SERMON XI.

REV. JAMES EELLS, D. D.

"I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth."-PSALM cxxi. 1, 2.

speak to you on Never within my formation of our

It is impossible for me to preach the sermon I designed for this morning. My heart beats too closely in sympathy with your own to allow the consideration of any ordinary theme, while I feel wholly unfitted to that which will give place to no other. recollection—perhaps, never since the government-have the masses of the people been more profoundly moved with consternation and grief than within the past twenty-four hours. I went through our great thoroughfares of business soon after the first awful tidings reached us yesterday morning, that I might learn something more definite, even though it should be the confirmation of my fears; and the faces of all classes of men presented the most sad, yet most eloquent, commentary on the great calamity that has befallen the nation. The laborers, gathered on the corners of the streets, were speaking in low and mournful tones of the President's death. The companies around the bulletin boards read

the dispatch which sealed all hope with the manifest conviction of the public loss. The men of business greeted me only with exclamations which made known their deep concern in so solemn an emergency. Political distinctions were not regarded-there was a universal feeling of distress and astonishment that the two chief officers of the government should be the victims of an assassin. Such a day as yesterday has rarely been known in the history of nations. Such a Sabbath as this has come to us in no part of the terrible history of the past four years; and we should be thankful that its sacred calm, its blessed privileges, its hallowed inspirations of peace, and comfort, and trust, and hope come so soon to relieve and cheer a Christian people.

There are many things which conspire to occasion the feelings which oppress us. That the President should be killed is itself a fact awakening anxious thought in the minds of those who value the stability and strength of republican institutions. That he should be killed at such a crisis as we have reached in the great struggle through which we have been passing adds much to the excitement that in any event would prevail. Whatever opinions may be held respecting the policy pursued by him, it was uniform, and his own; it was identified with the whole military and political state of affairs; it was comprehended by him, of necessity, as no other can comprehend it; and a radical change at this juncture is impossible. The administration is to continue; yet he who seemed alone able to prosecute its measures has dropped from his place. Moreover, we were in the midst of almost unrestrained jubilation on account of returning peace. The force of our enemies was broken; the power of the government was acknowledged; the hearts of the people were thrilled with the news that day communicated, that the prepara

tions for war need no longer continue, and those who had long been absent as the country's defenders would soon come back to their families and homes. The pulse never had been higher and stronger in the arteries of popular interest, and hope and joy mingled in all demonstrations, without regard to the differences that had existed. The most wonderful week of our national history was drawing to a close. We looked forward to this day as one of general and overflowing thanksgiving to God. Alas! how, as in a moment, has all been changed, and a mourning people gather in their sanctuaries, with tokens of their bereavement, and feel humbled under the mighty hand whose stroke they did not anticipate.

Then, the character of the President, which has been so fully revealed to us, adds greatly to the grief we do not seek to repress. It is not too much to say that he has occupied his place in the most turbulent era—all things considered through which any nation ever passed successfully. Issues were involved affecting millions of people and untold interests, monetary and political, on each side. Passions were roused to frenzy. There was no possibility that men should agree as to the proper course to be pursued. There was no hope that any policy that should be adopted would be admitted by all to be wise. Yet the President must adopt some course and pursue it as wisely as possible, meeting the opposition that could not be avoided from men excited to the highest pitch. It is a marvel that, after passing through such an ordeal for four years, his opponents unite with his associates in the belief that he was an honest as well as able man; that, to a degree which the feelings of the people this day exhibit, he was beloved as well as respected. Multitudes who never saw him weep for him as though he was one of their own families; and there is a consciousness, not a few of us con

fess with melancholy pleasure, that he had a warm place in our hearts as a man in full sympathy with what we cherish as noble and good. No man can have a grander monument. No man will have a record more pure and worthy of those qualities which all will ultimately honor, whatever may be the judgment of history upon the policy he felt constrained to pursue. He was remarkable for nothing more than for his simple, rigid integrity-his settled purpose to do what he believed to be wise and right. This made it impossible for professed politicians to manipulate him. This gave him that noble epithet with which he came from his Western home to Washington, after a career where his character was often severely tested. This has coupled that epithet with his name, during his public life, wherever it has been spoken. This is uttered as one of the people's most endearing words of honor, now that his body is borne back to his early home; and upon his monument-sacred because the occasion of his murder—will weeping pilgrims read the inscription in after years that he was "honest." No man ever showed himself more true to what he announced as the principles of right. Great in the simplicity of his character, his motives, his perceptions, his acts; gentle as a woman in his regard for others, yet resolute as fate in his determination to crush evil; ostentatious in no part of his duties, made vain by no flattery, turned aside from his course by no abuse; from the first having decided upon the outlines of his policy, yet listening ever for advice respecting its details, and reverently watching for any signal from Heaven that he should change; to the end, as the nation's acknowledged leader, the same man, except as his powers had been greatly developed by the weight he carried, as when he came to do the nation's bidding amid the forebodings of those who knew he had not been tested—

there could be no more worthy type, in all essential features, of an American citizen. That he was killed, because just such a man, has enshrined him in our hearts.

It is not my purpose, however, to speak at length upon the character or acts of Mr. Lincoln. I allude to them only to show that our loss can hardly be estimated, at a time when such qualities as were eminent in him are to be far more needed than towering ability, and such independence of will as would refuse to be at once the exponent and the leader of the people's wishes.

There are some aspects of this affliction to which we should give attention, that afford some relief and many lessons of singular importance. They relate to the past and to the future, and have possibly been in your hearts and on your lips as you have met each other. One is this, that our common feeling of loss and outrage will tend, more than any arguments and appeals could have done, to bring all classes of our people together and ccment them by the impulses it will rouse in all alike. Never have we needed unanimity of the masses so much as now, that the tremendous issues to be settled at the close of the war may be so determined that the country may be permanently prosperous. The most logical treatises on political economy would not be sufficient to outweigh the gains of intrigue and party rule. The most able statesmanship would not control the excitable and unreasoning, who compose the large majority of our citizens, who are nevertheless, in heart, patriotic, and devoted to the interests dear to us all. We could see already how the people were beginning to drift apart upon questions that must arise, and a spirit might be fomented that would bode evil. May it not be that the blood of the President and his chief adviser shall be a bond of union which their counsel and acts could not