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 THE LORD REIGNETH : 
 
 FEWWOEDS 
 
 SODAY MORMXG, April IGtli, ISG^^ 
 
 AFTER THE ASSASSINATION OF 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES DeNOEMANDIE, 
 
 Minister of the Soutli Parish, Portsmouth, N. H. 
 
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 My CiiftJsTiAN F^RiExS'Ds,— 1 have rio sermorl,afi(;1 
 there will be no preaching here to-day. For 
 the first time I confess I wish I were not your 
 minister, expected to say a word of consolation or 
 help, which word I have not. Whenever I seek 
 words, there come only tears ; but I could wish to 
 be one of you, meeting here to weep out our com- 
 mon grief, while in the sacred silence of this tem- 
 ple of God we re- assure ourselves that the Lord 
 reigneth. Sometime when we are more calm I 
 shall speak to you at length of our sorrow, our 
 loss and our duty. 
 
 What means this oveiflow of tears wide as a 
 continent ? What mean these bells answering 
 bells in solemn dirge all over our land? What 
 mean these graspingsof hand with hand when no 
 word escapes the lips ? What mean these anxious 
 inquiries, these mute looks, this hope against hope 
 for some denial of our sad news, these mutterings 
 of vengeance, these streets lined with black, the 
 air filled with murmurings, the very heavens 
 joining in our tears ? What voice have these 
 strange drapings in our house of worship,— -this 
 emblem of our national glory, which at our last 
 meeting told such a tale of joy, now too heavy 
 with sorrow to speak at all— these flowers, which 
 came to join in our thanksgiving for the immor- 
 tal life brought to light to day, breathing their 
 fragrance over an invisible bier, on which rests an 
 invisible body? "He is not here, he is riseji." 
 
Our President has been murdered ! What made 
 us love him, so that the humble citizen, taken by- 
 God from a western cabin, had well nigh won the 
 homage of the world ? What makes each one of 
 us feel a perso.ial grief, such as no ruler has ever 
 called forth before ? It was this simply : This 
 man of God was true to the noblest principles 
 which warm human breasts. Untaught in schools, 
 but wise for any emergency ; unskilled in diplo- 
 macy, but more than a match for any intrigue ; 
 temperate in the midst of every temptation ; fear- 
 less in the presence of any danger ; hopeful under 
 every defeat ; calm in every success ; humble in 
 every exaltation ; powerful and yet prudent ; 
 firm and yet lenient ; patriotic and yet humane ; 
 liberal and yet just ; humorous and yet solemn — 
 Abraham Lincoln walked by faith and not by 
 sight, and he was not, for God took him. 
 
 There is but one word of hope or trust. The 
 Lord reigneth. Do not let us forget or doubt that, 
 my friends,for one moment.or everything is gone. 
 You will hear this question asked by some in utter 
 despair. What are we all coming to ? Let not us 
 ask it, or harbor the despair. What are we com- 
 ing to? Why my christian friends we are just 
 following out the results of a cause which is suf- 
 ficient for all these things, and a great deal more; 
 for all that has happened, and a great deal still to 
 happen. It is all coming about as naturally as 
 the warm sun is calling all nature into life to-day. 
 You may think it severe, you may think it 
 strange, you may think it narrow, you may think 
 
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 a- 
 
 
 ^1 
 i 
 
 it partizan, yon ma^^ think of it as you wUt-^ 
 but remember this ; the time will come Avhen yoi^ 
 look at it ill the light of Christian principle an<« 
 Christian retribution, and say with me, not a sin- 
 gle thing has happened for which we have not 
 had in slavery a sufficient and plain cause. 
 
 Our President has been murdered ! Who murder- 
 ed bim ? That is something for you to consider 
 n your hearts,else we learn nothing from our ca- 
 amity. Who muderedhim ? They tell us it was 
 Booth, an actor. No, it was not Booth. He wag 
 only an instrument of others. They tell us it 
 was a maniac in a moment of frenzy. No, it w;-.!, 
 not a maniac. It icas the calmest deliberation of the 
 most reflecting and honorable supporters of slavery for 
 the last two hundred yearsl The maturity and cul- 
 mination, I trust, of thi^ iniquity. Every man 
 who has ever said a word in defence, or extenua- 
 tion of this, helped murcJer our President. Every 
 man who has ever said a word in defence or sym- 
 pathy with the confederacy based on this iniquity, 
 helped murder our President. Every man who 
 has withheld his word of support or sympathy for 
 this nation struggling for a broader freedoni, 
 helped murder our President. Every minister 
 who has stifled his prayer, or forborne the utter 
 auce of his heart's conviction, or permitted his 
 sanctuary to be a refuge for the nation's destroy- 
 ers, has helped murder our President. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln was a noble man. Noble his 
 life — forever sacred be his memory. He was all 
 American ; a true representative of what this peo- 
 
pie may become^ He was not my choice for Pres- 
 ident the first time, but he soon won ray heart. — 
 I have read somewhat of the history of the past 
 four thousand years, and I find there the record 
 of no nobler, truer, simpler, grander man. But he 
 is dead. 
 
