right-thinking men will find in it occasion to bestow upon him double honor. It is not difficult for the favored few to gain a full share of worldly success. Born to wealth, to social position-surrounded by friends, ever ready to bestow or secure patronage-they have the current with them. They do but float down its surface to the harbor they desire. But the many are poor, have few friends to help them, and they must not only struggle against wind and tide, but at the same time endure the scornful jeers and malevolent opposition of the more favored mortals. No poor boy is allowed to make his way unless he has heart, and courage, and purpose enough to disregard the contempt of supercillious wealth, the secret malignity of interested rivals, together with all the other common or uncommon obstacles in the road to success. Our free institutions embody the principles of a Christian democracy. The Bible favors no class distinctions. It teaches that all are required to use what talents they possess, and that each shall be compensated according to his fidelity in their use. And that is what our political system also says. In the world it is not so. The poor remain poorthe ignorant remain ignorant, and the rich heap up riches. This at least is the rule where aristocracy bears sway. It is, thank God, not so here. Our churches, our schools, our newspapers, our whole life, inculcate the doctrine of Christ, respecting the right of each man to rise in intelligence, virtue, dignity, and influence. Against this life, secession lifted its murderous hand in the beginning, and to add to the "sum of all villainies," has assassinated the President. I do not wish to employ the language of passion. But I hate, with a perfect hatred, this infernal spirit of rebellion which has plunged our land into mourning, filled hundreds of thousands of graves with the bodies of martyrs slain for their loyalty to principles taught us by the Son of God. Can there be a doubt respecting this issue? The American people are to be executors of the unrecorded will and testament of their generous, humane and patriotic President. Let them be true to their trust. Do any undervalue the inestimable privileges of our American institutions, let them look abroad and see how "privilege" oppresses the many. The few are masters of the people. Here the many have advantages which assure them opportunity of being all they have capacity to become. Abraham Lincoln was the representative of popular rights, manhood, and liberty. The people weep because they loved him in character as a President, and as a man. The assassin who struck him, assailed every loyal citizen through him-and dealt a murderous blow upon the nation, in murdering its head. We have our duties. We must stand by the successor of Mr. Lincoln. Andrew Johnson is worthy of our support. He is now our Chief Magistrate-and as he wears the mantle of his immediate predecessor, so let us give him the support of our prayers and our loyal devotion to the cause he serves. Henceforth the name, fame, and virtues of each are in the keeping of so much of the world as delight to honor rare ability, unimpeachable integrity, and fervent devotion to the rights of all mankind. Washington was indeed the father of his country, and some future Bancroft shall record on the page of history that Abraham Lincoln was the political savior of what Washington and his compatriots had founded. We weep, but we shall dry our tears in the sunlight of Hope. The President is no more-but the Republic lives. Let it be perpetual. SERMON XIII. REV. A. P. ROGERS, D. D. "Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?"-Amos iii. 6. "Be still, and know that I am God."-PSALM xlvi. 10. the na A SUDDEN and awful calamity has fallen upon tion. It has come like a thunderbolt from a clear sky. It has no precedent in all our history, and we reel and stagger under the unexpected and mighty catastrophe. In the midst or our grateful joy for victory, in the midst of our congratulations at the prospect of peace, the sad and startling intelligence which has flashed along the wires from the capital of our nation, has prostrated us in the depths of affliction, and pierced the great heart of loyal America with unutterable anguish. For the first time in the history of our fair country, the murderous hand of the assassin has been successfully lifted against the Chief Magistrate of the nation, and our strong staff is broken in a moment. Passing successfully through the tremendous ordeal of his first official term, bearing burdens and meeting responsibilities such as none of his predecessors had ever known, with a manly courage, a genial patience and entire single-heartedness, a wonderful wisdom, and an honest devotion to the country which commanded the respect of his enemies, and surpassed the expectations of his friends, he has been struck down by a cruel, dastardly blow, in the very hour of success, and amid a grand chorus of national thanksgiving and praise. Oh! how suddenly has this grand national anthem given place to a dirge of wailing and woe! In how brief a moment has our glorious flag, which floated so proudly from ten thousand heights in token of triumph, been veiled in mourning, not, thank God, in defeat and disgrace, but in the deepest national anguish. Who among us all anticipated such a catastrophe? Among all the possible contingencies of our eventful times, who apprehended this? And who of us can resist for a time the pressure of this terrible calamity? I confess to you, my brethren, that I come to you with a heavy heart to-day. Never since that fearful blow which brought desolation to my own household in the first month of my ministry here have I come to this pulpit with such a lingering step, with such a burdened spirit. I have never feared for my country's final triumph and safety. I will not fear for her now. But a dispensation so unexpected, so mysterious, so overwhelming in itself, its circumstances, and its possible results, may well make us tremble and bow ourselves before the mighty hand of God. I confess to you that I have shrunk from meeting you in this house of God to-day. I had anticipated and prepared for a very differcnt occasion. I had hoped to welcome Easter Sunday under circumstances grateful alike to the Christian and the patriot, and with anthems of joy, and lessons of Holy Scripture, appropriate to this blessed Christian festival, to have greeted you in the sanctuary. But the providence of God has inaugurated a different method, and altered the key-note of the service of this hour. I know that there is but one thought uppermost in the minds of all who have assembled here. It is not the thought of Easter, not the thought of resurrection, life, gladness, and hope, which would express itself in a hallelujah of grateful praise. It is the thought of the awful event which has clothed a nation in mourning, and exchanged the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. From the capital of our land, where our Chief Magistrate. lies in death, the victim of a foul and fiendish deed, comes a sad, stern message, which we cannot ignore. It has gone over the lightning's track to every city and village from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It has hushed the accents of joy and triumph; it has oppressed the national heart with sorrow; and there is probably not a pulpit in the loyal States to-day which has not taken its key-note from this calamity. For myself, my thoughts, so far as I could rally them, have turned to that great truth, of the sovereignty of God in calamity, which is so forcibly illustrated in this direful hour. Atheism has no consolation to offer us now. Philosophy is cold and comfortless. Faith must find something firm and durable to rest on amid these dissolving shadows of earth and time. "Shall there be evil in a city and the Lord hath not done it?" Above the wailings of a stricken nation, above the tide of disappointed hope, outraged sensibility, or vindictive passion, the awful voice of Jehovah is heard, saying: "Be still, and know that I am God." There is no lesson so hard to learn as that of divine sovereignty and human dependence. Yet there is none which is inculcated so constantly in the teachings of the Bible, none illustrated so sternly in the dispensations of Providence. No man can study the dealings of God with men, either in the operations of his providence, or in the plan of salvation, without seeing that they tend to |