spirit which can apply the incendiary's torch to peaceful cities, and use the murderer's weapons on unarmed and helpless men, is rampant in our midst. Is not this the real spirit of those who have been in arms against us? Does it not find its counterpart in the black record of Andersonville, and Salisbury, and the Libby Prison? Is not this the essential spirit of treason? Is not this the legitimate teaching of the barbarous and barbarizing institu tion of slavery? Yes! This is the way in which the Confederate government makes war. This is the method

of the slave power.

Then I say, before God, make no terms with rebellion short of its utter extinction, and of that accursed system which has been the cause and groundwork of rebellion. Pursue it as long as a vestige of it remains. Let every loyal citizen register a vow before high heaven that nothing short of the utter crushing out of treason and its cause, at any expense of treasure and of blood, shall satisfy him. Had I twenty sons, and all as dear as the gallant boy who sleeps in his bloody grave on the field of Gaines' Mill, I would give them all, and lead them myself to the fight, if it were needed to ensure the utter extermination of a rebellion so causeless in its origin, so atrocious in its spirit, so malignant in its methods, so obnoxious to the curse of God and the abhorrence of all good men.

And finally, my brethren, let not this dreadful catastrophe lead you to despond in regard to your country. President Lincoln is dead, but the republic lives-aye, God lives, and is sovereign on his throne. He makes the wrath of man to praise him, and can restrain the remainder thereof. Our President has gone suddenly to his grave; but he goes to sleep in an honored grave, heading the noble army of patriot martyrs who have given their lives to their country. He has done a great and good

work for the nation; he rests from his labors, and his works will follow him. The nation are his mourners, and will enshrine his memory in their hearts. It is not too much to say that all his work was done, for "man is immortal till his work is done!" There is good reason to hope that this fearful summons did not find him unprepared to meet his God. It seems as if he could ill be spared; but learn a lesson from the history of your fatherland, ye children of Holland ancestors. It was a darker day for the Netherlands when William of Orange fell by the assassin's hand than for our country now, and yet how nobly that little republic weathered that terrible storm which broke her strong staff and her beautiful rod. So we need not despair of our republic. Our fathers' God is ours! He is teaching us to trust in his everlasting arm. In the very flush of our triumph we are taught how vain is the help of man-a hard lesson for this people to learn, but which God has determined to teach us; for he will have all the glory of our deliverance, and his glory he will not give to another. Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God. Pray, oh pray for his blessing on him who, untried, enters upon the arduous and delicate duties of the presidential chair. The prayers of God's people made President Lincoln what he was to the nation. It is not beyond the power of prayer to make President Johnson even more of a blessing to us in the days that

are to come.

Let the nation bow itself before God, who hath smitten, and he will raise us up. Through the darkness of the present I see the brightness of the future as the sun in heaven. I see the picture of a glorious land, her sins purged away, every blot removed from her stainless escutcheon-the home of civilization, liberty, and Christianity-a beacon light among the nations of the earth,

the friend of the oppressed, the sun of the benighted, the messenger of a resurrection to all the slumbering hopes of humanity, the great benediction of God to the world. Oh! if this picture may be a reality, and if this awful catastrophe which has clothed us in mourning shall but help on the grand consummation, then, indeed, our lamented President will have blessed his country and the world far more in death than in his life, and this last climax of agony and blood will not have been reached in vain.

SERMON XIV.

REV. S. D. BURCHARD, D. D.

"And by it, he being dead yet speaketh."-HEBREWS Xi. 4.

THE chapter from which our text is taken contains a record of the achievements of faith in the days of the patriarchs-a record designed to stimulate us in these far-off ages of the Christian Church.

"By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and by it he being dead yet speaketh.'

Abel, the accepted worshipper and martyred brother, still lives in his faith and speaks in his example, declaring that sin can be pardoned only through the propitiation of Christ, of which his offering was the appropriate and significant type. Though this is the personal and primary reference of this brief sentence, it may be regarded as containing a general principle—a lesson to the living, as well as a touching memorial of the dead.

The world is full of voices-the voices of those that have lived, but are gone.

Their utterences did not cease when their voice was no longer heard.

They have a continuous oratory, awakening emotions and memories in the nursery, around the family hearthstone, and in the places of public concourse. Does not the voice of the little child still linger in your dwelling, though its form is no longer visible? Do not its familiar toys, its unused dress, its well-remembered smile, its last kiss speak in a tone of pathos such as no living voice could articulate?

Our fathers and mothers may be gone. Long years may have passed since the tie of affection was sundered, and we wept disconsolate orphans over their graves, but the father speaks still in his manly words and deeds, and the mother in the closet of her devotions.

The great-the good-the loving live; they are invisible, yet life is filled with their presence. They are with us in the sacredness and seclusion of home-in the paths of society, and in the crowded assemblies of men. They speak to us from the lonely wayside-from the council halls of the nation, and from the sanctuaries that echo to the voice of prayer.

Go where we will and the dead are with us. Their well-remembered tones mingle with the voices of naturewith the sound of the autumn leaf-with the jubilee shout of the spring time.

Every man who departs leaves a voice and an influence behind him.

The graves of the peasant and of the prince are alike vocal. The sepulchral vault in which the remains of our beloved President were laid the other day, as well as the cold, wet, opening earth in which the humble laborer was buried, utters a silent yet all-subduing oratory. From every one of the dead a voice is heard in the living circles of men, which the knell of their departure does not drown, which the earth and the green sod do not muffle,