 The Lord reigneth. God be thanked He has 
 not permitted very much of the world's progress 
 to rest upon any one m'an. The very highest, 
 the very greatest are quite insignificant when we 
 think of this mighty march of the soul of hu- 
 manity. We think otherwise. We think it all 
 depended upon cjne man we call Leader, General, 
 Emperor, King, President, Minister, Pope. It did 
 not. We call his death untimely. Nothing is 
 Untimely, from the quiet and unseen opening of 
 yonder leaf, and its fall some day next autumn 
 when a gentle wind shakes the bough, all along 
 up the series of events to where a demon robs a 
 nation of its choicest treasure. Everything comes 
 in the fulness of time,from the blessing of yester- 
 day to the Resurrection of the world's Redeemer. 
 It is all of God. God gave us our Chief Magis- 
 trate, Gcd preserved his life until he did his work ; 
 and think what a work it was ! Who shall say 
 it was not done, and well done ? But most cer- 
 tainly there was something for another to do. 
 Perhaps in that great heart which knew no jeal. 
 ousy, no envy, no bitterness, and could harbor no 
 unkind feeling, and no shadow of revenge to- 
 wards one of the human kind, there was also 
 wanting some of that quality which measures out 
 
6 
 
 justice to the guilty. What that work wa?, tho 
 days will fast reveal ; and whatever it was, God 
 kept it for others to do. 
 
 God gave him, God took him. Yes, my friends 
 most sacredly remember both. We are too apt 
 to think that it is only by a lingering death, by a 
 long or severe sickness, or in a good old age, that 
 God takes one away. The other deaths we some- 
 times thoughtlessly call untimely and unnatural. 
 But God works by miracles sometimes, and then we 
 do not stop to read the natural laws under which 
 they come. I am very sure it was his Providenc- 
 that called our President away from that Wash- 
 ington Theatre, as truly as if he had fallen qui- 
 etly asleep in a good old age. One man dies; but 
 in God's way ; and by God's hand another is 
 raised up, and the principle lives on. Each man 
 fills a place no other can. We ought not to want 
 him to ; but from all these myriads, God will show 
 us one or many to carry on His work ; and if this 
 struggle be not His Avork, it matters little whether 
 we have another President or not. 
 
 I spoke last Thursday of the Christian doctrine 
 of retribution, and said a cry for it would come 
 up from the friends of the prisoners, from the 
 bereaved and sorrowing hearts, from the freed- 
 men . That cry to-day is wide as the nation. I 
 loved our President as I have never loved any 
 public man, and yet, now that he has been mur- 
 dered, I have not a single feeling of revenge. I 
 call for no vengeance, but we must demand j)un- 
 ishment. Not for the murderer merely. Why, 
 
Ii would not have even him hanged. There are 
 many thousands all through our land far more to 
 blame than he. I do not ask for their blood. I 
 ])ray to day that not a drop of blood may be shed, 
 tliough life is not much ; but I call for punish- 
 ment, for Christian punishment, for punishment, 
 for past transgressions, for present rebelliousness, 
 for the sake of future safety ; and let punishment 
 fall wherever it belongs, North or South. Let a 
 cry for justice go up which shall make this con- 
 tinent ring, and the guilty tremble. Justice 
 which none but the guilty ever fear. Law which 
 none but the law-breakers ever dread. 
 
 Our President is dead. He rests from his labors, 
 and his works do follow him. Rest in peace, thou 
 noble martyr, while every heart hastens to pay a 
 son of America, while thy land learns the lesson 
 tribute and drop a tear 6n thy grave. Rest in peace 
 of thy life. Rest in peace, child of liberty, while 
 her anthem swells to a purer strain over thy 
 memory. Rest in peace, child of the Infinite, 
 with all the immortal company. 
 
 Oar President is not dead. He still speaks. He 
 is 7iotdeady for the memory of virtue is immortal. 
 Re is not dead and here is our only suflticient con- 
 solation* 
 
 To-day is kept very sacred in the Christian 
 church, as commemorating the resurrection of 
 Jesus, wliich brought life, and immortality to 
 light. I was intending to speak to you this 
 morning from that passage in Mark's gospel, xvi. 
 chap. 4th verse, — when as the three women were 
 going to the sepulchre to annoint the body oj 
 their Master with spices, — the tribute of affection 
 
after the custom of the age, and as the early sun 
 was just giving his rays to light their way, — it 
 occurred to them that a great stone which had 
 been put as a guard by the door, would defeat their 
 pious purpose ; but when they came to it, and 
 looked up, behold ! the stone was already rolled 
 away. 
 
 A simple incident, indeed, but how deep its 
 meaning, how grand its tfuth, how universal its 
 experience. We too, go along with b'jwed heads 
 and mourning hearts, raising doubts or question- 
 ing possibilities, or wondering whence our aid is 
 to come, or what we shall do when we reach the 
 end, — when there, we lift up our eyes and it has 
 all vanished, the danger, the dread, like some 
 phantom which has taken to itself fearful pro- 
 portions, like some great body of human form, 
 which turns out only a stone, and that, rolled 
 away from where our path leads. Oh ! my 
 Christian friends, a bold and trusting, and per- 
 severing soul finds no stone against the door, but 
 always enters without hindrance among the guard - 
 ing angels by the Saviour's side. 
 
 It was a short and easy step for our departed 
 President from the theatre of earth to the thea- 
 tre of heaven. The evening light was mortal, 
 I tut the morning light was full of immortality. 
 It was a short way through a green pasture, and 
 beside a quiet stream, with the Lord Jesus lead- 
 ing. We have two words to strengthen and com- 
 fort us. 
 
 " The Lord is risen " 
 
 " Be still and know that I am God." 
 
' B S '12