his to temper the pride of viaory, to assuage the misfortunes which had been felt, and especially to show, which he was well qualified to show, that respea for valor on the opposite side which had been so conspicuously displayed; and President Lincoln, I think, showed by the orders he gave to the commanders, that he was well quali- fied for that office. It was by such qualities, it was to be hoped, that when the conflia of arms was over, that task of concilia- tion might have been begun; and President Lincoln had an au- thority which no one else had, to temper that exasperation which always happens in civil strife. Upon another question, the United 300 Eulogies, Speeches, and Letters. States, and those against whom they had lately been in arms, will have a most difficult task to perform, — I allude to the question of slavery, which, according to many, had been the cause of the civil war in America. At the beginning of this war, the House will remember. President Lincoln declared that he had no right by the Constitution to interfere with slavery. At a later period, he made a kind of decree as Commander-in-chief, in which he pro- posed, that, in certain States, the slaves should be entirely freed. But, at a later period, he proposed that which he was constitution- ally qualified to propose, — that there should be an alteration of the Constitution of the United States, by which the holding of persons to labor by compulsory means was to be for ever hereafter forbidden. Many persons were eager for the immediate abolition of slavery. But I remember Lord Macaulay once observing, that although it would have been a great blessing if the penal laws against Roman Catholics had been abolished in Sir R. Walpole's time, yet he would have been mad to have proposed such a mea- sure. So with regard to President Lincoln. Whatever might have been the horrors of slavery, I believe he was perfectly justi- fied in delaying the time when that great alteration in the law should be proposed. But, whatever we may think on this subje6l, we must all feel that there again the death of President Lincoln deprives the United States of the man who was the leader on this subje6l, and the man who, by his temper, would have been dis- posed to propose such measures as might make this great change acceptable to those by whom he had been elefted, and who might have preserved the peace of that great Republic under an entirely new Constitution. My Lords, — I think we must all feel sympathy with the United States on this deprivation, and also hope that he who succeeds, according to the American Constitution, to the powers of the late President, may be able, both in respe6t of mercy and Lord John Russell. 301 lenity to those' who have been conquered, and also in respe6l to those measures to be adopted for that new organization, that the abolition of slaver}^ requires, — we must all hope that the new president may succeed in overcoming those difficulties, and in restoring the Republic to its pristine prosperity. I had, at the commencement of this contest, occasion to say, that I did not be- lieve that that great Republic would perish in the contest; and my noble friend at the head of the Government had lately occa- sion to disclaim any feeling of animosity or envy at the greatness and prosperity of the United States. The course which Her Maj- jesty's Government pursued during this civil war has been one of neutrality. There have been difficulties which have occurred to us, there have been difficulties which have occurred to the Gov- ernment of the United States, in maintaining the peaceful rela- tions of the two countries; but these difficulties have always been treated with temper and moderation on both sides of the Atlantic. I trust that temper and moderation will continue : and I can as- sure this House, that, as we have always been actuated by the wish that the American Government and the American people should settle their differences without any interference of ours in the conflift of arms, so, likewise, during the attempt that will be made to restore peace and tranquillity to that country, we must equally refrain from any kind of interference or intervention; and we shall trust that the efforts to be made for that purpose will be successful, and that that great Republic will continue to enjoy its career of freedom. I have nothing, of course, to say of the suc- cessor of President Lincoln. Time must show how far he is able to condu6l those difficult matters which the wisdom of his prede- cessor was so well calculated to bring to a satisfaftory result. All I can say is, that, in sight of this great calamity, in sight of this ^reat crime, the Crown, the Parliament, and the people of this country, feel not only the deepest sympathy with the Government 302 Eulogies, Speeches, and Letters. and people of the United States, but that our relations of kindred with them induce us to feel the misfortunes of the United States more than we should the misfortunes of any country on the face of the globe. The noble lord concluded by moving that an hum- ble address be presented to Her Majesty, expressing the sorrow and indignation of that House at the assassination of the President of the United States; and praying Her Majesty to communicate these sentiments on the part of that House to the Government of the United States. P^:cSS^^feifc^^^ LETTER FROM PROFESSOR GOLDWIN SMITH TO THE EDITOR OF THE LONDON DAILY NEWS. SIR, — It is difficult to measure the calamity which the United States and the world have sustained by the murder of Presi- dent Lincoln. The assassin has done his best to strike down mercy and moderation, of both of which this good and noble life was the main stay. It is impossible not to feel great misgivings as to the turn which this murder may give, politically and morally, to the course of events. No doubt the powers of evil of all kinds will see their advantage in it. But I have the greatest and most unfeigned confidence in the good sense, the humanity, the self-control, the law-loving and constitutional chara6ler of the American people. The loss of Mr. Seward also, if he is killed, is much to be lamented, strange as the assertion may seem to those who, with- out knowing any thing of the man, or candidly watching his course, have gone on from day to day repeating the accustomed scoffs and denunciations. Under trying circumstances, and notwith- standing great provocation, he has honorably labored to keep the peace. The world will be fortunate if his successor does the same. My obje6l in writing to you, however, is not to deplore what is irreparable, but to second you in deprecating exaggerated assumptions and extravagant language as to the character and 304 Eulogies^ Speeches, and Letters. probable condu6l of Mr. Lincoln's constitutional successor. The accession of Andrew Johnson to the presidency will be received with almost as much misgiving in America as here; and the mind of the American people is no doubt by this time at work as to the best means of obviating the danger to the State which this event may entail. Should necessity arise, means of securing the public interest will be found; though, in a nation so attached to constitu- tional forms, no unconstitutional expedient will be resorted to till the resources of the Constitution have been exhausted. Even if it were clear that Andrew Johnson were no better than a Marat or a Masaniello, the Americans are not a Parisian or a Neapolitan mob: they are an educated nation, trained to political a6lion, and capable, by their united intelligence and practical resources, of meeting almost any emergency, as the events of the war have shown. But it is quite premature to assume that Johnson when in power will turn out a Marat or a Masaniello. An American politician (and the same thing may be said of the politicians in our colonies) may be very rough, even coarse; and yet he may have in him sterling stuff, which power and responsibility may bring to light. Lincoln himself was originally a rough man; and if we had looked only to certain parts of his early writings and speeches, we might have despaired of his becoming the worthy ruler of a great nation. At his inauguration, Andrew Johnson, under the joint influ- ence, it appears, of great excitement and drink, behaved in a way which shocked his countrymen as much as it did us. But we ought not to forget that Pitt was once, at least, seen the worse for liquor in the House of Commons; and that, if current tradition does not deceive us, a speech was made by a very eminent mem- ber of the House of Lords, in the debate on the Reform Bill, which showed that the speaker was not under the influence of political excitement alone. This incident seems to me less seri- Professor Goldwin Smith. 