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Presbyterian Church of Harrisburg, 
 
 APRIL 19, 1865, 
 
 n mtwotiiim. 
 
 AN ADDBESS BY THE BASTOB* 
 
 Rev. S. S. MITCHELL. 
 
 w 
 
 HARRI SB U RG : 
 
 SINGERLY & MYERS. PRINTERS. 
 
 1865. 
 
Washington, D. C, April 15, 1865. 
 Major General Dix: 
 
 Abraham Lincoln died this morning, at twenty-two minutes past seven 
 
 o'clock. 
 
 E. M. STANTON, 
 
 Secretary of War. 
 
 Department of State, ■» 
 
 Washington, Z>. C, April IT, 1865. J 
 To the People op the United Status: 
 
 The undersigned is directed to announce that the funeral ceremonies 
 of the lamented Chief Magistrate will take place at the Executive Mansion, 
 in this city, at 12 o'clock noon, on Wednesday, the 19th inst. The various 
 religious denominations, throughout the country, are invited to meet in 
 their respective places of worship, at that hour, for the purpose of solemn- 
 izing this occasion with appropriate ceremonies. 
 
 (Signed) W. HUNTER, 
 
 Acting Secretary of State, 
 
Presbyterian Church, -» 
 Harrisburg, Pa., April 19, 18C5. / 
 Rev. S. S. Mitchell, Pastor: 
 
 Dear Sir: The undersigned members of your congregation, believing 
 that the address delivered by you to-day, during the services held in this 
 Church, as part of the National Funeral of Abraham Lincoln, late President 
 of the United States, gives expression in a chaste and appropriate form, 
 to the views and feelings not only of those who listened to its delivery, 
 but of many others, all of whom would be pleased to possess it in a more 
 enduring form, respectfully request you to furnish us a copy for publica- 
 tion. 
 
 Respectfully and Truly Yours, 
 
 U. H. MYERS, J. W. SIMONTON, 
 
 F. WYETH, B. F. ETTER, 
 
 J. F. SEILER, H. A. THOMPSON, 
 
 H. M. GRAYDON, WM. KNOCHE, 
 
 A. BURNETT, S. T. CHARLTON, 
 
 H. UHLER, WM. WILLIS, 
 
 ALEX. HAMILTON, J. McCORMICK, Jr. 
 W. W. HAYS, 
 
n 
 
 tmBxtum 
 
 Christian Citizens: 
 
 This is a National funeral. We are here at this time 
 to participate, with twenty millions of people, in the ob- 
 sequies of their Chief. To-day, even .at this hour, the 
 Republic buries Abraham Lincoln ! The mourners are 
 the friends of the Nation, the champions of freedom and 
 the rights of man throughout the world — the corpse is 
 that of our good, our honest, and our beloved President. 
 
 There is weeping to-day wherever the sad news has 
 sped, and patriotic hearts overflow at this hour with a sud- 
 den and a measureless grief. In the day of our victory 
 and our joy, God has laid his hand upon us, and there 
 is lamentation throughout the land — the Republic weep- 
 ing for a faithful son, and refusing to be comforted because 
 he is not. In the Capital City of our Nation there is 
 to be seen, at this hour, a pageant of woe, the spectacle 
 of a mighty sorrow, which casts its dark shadow of afflic- 
 tion from the Potomac to the Oregon, and underneath 
 which strong hearts are bursting with an indignant grief 
 while they exclaim, "Great God! Is it true] Can it 
 really be so?' And we, who are gathered here to-day, 
 can only say, " Yes ! God has willed it — it is true." 
 
 There, in the inactivity of death, sleeps the brain, which, 
 but a few short days ago, was wracked and fevered with 
 
8 
 
 the august care of a nation — which thought, and planned, 
 and purposed, (O ! with how much faithfulness,) for you 
 and me, and the Republic which we love. There, in the 
 deep aud untroubled rest of the last sleep, lies the face, 
 from which so much of kindliness and greatness of soul 
 ever beamed, and upon which are now the carved and 
 moveless furrows of four years of oppressive care and faith- 
 ful service. There in the Capital City, which bears the 
 name of the Father, lies cold in death the prostrate form 
 of him who shall hereafter be known — shall I not say it — 
 as the Preserver of his Country — the man, who, called 
 to the kingdom in troublous times, was faithful found 
 among the faithless, and who, through four long years of 
 storm, of darkness and of disaster, never lost his faith, or 
 quit the deck. 
 
 Weep, O Republic, for your faithful dead ! Weave 
 cypress wreaths around your brow to-day, O resuscitated 
 and preserved Nation ! Build him a monument to-day 
 broad as the basis of your vindicated nationality, and high 
 as the summit of your present hopes, and upon it write, 
 "Honest Abraham Lincoln, iclio loved and served Ids Conn- 
 try." 
 
