righteous indignation and vengeance of Heaven's justice! It were blasphemy to speak of any other Providence than this in the dark, midnight crime that has slain our President. It is the hand of Satanic wickedness that has done this thing; and the hand of the Lord is not in it, save as it enters into every crime, to neutralize, overturn, and destroy it, result and cause together.

I pray not-I dare not pray-for meek submission, as if this were God's act. I pray rather for a just indignation, for a wise and righteous wrath to inspire us,not for any littleness of vindictive passion, not for any spirit of human vengeance,-but with reverent earnestness and solemn sense of the hour's need, I pray that the mighty spirit of Heaven's retributive justice may possess and stir our hearts, and put into us the iron nerve that is wanted for the stern tasks now given to our hands. I pray, indeed, that thy will, O Lord, not ours, may be done,- but it is not thy will to slay the beauty of Israel on our high places,—it is the unsanctified, maddened, wicked will of man that has done this deed, thinking, in its insensate frenzy, to fight against and overthrow thy will. Yea, O Lord, thy will be done! Thus may we ever pray. And may we listen reverently, docilely, courageously, to hear thy will even in this fearful tragedy, with hearts and hands ready to do to the utmost whatsoever duty is required of us. For, though not by thy righteous will has this dreadful thing been done, yet in it thou sendest us warning, and instruction, and great commands. Let us listen and obey.

Listen for yourselves, O friends. I cannot hope, and I have not the heart to attempt to-day, to interpret this

national calamity, and this crime against the nation, in their full significance. Our sense of loss is too personal,—it will not let us yet fully uncover the sacred reserve of our grief; it is yet too soon-we cannot bear to have the curtain lifted wholly, and the fearful horror exposed in all its secret causes and consequences. But listen-listen each for himself to what truth and justice and a wise, true love, are trying, through the passages of this grief, to utter to-day in every loyal heart. Listen, my friends, for God's voice, as he shall utter in your stirred and agonized souls the moral of this awful tragedy. Listen and obey.

The lesson must come.

But I can only hint at it to-day. It is not yet the hour for analysis, but for grief.

For grief! Oh, double grief, that in the hour of our triumph this wickedness has been consummated! that into the hour of our rejoicing this heavy sadness falls! that the bells had hardly rung out their gladness through the land before they had to mournfully toll the people's sorrow! Double grief, that he who had led us so wisely, and with so much honor to himself and the country, through the terrors of war, has fallen by the assassin's hand, just as he was going through the gates of victory to receive the crown of peace and of a nation's gratitude! The crown of peace! He wears it now from God's own hands. The crown of a nation's gratitude! He is henceforth our martyr and our saint.

Grief not for him! But grief that our hands cannot bestow the crown which his have so nobly won, and that our eyes cannot see him wear it, moving with honors and grateful love among us down to serene old age. Double

grief, that just as peace was dawning, and the whole east was radiant with the coming sun of prosperity and joy, the sky is suddenly darkened with the blackness of this guilt and this tempest of a nation's tears!

I thought to speak to you to-day, my friends, of the glory of Petersburg and Richmond; of the overthrow and surrender of the great army of the rebellion, and of the old flag raised again by brave Anderson's hands over Fort Sumter,- of the open door and auspicious harbingers of peace. But "we looked for peace, and behold trouble." We looked for peace, and behold a sword.

Four years ago this crime would not have shocked us as it does now. Then we almost expected it, and it was almost a miracle that it did not come. But now, after being saved through the hazards of four years of open war and stealthy treachery, that this precious blood should be spilled, by the dastardly assassin's hand, on the very threshold of final victory,-it is for this that our hearts weep and almost refuse to be comforted, and our shocked, staggering faith asks, "Why, O why, was this consecration, and this baptism needed, before we could enter again the holy temple of peace?"

We weep not for him. His career is finished gloriously. Few public men in this, or any, land will have so honorable a record in history. The people's president-not the president of politicians, or of a party, but the president of the people and the country,-coming from the people, respected, honored, trusted, beloved, chosen and re-chosen by the people, he aimed always with upright and manly purpose to serve the people, and advance their interests and

their rights. The most magnanimous and tender-hearted and forgiving of magistrates, he has almost fallen a victim to his own generous nature. Standing in presence of the open grave which violence has prepared for him, we forget even the few faults of his character. His life rounds before us in majestic fulness and completion; and whether for the sober pen of the future historian, or for the dramatic demands of some coming Shakspeare, he could hardly have himself asked for a longer continuance of life. For him, for his fame, for a sure place in his country's gratitude, for his immortality in history or in dramatic story, his life is finished with rare and æsthetic felicity. It received its crown when, a few days ago, he made that modest but triumphant entry into Richmond, hailed, not by the rich and the powerful, but by the poor blacks, whose chains by his command had just fallen from their limbs, and who crowded the way and followed him through the streets, showering their blessings upon him as their deliverer and saviour. That was the crown of his presidency and his life. After that there was no honor which the country or the world could give him. We weep not, then, for him. He is henceforth our hero as well as our martyr-president.

Nor do we mourn for our country's cause, as if that were lost. In thus completing and crowning his own life, he had conducted the nation to the point of assured triumph and safety. Not for our country's cause can we now grieve or fear. That, thanks to our dead president, thanks to our generals and their armies, thanks to the Lord of Hosts, is now beyond the power of any one man's life or death either to save or to destroy.

Not for our country's cause do we mourn; but we do weep for our country's loss and dishonor. We weep for the State, bereaved of an honest, faithful, unselfish ruler. We weep for philanthropy, bereaved of a sagacious counsellor and helper. We weep for humanity, bereaved of the tenderest and most compassionate of hearts. We weep for the whole world of mankind, bereaved of a statesman who had faith, without regard to race, or color, or country, in the laws of divine justice, and in a government of equal rights and equal chances for all. But most of all do we weep for the enormity of this crime,-that the assassin, at home under despotism, but a stranger to our free government, has been permitted to put his brand of infamy upon the Republic, and to stain forever its hitherto fair escutcheon with more precious than imperial blood. Flow, tears of this people, till you wash out in expiation the "damned spot" of this guilt! Drop your tears in floods, O clouds, to cover our shame! Let the sun and the moon and the pure heavens be darkened, that they see not our sin! Oh, humanity, that thou couldst have borne this dreadful crime in thy bosom! In all the world there is but one that equals it. We must go back eighteen hundred years, to Gethsemane and Mount Calvary, to find its fitting mate in atrocity.

Yet not upon the skirts of the Republic, not upon the sceptre or royal robes of freedom, rests this stain. It is the exotic spirit of despotism that has committed this horror. Slavery has done this deed. Slavery, which has educated a whole community in barbarism, which has corrupted all sense of honor and right and truth in its upholders, which gave birth to the monstrous theory of