30^ ous than the arbitrary proceedings of which Johnson has more than once been guilty in Tennessee, and which appear to betray a chara6ler prone to violence, — the thing most of all to be depre- cated and dreaded at the present junfture. But Tennessee, where a desperate confli6l has been going on between the secessionists and Union parties, and where Union men, Johnson himself among the number, have undergone every kind of outrage at the hands of their opponents, is the land of violence; and it is not to be assumed that a man would behave everywhere as he would behave there. High position and heavy responsi- bilities have sometimes a great effe6l in moderating and elevating the character, especiall}^ among the class of rough, strong men to whom I think it very probable the new President belongs. I shall not despair, till fa6ts compel me, of seeing him, in his new dignity, mend his manners, throw oft' his Tennessean animosities, behave as becomes his station, and tread, to the best of his ability, both at home and abroad, in the steps of the truly great man (for so, though in an unimposing form, Lincoln was), into whose place he has been unexpectedly called. His first speech seems to promise well. I do not mean to underrate the gravity of the accident, which, at this crisis, substi- tutes, for a representative of the shrewd and kindly West, a man chosen to what seemed an office of little importance by way of tribute to the Unionist martyrs of the violent and stabbing South. I only wish to avoid aggravating evil (as we well may) by antici- pation; and, at any rate, to aid in airesting, if possible, the flood of dangerous vituperation which is ready to flow from the pens of a portion of our press. These journalists have just had as tre- mendous a lesson on their own fallibility as the severity of destiny could read them; and they could scarcely select a more danger- ous moment than the present for another exhibition of theii temperance and discretion. 39 3o6 Eulogies^ Speeches^ and Letters. The Senate, the House of Eepresentatives, the Supreme Court, all have in their hands powers of restraining the a6tion of the Executive; w^hich, especially in the case of the Senate and House of Representatives, increase in effectiveness in proportion as the personal influence of the President over the nation dimin- ishes. The army is in the hands of Grant, who has been styled by journalistic omniscience a "butcher," as Lincoln was styled a "Robespierre," but who is in fa6l an American Duke of Welling- ton, as straightforward and simple in character, as modest, as devoid of irregular ambition, as little likely to swerve from the stri6l path of military or civil duty; while his recent treatment of Lee and the captured army shows that he knows well how to behave to a vanquished enemy. I am, &c., April 27. GOLDWIN SMITH. P.S. — "Now that INIr. Lincoln is dead," says a virulent Tory journal, " his good qualities seem to come to the foreground." And why, let me ask in the name of common honest}'^ and verac- ity, did they not " come to the foreground " at the time when they were being displayed? In the same article, I find the new Presi- dent belabored with all the aristocratic epithets bestowed till yesterday on his predecessor, with an unthinking repetition of the impudent falsehood originated by the "Times," that he proposed "to hang the Southern leaders as high as Haman." Thus slander leaves the dead, with a hypocritical tribute to the virtues it has maligned, only to fix upon the living. London Daily Ne-vs., April 26, 1865. SPEECH OF SR. REBELLO DA SILVA: DELIVERED IN THE CHAMBER OF PEERS, LISBON, PORTUGAL. MR. PRESIDENT, — I desire to offer to the Chamber some observations on a subject I deem most grave, for the purpose of introducing a motion which I intend to lay upon the table. The Chamber has been made aware, by the official documents in the foreign journals, that a flagrant outrage has recently covered with mourning a great nation beyond the Atlantic, — the powerful Republic of the United States. President Lincoln has been assassinated in the theatre, almost in the arms of his wife! The perpetration of so foul a deed has caused the deepest grief in America, and throughout all the courts of Europe. Cab- inets and parliaments have evinced the most universal sorrow at an event so grievous. It belongs to civilized communities, it becomes almost a duty with all constituted political bodies, to accompany their manifes- tations with the sincere expression of horror at a6ts and crimes so infamous. Through a fatality, or a sublime disposition or unfathomable mystery of Providence, — which is the more Christian interpre- tation of history, — it often happens, not only in the life of nations, 3o8 Eulogies^ Speeches^ and Letters. but in that of individuals, when the loftiest heights have been reached, the boldest destinies fulfilled, even the last degrees of human greatness attained; when the way is suddenly made smooth, and the horizon casts off its clouds and shadows, and smiles flooded with light, — that then an unseen hand is lifted in the darkness, that a power, secret and inexorable, is armed in silence, and, waving the dagger of Brutus, pointing the cannon of Wel- lington, or offering the poisoned cup of Asiatic herbs, hurls the conqueror, crowned with laurels, from his height, at the feet ot Pompe37's statue, like Caesar; at the feet of fortune, weary with following him, like Napoleon; at the feet of the Colossus of irritated Rome, like Hannibal. The mission of great men and heroes makes them seem to us almost like demigods; for they receive for a moment from on High the omnipotence which revolutionizes societies and trans- figures nations: they pass, like tempests, in their car of fire, to see themselves dashed at last in an instant against the eternal barriers of the impossible, — barriers which no one can remove, where they all find the pride of their ephemeral power reduced to nought, and humbled to the dust, — for immutable and great alone is God. Death overtakes them, or ruin reaches them, in their apogee, to show to princes, to conquerors, and to people, that their hour is one onl}^ and short; that their work is fragile, as the work of man, so soon as the pillar of fire which guided thein is extinguished, and night falls upon their way: the new paths they had opened for themselves, and through which they thought to pass boldly and secure, become gulfs which open and swallow them, when, as instruments of the designs of the Most High, the days of their empire and their enterprise shall have been counted and finished. Thus is seen a terrible example, a memorable lesson, in the catastrophe of the most noted characters of histor}^ So come to Sr. Re be Ho da Silva. 309 us to-day, stained with the illustrious blood of one of its most honored citizens, the recent pages of the annals of the powerful Republic of the United States. Its President, when the first quadrennium was closed of a government in which strife was his heritage, falls suddenly, struck down before his own triumph; and from his cold and powerless hands escape loosely the reins of an administration, which the perseverance and energy of his will, the co-operation of his fellow-citizens, and the loftiness and pres- tige of the great idea he symbolized and defended, have made immortal with a name proclaimed by millions of voices and votes, on the fields of battle and in the assemblies of the people. Recondu6led, elevated a second time on the shields of popular favor, to the supreme dire6lion of affairs, at the moment when the heat of civil strife was appeased, when the union of that vast, dilacerated body gave promise, in its restoration, to bind up the wounds through which, for so many months, flowed in torrents the generous blood of the free, almost in the arms of victory, surrounded by those who most loved him, in the bosom of his popular court, he suddenly encounters death; and the ball of an obscure fanatic closes and seals the golden book of his destinies, at the moment, too, when every prosperity seemed to welcome him to length of days and festive favor. It is not a king who disappears in the obscurity of the tomb, burying with him, like Henry IV., the future of vast plans; it is the Chief of a glorious people, who leaves behind him as many successors as there are abettors of his idea, co-operators in his noble and well-aimed aspirations. The purple of a throne is not covered with mourning, the heart of a great empire is shrouded in grief The cause, of which he was the strenuous champion, did not die with him; but all wept for his loss, through their hor- ror of the deed and the occasion, and through the hopes founded on his pure and benevolent motives. 