 Not for his own untarnished fame, not for his future 
 memory and renown, has he fallen too soon. But too 
 soon, alas ! for us, who were just beginning to feel how 
 much we owed to his unswerving fidelity, his steadfast 
 faith and patriotic zeal. Too soon, alas ! for those, who, 
 in the hour of their humiliation and righteous disaster, 
 
9 
 
 have lost their most magnanimous enemy and their most 
 forgiving friend ; too soon, alas ! foi the Nation, which 
 was about to rise in the grandeur of its re-united strength, 
 and place upon his brow the diadem of " faithful servant;" 
 too soon, alas! for us all, who needed, so much at this 
 hour, his steady hand to do the bidding of his judicious 
 mind and kindly heart, and garner up in the store-house 
 of our future, the fruits of the Nation's struggle, the Na- 
 tion's tribulation, and the Nation's blood. 
 
 Yet, God has done it, and we are still. As the righteous 
 and all-wise Ruler of the Universe passes by us to-day in 
 the storm-cloud of this terrible judgment, we would cover 
 our face, while we exclaim — "It is the Lord, and His 
 name is secret." 
 
 We are here, Christian citizens, to mourn, but not 
 to murmur. We are here to weep, but not to despair of 
 the Republic ; here to drop tears over the grave which 
 the Nation shall dig to-day, but to see those tears trans- 
 figured into sacrificial drops, which shall purge away our 
 Nation's sins, which shall water with healthful and life- 
 giving influences, the seeds of National unity and pros- 
 perity, which that now relaxed and nerveless arm has 
 scattered, and bring germination and life and growth to a 
 nobler, deeper and truer love for our country. 
 
 We give up Abraham Lincoln to-day as a man who 
 has done his work. 
 
 God prepared an honest man for a terrible crisis — a cri- 
 sis in the history of our Republic and the world — and He 
 3 
 
 liaailillliillilil^llllMIMiMII liilllltlii'' [■MttlillilliiMMI— J— I— M 
 
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 10 
 
 gave that man to us when the crisis came. From the far 
 west He brought him, and from the humble walks of 
 life, and placed him upon the summit of an influence no- 
 bler than that of kings, and put within his hands a scep- 
 tre bigger with the destinies of men than emperor has 
 often wielded. 
 
 In darker days than this one He preserved him. Dur- 
 ing the long night of our country's danger and shame He 
 spared him, and now, just as the first aslant rays of com- 
 ing peace begin to lighten our national horizon, He with- 
 drew the shield of His protection, and the dagger of the 
 assassin is the voice which tells us that the sixteenth 
 President of the United States has done his work. 
 
 Let us believe to-day, Christian citizens, that the God 
 of our Fathers, who gave them Washington, gave us Lin- 
 coln. Let us also believe that He re-called him none too 
 soon. There is some great national "needs be." This 
 shall yet be seen by those of us who shall search for it. 
 
 The sun of God's providence rising with healing beams 
 upon oui- afflicted Nation, will yet tell us why our Leader 
 was now stricken down. Surely it must be for our good. 
 Surely our God is not now to dash to the ground our 
 highest and purest hopes — to blast, as in a moment, the 
 noblest fruits of the Nation's tears and the Nation's blood. 
 No ! we will not — we cannot believe it. No ! the work 
 had reached the stage when another hand might hold 
 our National standard. The time had come when the 
 Nation must make another sacrifice That sacrifice has 
 
11 
 
 now been made. That new hand now grasps the Stars 
 and Stripes. God is in all, God is over all — all is well. 
 
 Freedom is proclaimed throughout the land — the Union 
 is saved — Abraham Lincoln's work is done. The scenery 
 in the great providential drama now changes, and God 
 gives us another agent to accomplish his will for the Na- 
 tion. He, even the God of our Fathers, is with their chil- 
 dren, therefore will we not fear. 
 
 We give up Abraham Lincoln also, to-day, as a sac- 
 rifice to his Country. All noble life is self-sacrifice. 
 The only question is, whether the life shall be given by 
 inches, or at once. The law of progress in this world 
 is, labor, suffering, death. " Except a corn of wheat fall 
 into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die, 
 it bringeth forth much fruit." Martyrs die for the Church, 
 patriots die for the Nation — the law is the same in both. 
 
 The fruit of hope and peace which now begins to ripen 
 in, and for our Nation, has been watered by the life blood 
 of two hundred and fifty thousand patriot souls. Yes ! 
 "perfect through suffering" — "blessings and victory 
 through sacrifice and death," God's own Son has proclaimed 
 and consecrated these principles, and henceforward and 
 forever they are paths of development, in which both na- 
 tions and individuals must walk. 
 
 Thus through the great sacrifice are its human types both 
 necessitated and accepted. During the last four years we 
 have laid many a precious victim upon the altar of Union, 
 
12 
 
 Liberty, and a safe future, and to-day we immolate the 
 last and most precious. 
 
