See the effect on the people of this dastard blow! We are melted down into unity. Who speaks a word against Lincoln now? Who stands aloof from the government now? Who dares sympathize with traitors now? We have rubbed out our party lines, and fly together as if nothing had divided us. In a common fraternity of suffering, we weep as with one sorrow, and burn as with one indignation. The government may do anything now against treason, and the people will approve the righteous deed.

We have lost all sentiment of clemency. Satan overleaped himself when he lifted the deadly weapon. If we indulged mercy to rebels before, now we have none. There is one deep, loud cry for justice! The animus of the rebellion has betrayed itself. The bullet that entered our loved President's brain, lodged in the heart of the people. It rankles there. It needed the assassin's foul deed to nerve us to the punishment of traitors. I speak not the name of this heaven-abandoned wretch. I call him THE ASSASSIN. He has lifted us to a new view of this colossal conspiracy. We see the unmitigated turpitude of the huge crime. It is the same spirit that buried our soldiers at Bull Run with faces downward, and made trinkets of their bones-that starved our unhappy prisoners in the pens of Andersonville-that butchered our men in cold blood at Fort Pillow-that devoted the peaceful inhabitants of Lawrence to indiscriminate massacre-that froze our veterans to death on Belle Island-that crowded our officers in the damp dungeons of Richmond, till you could gather the mold from their beards by the handful! And we call on President Johnson to close his hard, hammer hand, and bring it down with its heaviest blows, till he shall crush in the brazen front of this infernal rebellion, and hurl its foul carcass from the land it has polluted!

This land is not large enough to hold the leaders of the rebellion. The flag they have sought to dishonor should not be allowed to cover them. They have forfeited, a thousand times over, the mercy of the government they assailed. And this last and vilest culmination of their crimes puts them beyond the possibility of pardon. Let us make this soil red-hot to the foot of every traitor. Let the warm breath of our holy indignation sweep from our cities every rebel sympathizer. Let us vow, in God's house to-day, that treason shall be destroyed, trunk and branch, root and rootlet, till not one hand be left to give the sword such a vintage of blood again. Then will our land be a land of peace and freedom. Then will our na

tion be the joy of the whole earth!

14

SERMON XVIII.

REV. ALBERT S. HUNT.

"The wisdom of God was in him to do judgment."-1 KINGS iii. 28. WE MEET IN TEARS. The darkness and the grief which have made us faint have fallen upon myriads besides "for in every house there is one dead." Never since the world began has heaven looked down, at any one time, upon so many mourning assemblies as crowd the Christian temples of this land to-day. Why is it so? Is not this the festive day when believers in "Jesus and the resurrection" should adorn their altars with garlands, and sing joyful anthems? And have we not heard too, since we last met, such tidings of victory over an armed foe as almost never before cheered the hearts of a loyal and God-fearing people? All true! but our Easter anthems give place to dirges, and our "victories are turned into mourning unto all the people" to-day, because Abraham Lincoln has been assassinated. What do I say? Strange, sad words! Are we in the midst of a troubled vision? God of our fathers, have mercy upon us!

WE MOURN THE DEATH OF ONE OF THE MOST COMMANDING His life has been a magnificent

PERSONAGES OF HISTORY.

success. I will not attempt, by words, to prove this statement. "If you seek his monument, look about you." The Union is saved!

WHERE NOW SHALL WE FIND AN EXPLANATION OF THIS TRIUMPHANT SUCCESS? "The wisdom of God was in him to do judgment." That this text furnishes the only full response to our inquiry, will become more apparent if we seek the explanation elsewhere.

Is it to be found in the essential worth of his character? It is too early to attempt a finished portraiture, or even a full outline, but a glance at a few features which most attract us will serve the purpose of our argument.

He had a clear, strong intellect. This was manifest in the ease with which he grappled with great public questions. If his logical processes were not always conducted in obedience to the rules of the schools, his conclusions would yet silence the most orderly thinkers.

The same clearness was always evident in his easy intercourse with others, when his mind was unbent and at play.

He was also justly distinguished for the tenderness of his heart. This was indicated, not only in his care to occasion no needless suffering in the discharge of his executive duties, but also in numberless words and ways which were unofficial. You remember the touching letter he wrote to the mother in Boston, who had lost her sons in the cause of the country. His address at Gettysburg, remarkable as it is for the grandeur of its thought, is even more so for the tenderness he breathed into it. And only a few days ago, when at City Point, on his way from Richmond to Washington, he refused multiplied invitations which promised ease and entertainment, because “he had only time," as he said, "to go through the hospital and