3IO Eulogies^ Speeches^ and Letters. Lincoln, martyr to the broad principle which he represented in power and struggle, belongs now to history and to posterity. Like Washington, whose idea he continued, his name will be inseparable from the memorable epochs to which he is bound, and which he expresses. If the Defender of Independence freed America, Lincoln unsheathed, without hesitation, the sword of the Republic; and with its point erased and tore out, from the statutes of a free people, the anti-social stigma, the anti-humani- tarian blasphemy, the sad, shameful, infamous codicil of old societies, — the dark, repugnant abuse of slavery, which Jesus Christ first condemned from the top of the cross, proclaiming the equality of man before God; which nineteen centuries of civiliza- tion, reared in the gospel, have proscribed and reje6led as the opprobrium of our times. At the moment when he was breaking the chains of a luck- less race; when he was seeing in millions of rehabilitated slaves millions of future citizens; when the bronze voice of Grant's vi6lorious cannon was proclaiming the emancipation of the soul, of the conscience, and of toil; when the scourge was about to fall from the hands of the scourgers; when the ancient slave- pen was about to be transformed, for the captive, into a domestic altar; at the moment when the stars of the Union, sparkling and resplendent with the golden fires of liberty, were weaving over the subdued walls of Petersburg and Richmond, — the sepulchre opens, and the strong, the powerful, enters it. In the midst of triumphs and acclamations, there appeared to him a spe6lre, like that of Caesar, in the Ides of March, saying to him, " You have lived." Far be it from me to approve or condemn the civil strife which divides and covers with blood two brother se6lions of the Amer- ican people. I am neither their judge nor their censor. I honor the principle of liberty, wherever cherished and maintained; but Sr. Rebello da Silva. 311 I can also honor and admire another principle, not less sacred and glorious, — that of independence. May the progressive virtue of our age re-unite those whom discord has divided, and reconcile ideas which are in the hearts and aspirations of all generous souls. In this struggle, which in magnitude exceeds all w^e have seen or heard of in Europe, the vanquished of to-day are worthy of the great race from which they sprang. Lee and Grant are two giants, whom history will keep inseparable. But the hour of peace is perchance about to strike. Lincoln desired it as the crown of his labors, the glorious result of so many sacrifices. After force, let there be forbearance; after the brave fury of bat- tles, the fraternal embrace of citizens. These were the motives which governed him, these the last virtuous desires he entertained; and it is at this moment (per- chance a rare one), when a great soul is so potent for good, when a single mind is worth whole legions, as a pacificator, that the hand of an assassin is raised in treachery, and cuts the thread of plans and purposes so lofty and so noble. If the American nation were not a people tried in the experi- ences and strifes of government, could any one perchance calculate the fatal consequences of this sudden blow? Who knows if the conflagration of civil war would not have spread to the remotest confines of these Federal States, in all the pomp of its horrors ? Happil}^, it will not be so. While public opinion and the journals condemn the deed severely and justly, and their horror is excited against the fatal crime, — sentiments which are those of all civil- ized Europe, — they give honorable heed to ideas of peace and forbearance, as though the great man who advocated these ideas had not disappeared from the arena of the world. And I use the term advisedly, ^^ great maii^^ for he is truly great who rises to the loftiest heights from profound obscurity, relying solely on his 312 Etilogies, Speeches^ and Letters. own merits, — as did Napoleon, Washington, Lincoln. For these arose to power and greatness, not through any favor or grace of a chance-cradle, or genealogy, but through the prestige of their own deeds, through the nobility which begins and ends with themselves, — the sole offspring of their own works. He is more to be envied who makes himself great and famous through his genius and deeds, than he who is born with hereditary titles. Lincoln was of this privileged class: he belonged to this aristocracy. In infancy, his energetic soul was nourished by poverty. In youth, he learned through toil the love of liberty, and respeft for the rights of man. Even to the age of twenty- two, educated in adversity, his hands made callous by honorable labor, he rested from the fatigues of the field, spelling out, in the pages of the Bible, in the lessons of the gospel, in the fugitive leaves of the daily journal, — which the' Aurora opens, and the night disperses, — the first rudiments of instru6tion, which his solitary meditations ripened. Little by little, light was infused into that spirit, the wings put forth and grew strong with which he flew. The chrysalis felt one day the ray of the sun, which called it to life, broke its involucrum, and it launched forth fearlessl}' from the darkness of its humble cloister into the luminous spaces of its destiny. The farmer, day-laborer, shepherd, like Cincinnatus, left the ploughshare in the half-broken furrow, and, legislator of his own State, and afterwards of the Great Republic, saw himself proclaimed in the tribunal the popular chief of many millions of people, the maintainer of the holy principle inaugurated by Wil- berforce. What strife, what scenes of agitation, what a series of herculean labors and incalculable sacrifices, were not involved and represented in the glory of their results, during these four years of war and government! Armies in the field, such as, since the remotest periods, there has been no example! Huge bat- tles, which saw the sun rise and set, twice or thrice, without Sr. Re be Ho da Silva. 3 1 3 vi6tory inclining to the one or the other side: marches, in which thousands of vi6tims, whole legions, piled with the dead each fragment of the conquered earth: assaults which, in audacity and slaughter, reduce to insignificance the exploits of Attila and the Huns ! What stupendous obsequies for the scourge of slavery! What a lesson, terrible and salutary, from a great people, still rich and vigorous with youth, to the timid vacillations of old Europe, before a destiny contested by principles so sacred! These were the monuments, the million marks, of his career. If the sword was in his hands the instrument, and libert}^ the inspiration and strength, of his efforts, he was not unfaithful to them. Above the thorns in his path, through the tears and blood of so many holocausts, he was able at last to see the promised land. It was not vouchsafed to him to plant therein, in expiation, the auspicious olive-tree of concord. When he was about to re-unite the broken bcHid of the Union; when he was about to in- fuse anew the life-giving spirit of free institutions into the body of the country, its scattered and bloody members rejoined and re-cemented; when the standard of the Republic, the funereal clamors silenced, and the agonies of pride and defeat consoled, was about to be again raised, covering with its glorious folds all the children of the same common soil, purified from the indelible stain of slavery, — the athlete reels, and falls in the arena, show- ing that he, too, was but a mortal. I deem this sketch sufficient. The Chamber, through inclina- tion, through a sense of duty, through its institution, not only conservative, but as the faithful guardian of traditions and princi- ples, will not be, surely will not desire to be, backward in joining in the manifestations which the eledive House has just voted, co-operating with the enlightened cabinets and parliaments of Europe. Silence in the presence of such outrages belongs only 40 3 T 4 2LdiJ<}£7.es^ S/wec^s„ ami Iwi^rrs, to senates dumb and disinherited of all high sentiments and aspi- rations. Voting this motion, the Chamber of Peers associates itself in the grief of all civilized nations. The crime which shortened the days of President Lincoln, mart\T to the great principles in which our age most glories, is almost, is in essence, a regicide; and a monarchical country cannot refrain from detesting and condemning it. The descendants of those who tii-st revealed to the Europe oi the sixteenth century the new way, which, through the barriers of stormy and unkno\\Ti seas, opened the gates of the kingdom of the Aurora, will not be the last to bend over the gravestone of a great magistrate, who was like\\*ise the guide of his people through fearful tempests, and who succeeded in conducting them triumph- anth' to the overthrow of the last vestige of the citadel of slavery. To each epoch and its people, its task and its meed of glory; to each illustrious hero, his crown of laurel, or his civic crown. Translated for ike Christian Jfe^ister. Boston. Av^jv-nt 12, 1S65. (V*^ lettp:r from dr. mpirle daubigxe AUTIfOE OF THE " HLSTOKY OF THE EEFOBMATIOX." THE New- York Evening " Post" rqxirts that Mr. Henr>' A. Stnythe, President of the Central National Bank of that citv% has received from George G. Fogg- American Minister to Switzerland, a letter of condolence addressed to Mr. Fogg by the author of the " Historj- of the Reformation," Mr. Fogg says,— " Of the raanv letters sent to me from the most eminent men in letters and science, I have thought that you, and other of our friends in America, would be interested in one from the great historian of the Reformation-" Gf3fr»'-*- April Tj, I%5- Monsieur le Mimstre, — At the moment ^iien our hearts were excited at die great deliverance which God has accorded for your people; at the moment when we were rendering thanks- giving to him, for putting an end in your noble country to the two greatest eWls with which humanity can be afflicted, — war and slavery.