 Accept it, O God, and for the sake of thy Son, gi?e us 
 peace in our day. Accept it, and give us as its fruits, a 
 restored, re-united and a purified Republic. Accept it, 
 and send our nation down along the ages, the peerless 
 embodiment of civil and religious liberty ; the home of 
 the free, the refuge for the oppressed, the herald of thy 
 Son and his religion to all nations, and through all time. 
 Accept it, and make us the benefactors of a grateful pos- 
 terity — the builders of a national temple, upon whose al- 
 tars unborn millions shall sacrifice the sacrifice of thanks- 
 giving, and fill its walls with praise. Accept it, and lay 
 for us the foundation of our national unity and peace, so 
 deep and so broad, that it shall remain unmoved until the 
 second coming of thy Son. Accept this, our sacrifice, O 
 God, and make us that "happy people, whose God is the 
 Lord" — that people, which, underneath the streaming- 
 light of thy renewed benediction, shall stand out before 
 the nations of the earth, "fair as the moon, clear as the 
 sun, and terrible as an army with banners." 
 
 Thus, Christian citizens, do we give up the beloved 
 Chief Magistrate of our Nation to-day. Thankful to God 
 who raised him up ; thankful to that Providence which 
 guarded him so long ; as one who has done his work ; as 
 a holocaust, even a sweet smelling sacrifice upon the altar 
 of his country, do we, at this hour, bury Abraham Lin- 
 coln. 
 
13 
 
 And here, by the side of his grave, let our sorrow con- 
 secrate within us all a spirit of more ardent, more devoted 
 and more holy patriotism. "Our country," — let it mean 
 more to us to-day than it has ever done before. It is the 
 land which God has given us. It is our home. It is the 
 mother of us all. God gave it its birth through toil, 
 through suffering and through blood. For its preserva- 
 tion He has now accepted the lives of a quarter of a mil- 
 lion of its sons, and to-day, before our eyes, He re-conse- 
 crates it by a new and a noble sacrifice. O, where is the 
 man whose heart cannot burn, and whose eyes cannot 
 moisten, before the mourning flag of his country to-day X 
 Where is the patriot who is not willing, at this hour, to 
 come up again to the altar of his country, and, lifting his 
 right hand to Heaven, take anew that solemn oath of 
 Christian allegiance, "If I forget thee, America, may my 
 right hand forget her canning ; if I do not remember tliee, 
 let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth''' 
 
 God puts into your hands to-day Christian citizens, the 
 sacred trust of this great Republic, He gives into your 
 keeping anew to-day, the ark of civil and religious lib- 
 erty. He commits to you, as your most sacred responsi- 
 bility, this grand experiment, this noble embodiment of 
 Republican institutions. His providence to-day holds up 
 before you the land for which your fathers died, and 
 which is now dripping fresh with the sacrificial blood of 
 your brothers and your Chief, and asks you if you will 
 not receive, and defend, and preserve, and transmit to the 
 
u 
 
 
 needy millions of the future, the priceless legacy, the 
 precious hope, and the unfathomed benediction of the 
 A merican Republic. Let e very heart pulsate with a ho- 
 lier love for Country. Let every soul be burdened with 
 the prayer, " God of our Fathers, bless America." Let 
 every lip invoke benedictions. From every son and heir 
 of the Republic, let there be breathed the words, "0, thou 
 be oved land ! bound together by so many bonds of brother- 
 hood, rind common interest, and peril, live forever, one and 
 undivided. 
 
 And now turning from our Country to him, from whose 
 fallen form, we take, with prayers and vows and tears, the 
 standard of our Nation — what shall I say. 
 
 Friend of the Republic — farewell! Rest within the 
 inner sanctuary of a Nation's gratitude ! Thou neeclst not 
 desire a more sacred mausoleum. " Faithful servant " 
 is the verdict which twenty millions of thy countrymen 
 to-day pronounce over thy tomb. '■'•Faithful servant" are 
 the words with which a weeping Nation to-day speaks thy 
 praises. 
 
 Thou hast served the Republic. Thy work is done. 
 Thou wast faithful, noble, true. Thou didst stand in thy 
 lot. The tears, which we this day shed over thy grave, 
 shall purify a nobler patriotism for America. Our chil- 
 dren will bless thee. Thy memory shall be the inheri- 
 tance of thankful and succeeding generations. The fu- 
 ture hi:>tory of the Republic will be the record of thy deeds, 
 the proclamation of thy praise. 
 
15 
 
 Farewell ! modest, faithful, land-hearted, lionest Abraham 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Upon each of our hearts to-day we write thy epitaph : 
 "With faith in God lie loved his Country, and was true to 
 the people." Nobler praise than this thou couldst not de- 
 sire, less than this thou shalt never receive. Servant of 
 the Republic, true friend of thy country -men — again fare- 
 well! 
 
S '12 
 
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