trip, few were aware of her
to engage her powerful foe.
her passage south, an order
was sent to call her back.
order was not permitted to be delivered.
storm were made the executors of his will. Her voyage
was retarded sufficiently to permit her antagonist to come
forth and display her character and power, but not suffi-
ciently to prevent her coming in time to save and defend
the nation's property and the nation's honor. At the very
moment when really needed, when most desired, and all
was apparently lost, she came to the rescue and secured a
glorious victory. It was a victory given of God." It
secured the succession of similar victories and the peren-
nial monuments of the skill and courage of American
naval warfare.

departure. She was not sent
On the contrary,
On the contrary, while upon
from the Navy Department
But God interposed. The
Winds and

All these are lines of providence,-exalted, hidden, beyond our conception or arrangement. We might multiply them almost indefinitely, for they cover the whole field of observation. Every step which these Southern rebels have taken, they have been fighting against a providence that has been resistless, and have been compelled to defeat themselves. They have fought for slavery as a divine institution, until they were compelled absurdly to promise liberty to their slaves, if they would enlist and fight for slavery with them. Emancipation was made the boon for the black equally by the North and the South. They had vast crops of cotton, which they laid up for Northern armies to seize. They issued an unlimited order to plant only for food, to cover their territory with corn, and thus prepared the way for the support of Northern troops, in

their glorious march through the whole length of the rebelling territory.

They have lain in constrained idleness around Richmond, until the gathering hosts from abroad were too manifestly encircling them to permit a longer quiet. And then Richmond must be evacuated, and their whole armies, driven from their burrow, be made to surrender in the field. These are wonderful providences of God.

Perhaps the last act of providence is the most remarkable of all. They have combined for the murder of the President and his cabinet, in the hope of creating an unexpected anarchy of a nation without a ruler, and of involving the nation, in the suddenness of its despair, in an inextricable and hopeless revolution. But how God has confounded the counsel of Ahithophel! Satan was not more deceived when he plunged the Jewish mob into the murder of their Lord, than when, on this very commemoration day of his crucifixion, he has aimed a traitor's bullet against the exalted ruler of this people. It is a costly sacrifice, indeed, to us, but the blessings which it will purchase may be well worth the price. It has demonstrated the spirit and fruit of this rebellion. It has made it abhorrent and hateful in the eyes of the whole nation. It has cut up all partial, trifling dealing with it by the roots. It has introduced a ruler whose stern experience of Southern wickedness will cut off all pleas of leniency to the base destroyers of their country. It has cemented for ever the national union and spirit of this people, by making the man whom they most loved and honored the last great sacrifice for the liberty and order of the people. And just as the murder of Charles the First has been the one grand

support of the English throne for two centuries, has made rebellion inconceivably hateful to the loyal mind, and warned off generations of Englishmen from all approaches to rebellion, so will the murder of Mr. Lincoln sanctify the right and power of Government, and make rebellion for ever hateful to the American nation.

If there be this day a single fact which especially strengthens the royal house and government of England, it is the unrighteous murder of the first Charles. The severed head of a Stuart is the foundation stone beneath the throne of Britain and Victoria. And if there be one fact of providence which hereafter will especially consecrate the right of national authority, and overwhelm the first suggestion of secession or treason, it will be this murder of the man whom all history will acknowledge the wisest, purest, greatest, best of American rulers; if not the Father of his country, at least the loved brother of all his people, and the friend and defender of the poorest and lowest of all its generations. Thus has providence triumphed over our enemies and given us the victory.

III. The victory is the gift of God. This is so clear in fact, and so clearly a consequence of the series of facts which we have already considered, that I need not illustrate it in minute detail. The time is too recent for our forgetfulness of any of the great distinguishing facts which have marked this warfare, or to permit us to arrogate the honor to our own skill and power alone. It is impossible to forget the gloomy aspect of the first years of this strug gle-when at the East we were for a time severed from all communication with the national capital,-and in the West, all the states watered by the Mississippi up to the

Ohio, and higher on the western side, were held and fortified by the rebellion. It is impossible to forget the sadness of defeat after defeat in Virginia; the inaction and unwillingness, on the part of some of our leaders, to act in positive aggression against this Southern power, so conspicuously exalted, so defiant, so boastful, so encouraged from abroad; the threatening aspect of the Border States, as they were called; the bold threats of the leaders of the rebellion, of the devastation and ruin they were to bring upon this Northern land.

It is impossible to undervalue the courage, the union, the determination, the spirit with which these Southern rebels were inspired and sustained in their infuriated purpose. It is impossible to forget the devout humbleness of spirit with which our beloved and exalted President called the thoughts and dependence of the people, like some ancient ruler in the Theocracy, back to God. And when in the opening of the second year General Grant commenced his victorious career in the West,-and Donelson, and Pittsburgh Landing, and Vicksburgh, were rapid fruits of his valor, wisdom, and fidelity; and Dupont made his great opening on the coast of South Carolina; and Burnside effected his permanent lodgment on the inland shore of North Carolina; and the noble Farragut opened the Mississippi to New Orleans, meeting in his upward ascent the fleets which came down from the waters above: and Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, and Maryland, were all recovered to a permanent Union; and Antietam and Gettysburgh were the remarkable tokens of divine protection within the limits of our own eastern soil; it was impossible not to discern the hand of God, giving victory

from the very hour that the war was acknowledged to be a war for liberty as well as order,—and for the deliverance of the oppressed, as truly as for the conserving of the prosperous and peaceful.

Accordingly, again and again did our exalted and believing President issue his proclamations of thanksgiving, sounding the appeal in the ears of the whole nation,—Oh ! give thanks unto the Lord, who maketh us to triumph over our enemies. But later victories are even more remarkable. The rapid campaign of Sherman, and the quiet imperturbable wisdom, faith, and purpose of General Grant, in the combination of all his varied concentrating forces,-in his calm endurance,-in his modest self-abnegation, in his fidelity to duty, and success in duty, have no parallel in the greatness of character which they severally manifest, in human history. All these displays, though grand in themselves, are but a part of the one wonderful divine scheme. All talent, calculation, courage, and force opposed to them, seem to have been paralyzed and made useless. And as I survey the whole scene, thus rapidly noted, I should hold myself an infidel in spirit, not to say, It is God alone who giveth us the victory.

But I deem all these displays inferior and secondary. The moral greatness of the President,-his meekness,his faith, his gentleness, his patience,―his self-possession, his love of the people,-his confidence in the people,-his higher confidence in God, his generous temper never provoked, his love fearing no evil, provoking no evil,-are such an elevation of human character, such an appropriate supply for our very want, that I cannot but adore the power of that God, whose inspiration