- a terrible news comes to change our jay into deepest mour^ng. The blow which has struck Mr. Lincohi strikes all the friends of justice, order, hTjerty, and religion- He has been "oment of God for Ae accomplishment of one of the ^ .£ts. perhaps Ae very greatest, which wiU iUostrate our 3i6 Eulogies^ Speeches, and Letters. century, — the definitive abolition of slavery throughout Christen- dom. He is not only the instrument, but the vi6lim. While not venturing to compare him v^nth the great sacrifice of Golgotha, which gave liberty to the captives, is it not just, in this hour, to recall the word of an apostle (i John, iii. i6) : "In this we have known love, in that Christ has laid down his life for us; and therefore ought we also to lay down our lives for our brethren." Who can say that the President did not lay down his life by the firmness of his devotion to a great duty? The name of Lincoln w^ill remain one of the greatest that history has to inscribe on its annals. Parricidal hands, in striking down the Chief of your people, have thought to be able thereby to arrest the great work he had commenced. But if men pass away, God remains. God, whose minister Lincoln was, will crown the work of peace, order, and liberty, which has cost this generous man a life so precious. We weep with you, my dear sir: but we hope also with you; and our hope shall not be deceived. Ma}^ God himself assuage the wounds of your people. May the aegis of his gospel restore to them union, harmony, peace, and prosperity. Among the lega- cies which Lincoln leaves to us, we shall all regard, as the most precious, his spirit of equity, of moderation, and of peace, accord- ing to which he will still preside, if I may so speak, over the restoration of your great nation. Excuse me, if I dare avail myself of the liberty you have given me on other occasions to correspond with you, in order to pray you to receive, in these painful circumstances, the expression of my condolence and of my profound respeft. MERLE D'AUBIGNE. To the Hon. George G. Fogg, Minister Resident of the United States of America in Switzerland. LETTER FROM THE DEMOCRATIC ASSOCIATION OF FLORENCE. To the Free People of the United .States oJ~ America. May i8, 1S65. BROTHERS OF THE AMERICAN UNION, — A few days have passed since your people prepared themselves to celebrate, in the decisive victory of Richmond, the proximate, in- fallible triumph of liberty and of the Union over servitude and division, when sad intelligence troubled the sincere joy of all the friends of liberty, and stopped on our lips the festive expressions of triumph, and our glad wishes for the future. Lincoln, the honest, the magnanimous, citizen, the most wor- thy chief magistrate of your glorious Federation, a victim of an execrable treason, is no more. The furies of despotism and of servitude, deceived in their infamous hopes, incapable of sustaining any longer their combat against liberty, before falling into the abyss which threatened them, strengthened the arm of a murderer; and as they opened the fratricidal war with the gibbet of the martyr of the cause of abolition, John Brown, so they ended it, w^orthy of themselves, in the most ferocious and stupid of all crimes, — the murder of a great citizen. Now, liberty, in stigmatizing the cause of her enemies, will have only to point out this deed, and the masses of the people everywhere cannot fail to remember that European despots have 3i8 Etilogies, Speeches, and Letters. had a share in it; that in some courts of Europe, Mason, SHdell, and the infamous pirates of the " Alabama," found prote6tion and encouragement, and the wicked instigator of the civil war, Jeffer- son Davis, obtained praises and applause. Brothers of the American Union, — Courage ! The great cause for which you have supported four years of titanic com- bat is the cause of humanity; its triumph can never more be doubted, and has been delayed onl}^ for a moment by the worst of a6tions, committed by an abje6l murderer. Tyranny, it is true, could sometimes be destroyed by the mur- der of the tyrant, because it has life onl}^ in him; but liberty, which lives in the people, has, like the people, an immortal origin and destiny. For the Committee. (Signed) P. D. ANNIBALE, President. A. CORTI, Secretary. To the Democratic Associatio7i of Florence. United Consulate-General for the Kingdom of Italy, Florence, May 23, 1865. Gentlemen, — I have had the gratification of transmitting to my Government the address to the people of the United States, presented to me last week by your Association; and I have re- quested that this gratif^ang evidence of your sympathy and good feeling may be made known to my countrymen through the pub- lic journals. In the profound sorrow which the American nation has been called upon to endure through the death of our beloved Presi- dent, it is a source of the greatest consolation to know how highly his public a6ts were appreciated by the liberal citizens of all na- tions, and especially by those of Italy;, whose people have done T. B. Lawrence. 319 so much to prove their devotion to the great principles of free- dom. Italy, beyond any other nation, knows how to fraternize w^ith the United States ; for " Liberty and Union " have been alike the watchwords of the people of both countries. The history of your own renow^ned land proves that in a di- vided country liberty exists but in name. Your ancient republics were rivals to each other; and, while city took up arms against city, and family against family, the people were enslaved. Six centuries ago, your glorious poet, the immortal Dante (to whose fame 3^ou have just rendered a tribute and an homage worthy of his countrymen), with a divine inspiration, foresaw that in the union of Italy could real liberty only be found; and while his descendants of the nineteenth century are proving his dream to be a realit}^, the lesson conveyed by the past experience of Italy has not been lost upon the American nation. For the union of the States and the liberty of the people, the American war has been waged; and although in its prosecution blood has been shed like water, and treasure lavished without stint, yet we deem its vast cost as trifling in comparison with the grand result obtained in the preservation of our Union, and the enfranchising of four millions of slaves. Well, as in Italy you justly idolize the noble Garibaldi, as the paladin and hero of Italian emancipation; so we in America honor the martyr, Abraham Lincoln, as the Saviour of his Coun- try. Alike in their entire freedom from private or political sel- fishness; alike in their pure and spotless patriotism; alike in holding the first place in the hearts of their countrymen, — pos- terity will regard them as apostles of liberty, second to none that the annals of history record. I have the honor to be, gentlemen. Your obedient servant, (Signed) T. B. LAWRENCE, Consul- Ge?ieraL SPEECH OF EDOUARD LABOULAYE; ON THE DEATH OF MR. LINCOLN. THE murder of Mr. Lincoln has excited a profound emotion through all Europe. The atrocit}^ of such a cold-blooded murder; the honest}'' and innocence of the vi6lim; the death "which arrested, in the very midst of victory, the man who seemed to have conquered the right of finishing the work of pacification which he had so nobly begun, — explain but too well the universal sympathy in the presence of this cruel and unexpected end. Friends, enemies, "and indifferent persons, all to-day render full justice to the prudence, firmness, and moderation of Mr. Lincoln; all execrate the wretch who cut off so beautiful a life. Far from me be the thought of casting on the South the weight of such a crime. A people of soldiers is not a people of assassins; and I am not astonished that at the news of the assassination Lee was unable to resist his grief, and the brave Ewell wept like a child. War teaches us to respedl, and often even to love an enemy. But if I do not accuse the South, I accuse slavery, and the pas- sions which it lets loose. All those a6ts of violence, which, for forty years past, have disturbed America, and rejoiced those who hate liberty, — street duels, negroes burned alive, the beating of Mr. Sumner, the plots against Mr. Lincoln, — a'll these misdeeds have come from the same poisoned source: they have been brought forth by the pride of dominion. Edouard Laboulaye. 321 Slavery ends as it began, by a crime. May this crime be the last! May this abominable institution, once more dishonored, disappear at last before the contempt and abhorrence of the hu- man race ! It would be the noblest homage that could be ren- dered to the memory of Lincoln. I shall not make the eulogy of the President: I have neither the time nor the strength; but I would like to recall some of his words and a6lions, and to show what was the unity and simplicity of his life. Death sets each one in his place : it plunges into for- p-etfulness those minions of fortune who have lived only to achieve their ambition, or to satisfy their wretched vanity; but it elevates the truly great men, and casts over these noble figures an inde- scribable splendor and serenity. Disdained and insulted yester- day, they are respe6led and admired on the morrow: they are more powerful in their tomb than in their palace. Mr. Lincoln was one of these heroes, who are ignorant of themselves; his thoughts will reign after him. The name of Washington has already been pronounced, and I think with reason. Doubtless Mr. Lincoln resembled Franklin more than Washington. By his origin, his arch good nature, his ironical good sense, and his love of anecdote and jesting, he was of the same blood as the printer of j^ Philadelphia. But it is nevertheless true, that, in less than a cen- tury, America has passed through two crises in which its liberty might have been lost, if it had not had honest men at its head ; and that each time it has had the happiness to meet the man best fitted to serve it. If Washington founded the Union, Lincoln has saved it. History will draw together and unite those two names. A single word explains Mr. Lincoln's whole life; it was duty. Never did he put himself forward; never did he think of himself; never did he seek one of those ingenious combinations which puts the head of a State in bold relief, and enhances his import- 41 322 Eulogies^ Speeches^ and Letters. ance at the expense of the country: his only ambition, his only thought, was faithfully to fulfil the mission which his fellow-citi- zens had intrusted to him. He wished to be the first magistrate of a Republic, neither more or less: always ready to hold cheap what affe6ted only himself; but always resolved to exa6l of each S' one that he should respeft the Constitution, and bow before the sovereignty of the laws. Hence arose in Mr. Lincoln that mixture of gentleness and firmness which is already found in his first speech, — his adieu to the little city of Springfield, where, as a lawyer, he had deserved the esteem and love of his fellow-citizens, and which he addressed to his friends who had followed him to the cars, February ii, 1 86 1, as he was about to set out for Washington. Having reached Washington, — by foiling a plot laid by the partisans of slavery, — he addressed to Congress, March 4, 1861, a speech of finished wisdom. The Southerners, carried away by passion, and the wits of Europe, could not at that time find dis- dain or insults enough for this peasant, this wood-chopper, this mechanic, with ugly figure, rough hair, and large hands, who dared take his place in the Capitol; but, now that events have opened the blindest eyes, how just and sensible does this speech of a true patriot appear! How much blood and how many tears would have been spared, if men had listened to the voice of this good man! The President declared that he would insure respe6l to the Constitution. He was not charged with abolishing slavery; he was charged with maintaining the sovereignty of the Union, and the rights of the State. This mission he would fulfil to the end. Moreover, why separate? If a minority could secede from the majority, to-morrow a nucleus of malcontents might be formed in this minority which had become independent, and the conclusion of secession would be perpetual and incurable anarchy. Edotiard Laboiilaye. 323 " No, my fellow-citizens," he added, " we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respe6tive sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the dilTerent parts of the country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satis- fa6lory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws ? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical question as to terms of intercourse are again before you. In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-citizens, and not in mine, is the momentous question of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict w^ithout being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to oblige you to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one ^ to pre- serve, prote6t, and defend it.' We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of afieftion." We know how the South responded to this touching appeal. I will not write the history of the war. I will only say, that as long as Mr. Lincoln hoped to save the Union without touching slaver}^, he did not proclaim emancipation. In Europe, this mod- eration has been imperfeftly understood : the President has been often reproached for what was to him a claim of honor. What- ever were Mr. Lincoln's personal sentiments, however opposed he was to sl'avery, he set the duty of the magistrate before every thing. He had found slavery in the Constitution that he had sworn to maintain; as president, he had not the right, therefore, to touch it. 324 Eulogies^ Speeches^ and Letters. But this same Constitution gave the President the right to seize the property of the enemy, and to take all measures neces- sary for the suppression of the rebellion. After waiting more than a year, therefore, Mr. Lincoln issued a proclamation, Sep- tember 22, 1862, declaring that, from the first of January, 1863, all slaves belonging to the States at war with the Union should be for ever free. From this epoch, liberty legally took a place on the soil of America: it remains now to establish it there in fa6l, — a great measure, which would have demanded all the prudence of Mr. Lincoln. In the four 37ears of a presidency sustained amidst the hazards of civil war, this obscure Illinois lawyer, elevated to the Chief Magistracy by the caprice of a popular vote, succeeded in win- ning public esteem to such a degree, by his firmness and good sense, that a unanimous vote called for the second time to a seat in the White House him whom public opinion had so justly named " Honest Abraham." This time it was not only the parti- sans of the first ele6lion that united to secure the success of their candidate and to profit by his success ; but his former adversaries, with one of the most important men in America, Edward Everett, at their head, hastened in crowds to rall}^ round the President, and energetically to oppose the unlucky election of General Mc- Clellan. By his patriotic devotion, Lincoln had identified himself with his country: without seeking it, he had become the man of the situation. His triumph was the triumph of the Union, and the end of the civil war. His vi6tory was the vi6tory itself of the Constitution and the laws. To him, still as simple and as modest, — I should say still more modest and more deeply penetrated with the sentiment of his responsibility, — this honor only seemed a new means of serv- \ ing his country. His Inaugural Address to Congress, March 4, 1865, shows us what progress had been made in his soul. This Edouard Laboiilaye. 325 piece of familiar eloquence is a masterpiece: it is the testament of a patriot. I do not believe that any eulogy of the President would equal this page on which he has depi6ted himself in all his greatness and all his simplicity. I know not whether I am mistaken ; but it seems to me, that, in these words, so different from the ordinary language of the pol- itician, in this appeal to humility and resignation, in this religious submission, we feel an indescribable self-abnegation, and a pre- sentiment, as it were, of a speedy end, which makes us shudder. Mr. Lincoln, however, did not fear death. To all the threats that were addressed to him, as to all the anxiety with which it was souo-ht to inspire him, he had an answer ready at the bottom of his heart, — that of our old knights, whose soul was not more noble than that of the Springfield lawyer, — Do thy devoir, happen what may. In the present situation, the loss of Mr. Lincoln is a great one to America. I know that in a country which rules itself a man is less necessary than elsewhere; and there is reason to have con- fidence in the new president, who also has elevated himself by persistent labor, and who has long shown courage and energy. But, whatever may be the merit of Mr. Johnson, he has not be- hind him four years of moderation which gives confidence to all, and which might disarm the hatred in the North as in the South. We may hope, however, that Mr. Lincoln's policy will be fol- lowed by his successor: he will find around him statesmen like Mr. Seward, generals like Grant, a whole tradition which cannot be too carefully preserved, if it is wished to complete the work of Mr. Lincoln. To pacify minds after four years of civil war is an undertaking even more difficult than to pacify the country: it needs as much goodness as energy. America will not be the only one that will honot Mr. Lincoln. It is not to his ^country alone that Mr. Lincoln has rendered a 326 Eulogies, Speeches, and Letters. service: it is to all humanity. History, it must be admitted, is too often only a school of immorality. It shows us the victory of force or stratagem, much more than the success of justice, mod- eration, and probity. It is too often only the apotheosis of tri- umphant selfishness. There are noble and great exceptions: happy those who can increase the number, and thus bequeath a noble and beneficent example to posterity! Mr. Lincoln is among these. He would willingly have repeated, after Franklin, that " falsehood and artifice are the pra6lice of fools, who have not wit enough to be honest: " all his private life, and all his political life, was inspired and dire6led by this profound faith in the omnipo- tence of virtue. It is through this again that he deserves to be compared to Washington: it is through this that he will remain in history with the most glorious name that can be merited by the head of a free people, — a name given him by his contemporaries, and which will be preserved to him by posterity, — that of Hon- est Abraham Lincoln. LETTER FROM HENRI MARTIN TRANSLATED FROM THE PARIS " SIECLE. SLAVERY, before expiring, has gathered up the remnants of its strength and rage to strike a coward blow at its con- querer. The Satanic pride of that perverted society could not resign itself to defeat: it did not care to fall with honor, as all causes fall which are destined to rise again : it dies as it has lived, violating all laws, divine and human. In this we have the spirit, and perhaps the work, of that famous secret association, "The Golden Circle," which, after preparing the great rebellion for twenty years, and spreading its accomplices throughout the West and North, around the seat of the presidency, gave the signal for this impious war on the day when the public conscience finally snatched from the slaveholders the Government of the United States. The day on which the excellent man whom they have just made a martyr was raised to power, they appealed to force, to realize what treason had prepared. They have failed. They did not succeed in overthrowing Lincoln from power by war: they have done so by assassination. The plot appears to have been well arranged. By striking down with the President his two principal ministers, one of whom they reached, and the General-in-chief, who was saved by an 328 Eulogies, Speeches, and Letters. accidental occurrence, the murderers expe6ted to disorganize the Government of the RepubHc, and give' fresh life to the re- bellion. Their hopes will be frustrated. These sanguinary fanatics, v^hose cause has fallen not so much by the material superiority as the moral power of democracy, have become incapable of under- standinor the effe6ls of the free institutions which their fathers gloriously aided in establishing. A fresh illustration will be seen of what those institutions can produce. The indignation of the people will not exhaust itself in a mo- mentary outburst; it will concentrate and embody itself in the unanimous, persevering, invincible a6lion of the universal will: whoever may be the agents, the instruments of the work, that work, we may rest assured, will be finished. The event will show that it did not depend upon the life of one man, or of sev- eral men. The work will be completed after Lincoln, as if finished by him; but Lincoln will remain the austere and sacred personifica- tion of a great epoch, the most faithful expression of democracy. This simple and upright man, prudent and strong, elevated step by step from the artisan's bench to the command of a great nation, and always, without parade and without effort, at the height of his position; executing without precipitation, without flourish, and with invincible good sense, the most colossal a6ts; giving to the world this decisive example of the civil power in a republic; dire6f;ing a gigantic war, without free institutions being for an instant compromised or threatened by military usurpation; dying, finally, at the moment in which, after conquering, he was intent on pacification, — and may God grant, that the atrocious madmen who killed him have not killed clemency with him, and deter- mined, instead of the peace he wished, pacification by force! — this man will stand out, in the traditions of his country and the Henri Alar tin. 329 world, as an incarnation of the people, and of modern democracy itself The great work of emancipation had to be sealed, therefore^ with the blood of the just, even as it was inaugurated with the blood of the just. The tragic history of the abplition of slavery, which opened with the gibbet of John Brown, will close with the assassination of Lincoln. And now let him rest by the side of Washington, as the second founder of the great Republic. European democracy is present in spirit at his funeral, as it voted in its heart for his re-eleaion, and applauded the viaory in the midst of which he passes away. It will wish with one accord to associate itself with the monument that America will raise to him upon the capital of prostrate sla- ^^^^' HENRI MARTIN. 42 APPENDIX. APPENDIX. NOTE FROM THE REV. ELIAS NASON. QUITE a serious error has crept into the biographies of Mr. Lincohi, in respect to his parentage. His mother's name is said to be Nancy Hanks^ while in reality it was Nancy Sparrow. Our late illustrious Chief Magistrate was born in Hardin County, Kentucky, on the twelfth day of February, 1809, and was the son of Mr. Thomas and Nancy [Sparrow] Lincoln. The other children were Sarah, who married Mr. Grigsby, and died in Indiana ; and a son, who died in infancy. Thomas Lincoln was the son of Abraham, who was shot by an Indian in 1784. His children were Mordecai, who avenged the death of his father; Joseph, Mary, Nancy, and Thomas. The family is very probably from the New-England stock, which settled at Hingham previous to 1640. Thomas Lincoln was a man of integrity, but could neither read nor write. He married Miss Nancy Sparrow in 1806. She was the daughter of Henry and Lucy [Hanks] Sparrow ; was born in Mercer County, Kentucky, and grew up in the family of her uncle, William Hanks. She was tall and commanding in person, could read and write, was a good singer, and a member of the Baptist Church. Her name was mentioned by her neighbors only to be praised. She had a sister Mary, who married Thomas Whitehouse ; another sister, Sarah, and two brothers, Thomas and Henry. She died in 1818. Mr. Thomas Lincoln mar- ried, for his second wife, Mrs. Sarah [Bush] Johnson, of Hardin County, Ken- tucky, who still lives with her daughter Matilda, on the farm which Mr. Lincoln bought for his father, Thomas, in Cole's County, Illinois^ North Billerica, Mass., Aug. 28, 1S65. 13il)Uograp1)iraI Ui^t of li3ooiks antr i^ampijlcts ; CONTAINING SERMONS, ORATIONS, EULOGIES, POEMS, OR OTHER PAPERS RELATING TO THE ASSASSINATION, DEATH, AND FUNERAL OBSEQUIES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. The following is not offered as a complete Catalogue upon the subjeA to which it relates : it embraces only such works as are in the possession of the compiler of this vol- ume, and is printed simply to aid whoever may contemplate a more elaborate publication of the same character. Allen, Rev. Ethan. Sermon delivered at St. Thomas Church, Homestead, Baltimore Co., Md., June i, 1S65. Baltimore. i3mo. pp. 13. Andrew, Hon. John A. Message to Massachusetts Legislature, July 17, 1865. Boston. 8vo. pp. 8. Atwood, Rev. E. S. Two Sermons delivered in Salem, Mass., April 17, and June I, 1865. Salem. 8vo. pp. 31. Babcock, Rev. S. D. Sermon delivered at Dedham, Mass., April 19, 1S65. Dedham. 8vo. pp. 16. Badger, Rev. H. C. Sermon preached at Cambridgeport, April 23, 1861. Boston, 8vo. pp. 18. Bancroft, Hon. Geo. Article " Atlantic Monthly," June, 1865. Barnes, Rev. A. Sermon preached in Philadelphia, Pa., June i, 1865. Phil- adelphia. 8vo. pp. 74. Bartol, Rev. C. A., D.D. Sermon preached in West Church, Boston, June I, 1865. Boston. " Monthly Religious Magazine," for July. pp. 8. Benjamin, S. W. G. Ode on the Death of Abraham Lincoln. Boston. i2mo. PP- 15- Bingham, Rev. Joel F. Sermon preached in Buffalo, N.Y., May 7, 1865. Buffalo, N.Y. 8vo. pp. 36. Bibliographical L ist of Books and Pamphlets. 335 BiNNEY, Hon. Wm. Oration delivered in Providence, R.I., June i, 1865. Providence, R.I. Svo. pp. 1^6. BiNNS, Rev. W. Sermon preached in Birkenhead, Enghxnd, April, 30, 1S65. Birkenhead. i6mo. pp. 13. Blackburn, Rev. W. M. Sermon preached at Trenton, New Jersey, April 16, 1S65. Trenton, N.J. Svo. pp. 24. Bliss, Rev. T. E. Sermon preached at Memphis, Tenn., April 33, 1S65. Memphis, Tenn. Svo. pp. 16. BoARDMAN, Rev, G. D. Tw^o Sermons preached at Philadelphia, Pa., April 16 and 19, 1S65. Philadelphia, Pa. Svo. pp. 64. BoARDMAN, Rev. H. A., D.D. Sermon preached at Philadelphia, Pa., June i, 1S65. Philadelphia, Pa. Svo. pp. 32. Booth, Rev. R., D.D. Sermon preached at New York, April 23, 1S65. New York. Svo. pp. 23. BouTWELL, Hon. G. S. Eulogy delivered at Lowell, Mass., April 19, 1S65. Lowell, Mass. Svo. pp. 67. Brakeman, Rev. N. L. Sermon preached at Baton Rouge, La., April 23, 1S65. New Orleans, La. Svo. pp. 32. Briggs, Rev. G. W., D.D. Eulogy delivered at Salem, Mass., with the Pro- ceedings of the City Council, June i, 1S65. Salem, Mass. Svo. pp. 48. Brooks, Rev. P. Sermon preached at Philadelphia, Pa., April 23, 1S65. Philadelphia, Pa. Svo. pp. 24. Broome, W. W. Abraham Lincoln's CharacSler sketched by English Travel- lers. Svo. pp. 4. BuLKLEY, Rev. E. A. Sermon preached at Plattsburgh, N.Y., April 19, 1S65. Plattsburgh, N.Y. Svo. pp. 16. Bullock, Hon. A. H. Eulogy delivered at Worcester, Mass., June i, 1865. Worcester. Svo. pp. 49. Burns, Rev. R. F. Address delivered at St. Catherine's, C.W., April, pp. 23. See " Maple Leaves." Burrows, Rev. J, L., D.D. Sermon preached at Richmond, Va., April 23, 1S65. Richmond, Va. Svo. pp. I3. Butler, Rev. C. M., D.D. Sermon preached at Philadelphia, Pa., April 19, 1865. Philadelphia, Pa. Svo. pp. 32. Butler, Rev. H. E. Sermon preached at Keeseville, N.Y., April 23, 1S65. Burlington, Vt. Svo. pp. 23. Butler, Rev. J. G. Sermon preached at Washington, D.C., April 16, 1865. Washington, D.C. Svo. pp. 14. 33^ Appendix. Carey, Rev. I. C. Sermon delivered at Freeport, 111., April 19, 1865. Free- port, 111. 8vo. pp. 8. Carey, Rev. I. C. Sermon delivered at Freeport 111., June i, 1S65. Free- port, 111. 8vo. pp. 8. Carnahan, Rev. D. T. Sermon preached at Gettysburg, Pa., June i, 1865. Gettysburg, Pa. 8vo. pp. 24. Chaffin, Rev. W. L. Sermon preached at Philadelphia, Pa., April 23, 1865. Philadelphia, Pa. 8vo. pp. 18. Chamberlain, Rev. N. H. Sermon preached at Birmingham, Conn., April 19, 1865. New York. i2mo. pp. 22. Chase, Prof. Thomas. Address delivered at Haverford College, West Haver- ford, Pa., on fifth-day evening, seventh month, 6th, 1865. Chester, Rev. John. Sermon preached at Washington, D.C., April 16, 1865. Washington, D.C. Svo. pp. 16. Clark, Rev. A. Sermon preached at Cincinnati, Ohio, April 19, 1865. Cin- cinnati, Ohio. 8vo. pp. 16. Clark, Hon. Dan'l. Eulogy delivered at Manchester, N.H., June i, 1865. Manchester, N.H. Svo. pp. 36. Clarke, Rev. J. F., D.D. Sermon preached in Indiana-Place Chapel, Boston, January 16, 1865. Boston. i6mo. pp. 24. Colfax, Hon. S. Address delivered at South Bend, Ind., April 24, 1865. Philadelphia, Pa. Svo. pp. 29. CoLMAN, Rev. G. W. Sermon preached at Ac^on, Mass., April 16, 1S65. Boston, Mass. Svo. pp. ic;. Commemorative Proceedings of the Athenaeum Club, New York, on the Death of Abraham Lincoln. New York. Svo. pp. 37. Cooper, Rev. Jas. Sermon preached at Philadelphia, Pa., April 16, 1S65. Philadelphia, Pa. Svo. pp. 24. Craig, Rev. W. Sermon preached at New Bedford, Mass., April 23, 1865. New Bedford. Svo. pp. 14. Crane, Rev. C. B. Sermon preached at Hartford, Conn., April 16, 1865. Hartford, Conn. Svo. pp. 29. Crocker, S. L., Jun., Esq. Eulogy delivered at Taunton, Mass., June i, 1S65. Boston. Svo. pp. 28. Crozier, Rev. H. P. Sermon preached at Huntington, N.Y., April 19, 1865. Huntington, N.Y. Svo. pp. 16. CuDwoRTH, Rev. W. H. Eulogy delivered at East Boston, May S, 1865, Boston. Svo. pp. 27. Bibliographical List of Books and Pamphlets. 337 CusHMAN, Rev. R. S. Sermon preached at Manchester, Vt., April 19, 1865. Manchester, Vt. 8vo. pp. 20. a -i o/c^ CutLer Rev! k. T. Sermon preached at Rockland, Me., Apr.l .9, .865. Boston. 8vo. pp.16. , ■ , MV Anril 16 Daggett, Rev. O. E. Sermon preached at Canand.-.igua, N.\., April .0, l86<. Canandaigua, N.Y. Svo. pp.16. DARLING, Rev. H., 5.D. Sermon pre,aehed at Albany, N.^ ., Apr.l .9, .865. Albany, N.Y. 8vo. pp. 24- ,„■.<-,, irt 4„ril ji Svo Dascomb, Rev. A. B. Sermon preached at Waitsfield, Vt., Apul 23- 8™. DAVIDSON,' Rev. R., D.D. Sermon preached at Huntington, N.Y., April ,9, DAv! rI p"r'trmo^n;';ea!h:d .rH^U., N,H., June ., .865. Concord, Dka!?,- Hon' S.- ^ delivered at Providence, R.I., April ,9, .865- P™vl- DBJ:rkt' H.™C. "luSy delivered at Hartford, Conn., June ., .865. DE ^r ;.tR;v.^j':ts.%°;rm^rn fr-eached at Portsmouth, N.H., April 16,1865. Portsmouth, N.H. .6mo. pp.8. Cambrid.re, D.x, Rev. M. Sermon preached at New York, Apr.l .9, -Se,. Camb.,d„e, Mass. 8vo. pp. 16. RvUtnl Pa April 16, 1865. Drumm, Rev. J. H., M.D. Sermon preached at Bnstol, Fa., Ap. DjK:R;rR."rSe.l.rp-eached at Providence, R.I., April .9, .865- .J::^:yt re:morpr:i;hedatMlddletow,.,April.6,.865. Mid- Dj;r"H^rG.":nr;r;ached at Detroit, Mich., April .6, .865. D™H:rRev:H.%tss delivered at Baltimore, Md., April ,9, .S65. Dt^rrR:;'"-. tmo-nV^-ed at Balthriore, Md., April 23, .865. Baltimore, Md. 8vo. pp.12. Mnv 7 i86<. 8vo. DUNNING, Rev. H. Sermon preached at Baltu.ore, Md., Ma, 7, . Baltimore, Md. pp.12. a, ^-il to 186s. Albany, N.Y. Dyer, Rev. D. Sermon preached at Albany, Apul 19, i^b,. ) Svo. pp. 20. 43 338 Appendix. Eddy, Rev. D. C, D.D. Sermon preached at Boston, April 16, 1S65. Bos- ton. 32mo. pp. 23. Eddy, Rev. R. Three Sermons preached at Philadelphia, Pa., April 16 and 19, and June i, 1865. Philadelphia, Pa. 8vo. pp. 27. Edgar, Rev. C. H., D.D. Three Sermons preached at Easton, Pa., April 16 and 19, and May 3. Svo. pp. 20. Edgar, Rev. C. H., D.D. Sermon preached at Easton, Pa., June i. Easton, Pa. Svo. pp. 12. Edwards, Rev. H. L. Sermon preached at South Abington, June i, 1865. Boston. 8vo. pp. 16. Egar, Rev. J. H., D.D. Sermon preached at Leavenworth, Kansas, June i, 1865. Leavenworth, Kan. 8vo. pp. 16. EiNHORN, Rev. D., D.D. Sermon preached at Philadelphia, Pa. Printed in German. Philadelphia, Pa. 8vo. pp. 8. Ellis, C. M., Esq. Address delivered at St. John, N.B., June i, 1865. St. John, N.B. i6mo. pp. 31. Ellis, Rev. R. Sermon preached in Boston, June 16. " Monthly Religious Magazine," May, 1865. Ellis, Rev. R. Address delivered in Boston, June 19. " Monthly Religious Magazine," May, 1865. Everett, Rev. C. C. Two Sermons preached at Bangor, April 16 and 19. Bangor, Me. Svo. pp. 25. Everett, Rev. C. C. Eulogy delivered at Bangor, Me., June i, 1865. Ban- gor. Svo. pp. 30. Farquhar, Rev. J. Sermon preached in Lower Chanceford, York Co., Pa., June I, 1865. Lancaster, Pa. Svo. pp. 23. Field, Rev. T. P., D.D. See Wilcox. Fowler, Rev. H. Sermon pi-eached at Auburn, N.Y., April 23, 1865. Auburn, N.Y. Svo. pp. 16. Fowler, J., Jun. Eulogy delivered at New Rochelle, N.Y., April 23, 1S65. New York. Svo. pp. 28. Frothingham, Rev. Q. B. Article, " Friend of Progress," New York, June, 1S65. Gaddis, Rev. M. P. Sermon preached at Cincinnati, Ohio, April 16, 1S65. Cincinnati, Ohio. Svo. pp. 15. Garrison, Rev. J. F., M.D. Sermon preached at Camden, N.J., April 19, 1S65. Camden, -N.J. Svo. pp. 20. Gear, Rev. D. L. Sermon preached at Philadelphia, Pa., April 23. Phila- delphia, Pa. Svo. pp. 8. Bibliographical List of Books and PampJilets. 339 Gillette, Rev. A. G., D.D. Sermon preached at Washington, D.C., April 23, 1S65. Washington, D.C. 8vo. pp. 15. Glover, Rev. L. M., D.D. Sermon preached at Jacksonville, 111., April 23, IS65. Jacksonville, 111. 8vo. pp. 21. Gordon, Rev. W. R., D.D. Sermon preached at Schraalenberg, N.J., May 7, 1865. New York. Svo. pp. 24. GuRLEY, Rev. P. D., D.D. Sermon preached at Washington, D.C, June i, 1865. Washington, D.C. 8vo. pp. 16. Guthrie, Dr. W. E. Oration addressed to the American People. Philadel- phia, Pa. 32mo. pp. 9. Hale, Rev. E. E. " The President's Words." Boston, 1865. i vol., cloth. i6mo. pp. 186. Hall, Rev. C. H. Sermon preached at Washington, D.C, April 16, 1865. Washington, D.C. Svo. pp. 15. Hall, Rev. G., D.D. Sermon preached at Northampton, Mass., April 19, 1865. Northampton, Mass. Svo. pp. 16. Hall, Rev. N. Sermon preached at Surrey Chapel, London, May 14. Bos- ton, Mass. Svo. pp. 16. Hammond, Rev. C Sermon preached at Monson, Mass., June i, 1865. Springfield, Mass. Svo. pp. 21. Hannaford, Mrs. P. A. " The Martyred President." Poem. Boston. Svo. pp. 24. Hardinge, Miss E. Oration delivered at New York, April 16, 1865. New York. Svo. pp. 28. Hathaway, Rev. W. Sermon preached at Coxsackie, April 19, 1865. Albany, N.Y. Svo. pp. 24. Haven, Rev. G. Sermon preached at Boston, Mass., April 23, 1865. Bos- ton, Mass. Svo. pp. 32. Hawley, Rev. B., D.D. Sermon preached at Albany, N.Y., April 20, 1865. Albany, N.Y. Svo. pp. 20. Hayden, Mrs. C A. " A Tribute to Abraham Lincoln." Poem. Boston. i2mo. pp. 23. Hepworth, Rev. G. H. Two Sermons preached at Boston, April 23, 1865. Boston. i2mo. pp. 27. Hepworth, Rev. G. H. Sermon preached at Boston. Boston, Mass. i2mo. pp. 31. Hibbard, Rev. A. G. Sermon preached at Detroit, Mich., April 16, 1865. Detroit, Mich. Svo. pp. 12. 34° Appendix. Hitchcock, Rev. H. L. Sermon preached at Hudson, Ohio, April 19, 1865. Cleveland, Ohio. Svo. pp. 23. Hodge, Rev. C, D.D. Article from " Princeton Review." New Yoi'k. Svo. pp. 24. Hoffman, Rev. E. A. Sermon preached at Brooklyn, N.Y., April 26, 1865. New York. Svo. pp. 16. Holland, Dr. J. G. Eulogy delivered at Springfield, Mass., April 19, 1S65, with Observances of the City Authorities. Springfield, Mass. Svo. pp. 32. HowLETT, Rev. T. R. Sermon preached at Washington, D.C., June i, 1S65. Washington, D.C. Svo. pp. 7. " In Memoriam."- Abraham Lincoln. New York. Svo. pp. 32. With portrait. Ives, Rev. A. E. Sermon preached at Castine, Me. Bangor. Svo. pp. 14. Jeffrey, Rev. R. Sermon preached at Philadelphia, Pa., June i, 1S65. Phil- adelphia, Pa. Svo. pp. 28. Johnston, Rev. E. H. Sermon preached at Harrisburg, Pa., June i, 1S65. Harrisburg, Pa. Svo. pp. 11. Johnston, Rev. H. Sermon preached at Pittsburgh, Pa., April 23, 1S65. Pittsburgh, Pa. Svo. pp. 11. Johnson, Rev. Sam'l. Discourse preached at Lynn, Mass., April 19, 1S65. Printed, not published. Svo. pp. 10. Keeling, Rev. R. J. Sermon preached at Washington, D.C, April 23, 1865. Washington, D.C. Svo. pp. 16. Krauth, Rev. C. P., D.D. Sermon preached at Pittsburgh, Pa., June i, 1865. Pittsburgh, Pa. Svo. pp. 23. Krebs, Rev. Hugo, D.D. Sermon preached at St. Louis, Mo., April 19, 1S65. Printed in German. St. Louis, Mo. Svo. pp. 8. Krebs, Rev. Hugo, D.D. The same translated into English. Svo. pp. 8. Krummacher, Dr. See Sturz. Laurie, Rev. Thomas. Two Sermons preached at West Roxbury, Mass., April 19 and 23, 1S65. Dedham, Mass. Svo. pp. 40. " LiNCOLNiANA," Containing Forty Sermons, Orations, Eulogies, Addresses, Speeches, and Letters. Boston, 1S65. i vol. Small 4to. pp. viii. 346. LiEBER, Frakcis. " The Martyr's Monument." New York, i vol. i2mo. pp. 297. " Lincoln Memorial." City of Boston, i vol., cloth. Svo,, large paper, PP- 153- Bibliographical L is I of Books and Pamphlets. 341 " Lincoln Memorial." A Record of the Life, Assassination, and Obsequies of the Martyred President. New York, i vol. 8vo. pp. 2S8. Lowe, Rev, Charles. Sermon preached in Charleston, S.C., April 23, 1865. Boston. i2mo. pp. 24. LowRiE, Rev. J. M. Sermon preached at Fort Wayne. Ind., April 16, 1865. Fort Wayne, Ind. 8vo. pp. 16. Ludlow, Rev. J. M. Sermon preached at Albany, N.Y., April 23, 1865. Albany, N.Y. 8vo. pp. 27. MacEl'Rey, Rev. J. H., M.D. Sermon preached at Wooster, Ohio, April 16, 1865. Wooster, Ohio. i2mo. pp. 24. McCauley, Rev. James. Sermon preached at Baltimore, Md., June i, 1865. Baltimore, Md. 8vo. pp. 16. McClintock, Rev. J. H., D. D. Sermon preached at New York, April 19, 1865. New York. 8vo. pp. 35. " Maple Leaves from Canada for the Grave of Abraham Lincoln," being a Discourse by Rev. Robert Norton, and an Address by Rev. Robert F. Burns, together with Proceedings of Public Meeting at St. Catherine's, C.W., April 23, 1865, &c. St. Catherine's, C.W. 8vo. pp. 40. Marshall, Rev. J. Sermon preached near Fortress Monroe, April 29, 1865. Syracuse, N.Y. 8vo. pp. 40. Mayo, Rev. A. D. Two Sermons preached at Cincinnati, Ohio, April 16 and 19, 1865. Cincinnati, Ohio. 8vo. pp. 28. Miller, Hon. S. F. Eulogy delivered at Franklin, N.Y., June i, i86v Delhi, N.Y. 8vo. pp. 16. Mitchell, Rev. S. S. Address delivered at Harrisburg, Pa., April 19, 1865. Harrisbui-g, Pa.' pp. 15. Morais, Rev. S. Sermon preached at Philadelphia, Pa., June i, 1865. Phila- delphia, Pa. 8vo. pp. 8. Morehouse, Rev. H. L. Sermon preached at East Saginaw, Mich. East Saginaw, Mich. i2mo. pp. 16. Morris, B. F., Esq. " The Nation's Tribute to Abraham Lincoln." Wash- ington, D.C., 1865. I vol., cloth. 8vo. pp. 272. Myers, Hon. L. Address delivered at Philadelphia, Pa., June 15, 186:;. Philadelphia, Pa. 8vo. pp. 15. Nadals, Rev. B. H., D.D. Sermon preached at Washington, D.C., June i, 1865. Washington, D.C. 8vo. pp. 15. Nason, Rev. Elias. Eulogy delivered at Boston, May 3, 1S65. Boston. 8vo. pp. 28. 342 Appendix. " National Preacher." New York. Double number, May and June. Contains six Sermons. Nelson, Rev. H. A. Sermon preached at Springfield, 111., May 7, 1865. Springfield, 111. 8vo. pp. 39. Newell, Robert. Poem : " The Martyr-President." New York, 1865. i6mo. pp. 43. NiCHOLLS, Rev. S. Sermon preached at St. Louis, April 23, 1865. St. Louis, Mo. 8vo. pp. 16. NiLES, Rev. H. E. Address delivered at York, Pa., April 19, 1S65. York, Pa. 8vo. pp. 8. Noble, Rev. M. Sermon preached at Newport, R.I., April 19, 1865. New- port, R.I. 8vo. pp. 16. Norton, Rev. R. See Maple Leaves. " Our Martyr-President, Abraham Lincoln." Voices from the Pulpits of New York and Brooklyn. New York, 186^. i2mo., cloth, pp. 420. Paddock, Rev. W. F. Sermon preached at Philadelphia, Pa., April 23, 1865. Philadelphia, Pa. 8vo. pp. 24. Parke, Rev. N. G. Sermon preached at Pittston, Pa., June i, 1865. Pittston, Pa. Svo. pp. 20. Parker, Rev. H. C Sermon preached at Concord, N.H., April 16, 1865. Concord, N.H. 8vo. pp. \^. Patterson, Rev. A. J. Eulogy delivered at Portsmouth, N.H., with an Account of the Obsequies observed by the City, April 19, 1S65. Ports- mouth, N.H. Svo. pp. 30. Patterson, Hon. J. W. Eulogy delivered at Concord, N.H., June i, 1865. Concord, N.H. 8vo. pp. 24. Patterson, Rev. R. M, Sermon preached at Philadelphia, Pa. 8vo. pp. 44. Pettee, Rev. J. Sermon preached at Abington, Mass., April 19, 1865. Bos- ton. " New-Jerusalem Magazine," May, 1865. " Poetical Tributes to the Memory of Abraham Lincoln." Philadel- phia, Pa., 1865. I vol., cloth. i2mo. pp. 306. Potter, Rev. W. J. Four Sermons preached at New Bedford, Mass., April 16, 19, and June i and 4. New Bedford, Mass. 8vo. pp. 6"]. Prime, Rev. G. W. Sermon preached at Detroit, Mich., April 16, 1865. Detroit, Mich. 8vo. pp. 16. Proceedings of the City Council of Balitmore, Md., April 15, 1865. Balti- more. Svo. pp. 24. Proceedings of the City Council of Boston, Mass., April 17, 1S65. Boston. Svo. pp. 35. Bibliographical List of Books and PampJilets. 343 Proceedings of the Bunker Hill Monument Association. Published in the Annual Report of the Bunker Hill Monument Association, June 17, 1865. Boston. Svo. Proceedings of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, April 24, 1S65. Phila- delphia, Pa. Svo. pp. 4. Proceedings of a called Meeting of Ministers of all Denominations in the District of Columbia, April 17, 1865. Washington, D.C. Svo. pp. 14. Proceedings of the Union League of Philadelphia, April 15, 1S65. Philadel- phia, Pa. Svo. pp. 22. Putnam, Rev. Geo., D.D. Address delivered at Roxbury, Mass., with Order of Exercises, April 19, 1S65. Roxbury, Mass. Svo. pp. 15. Quint, Rev. A. H. Two Sermons preached at New Bedford, Mass., a.m. and P.M., April 16, 1865. New Bedford, Mass. Svo. pp. 45. Rankin, Rev. J. H. Sermon preached at Charlestown, Mass., April 19, 1865. Boston. Svo. pp. 16. Reed, Rev. S. Sermon preached at Edgartown, Mass., April 19, 1S65. Bos- ton. Svo. pp. 24. Rice, Rev. Daniel. Sermon preached at Lafayette, Ind., April 19, 1S65. Lafayette, Ind. Svo. pp. 7- Rice, Rev. N. L., D.D. Sermon preached at New- York city, April 19, 1865. New York. Svo. pp. 16. RoBBiNS, Rev. F. L. Sermon preached at Philadelphia, Pa., April 23, 186^ Philadelphia, Pa. Svo. pp. 21. Robinson, Rev. C. S. Sermon preached at Brooklyn, N.Y., April 16, 1S65. New York. Svo. pp. 31. Russell, Rev. P. Two Sermons preached at Eckley, Pa., April 19, and June I, 1865. Philadelphia, Pa. Svo. pp. 30. Sample, Rev. R. F. Sermon preached at Bedford, Pa., April 23, 1S65. Philadelphia, Pa. Svo. pp. 32. Saunders, R. S., Esq. Oration delivered on Island No. 40, April 25, 1S65. Memphis, Tenn. Svo. pp. 16. Searing, Rev. E., A.M. Sermon preached at Milton, Wis., June i, 1S65. Janesville, Wis. Svo. pp. 20. Sedgewick, Hon. C. B. Eulogy delivei-ed at Syracuse, N.Y., April 19, 1865, Syracuse, N.Y. Svo. pp. 16. Seiss, Rev. J. A., D.D. Sermon preached at Philadelphia. Pa., June i, 1S65. Svo. pp. 45. " Sermons preached in Boston on the Death of Abraham Lincoln." Boston. i2mo. pp. 379- 344 Appendix. Simpson, Rev. M., D.D. Funeral Address delivered at the Burial of President • Lincoln, at Springfield, III., May 4, 1865. Nev^ York. i2mo. pp. 21. Slater, Rev. E. C, D.D. Sermon preached at Paducah, Ky., April 19, 1865. Paducah, Ky. 8vo. pp. 20. Smith, Rev. H., D.D. Sermon preached at Buffalo, N.Y., April 23, 1S65. Buffalo, N.Y. 8vo. pp. 32. Sniveley, Rev. W. A. Sermon and Address delivered at Pittsburgh, Pa., April 16 and 19, 1865. Pittsburgh, Pa. 8vo. pp. 38. 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