of all of them I charge on the same head. Slavery armed with treason was their murderer. Men point out to us the absurdity and folly of this awful crime. Again and again we hear men say, "It was the worst thing for themselves they could have done. They have shot a representative man, and the cause he represented grows stronger and sterner by his death. Can it be that so wise a devil was so foolish here? Must it not have been the act of one poor madman, born and nursed in his own reckless brain?" My friends, let us understand this matter. It was a foolish Its folly was only equalled by its wickedness. It was a foolish act. But when did sin begin to be wise? When did wickedness learn wisdom? When did the fool stop saying in his heart, "There is no God," and acting godlessly in the absurdity of his impiety? The cause that Abraham Lincoln died for shall grow stronger by his death-stronger and sterner. Stronger to set its pillars deep into the structure of our nation's life; sterner to execute the justice of the Lord upon his enemies. Stronger to spread its arms and grasp our whole land into freedom; sterner to sweep the last poor ghost of slavery out of our haunted homes. But while we feel the folly of this act, let not its folly hide its wickedness. It was the wickedness of slavery putting on a foolishness for which its wickedness and that alone is responsible, that robbed the nation of a President and the people of a father. And remember this, that the folly of the slave power in striking the representative of freedom, and thinking that thereby it killed freedom itself, is only a folly that we shall echo if we dare to think that in punishing the representatives of slavery who did this deed, we are putting slavery to death. Dispersing armies and hanging traitors, imperatively as justice and necessity may demand them both, are not killing the spirit out of which they sprang. The traitor must die because he has committed treason. The murderer must die because he has committed murder. Slavery must die, because out of it, and it alone, came forth the treason of the traitor and the murder of the murderer. Do not say that it is dead. It is not, while its essential spirit lives. While one man counts another man his born inferior for the color of his skin, while both in North and South prejudices and practices, which the law cannot touch, but which God hates, keep alive in our people's hearts the spirit of the old iniquity, it is not dead. The new American nature must supplant the old. We must grow like our President, in his truth, his independence, his religion, and his wide humanity. Then the character by which he died shall be in it, and by it we shall live. Then peace shall come that knows no war, and law that knows no treason; and full of his spirit a grateful land shall gather round his grave, and, in the daily psalm of prosperous and righteous living, thank God forever for his life and death. So let him lie here in our midst to-day, and let our people go and bend with solemn thoughtfulness and look upon his face and read the lessons of his burial. As he paused here on his journey from the Western home and told us what, by the help of God, he meant to do, so let him pause on his way back to his Western grave and tell us, with a silence more eloquent than words, how bravely, how truly, by the strength of God, he did it. God brought him up as he brought David up from the sheepfolds to feed Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance. He came up in earnestness and faith, and he goes back in triumph. As he pauses here to-day, and from his cold lips bids us bear witness how he has met the duty that was laid on him, what can we say out of our full hearts but this-" He fed them with a faithful and true heart, and ruled them prudently with all his power." The Shepherd of the People! that old name that the best rulers ever craved. What ruler ever won it like this dead President of ours? He fed us faithfully and truly. He fed us with counsel when we were in doubt, with inspiration when we sometimes faltered, with caution when we would be rash, with calm, clear, trustful cheerfulness through many an hour when our hearts were dark. He fed hungry souls all over the country with sympathy and consolation. He spread before the whole land feasts of great duty and devotion and patriotism, on which the land grew strong. He fed us with solemn, solid truths. He taught us the sacredness of government, the wickedness of treason. He made our souls glad and vigorous with the love of liberty that was in his. He showed us how to love truth and yet be charitable-how to hate wrong and all oppression, and yet not treasure one personal injury or insult. He fed all his people, from the highest to the lowest, from the most privileged down to the most enslaved. Best of all, he fed us with a reverent and genuine religion. He spread before us the love and fear of God just in that shape in which we need them most, and out of his faithful service of a higher Master who of us has not taken and eaten and grown strong? "He fed them with a faithful and true heart." Yes, till the last. For, at the last, behold him standing with hand reached out to feed the South with mercy, and the North with charity, and the whole land with peace, when the Lord who hath sent him called him, and his work was done! He stood once in the battlefield of our own State, and said of the brave men who had saved it, words as noble as any countryman of ours ever spoke. Let us stand in the country he has saved, and which is to be his grave and monument, and say of Abraham Lincoln what he said of the soldiers who had died at Gettysburg. He stood there with their graves before him, and these are the words he said: "We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far beyond our power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth." May God make us worthy of the memory of Abraham Lincoln ! HENRY CODMAN POTTER, BISHOP OF NEW YORK Henry Codman Potter was born at Schenectady, New York, May 25, 1835. He is the son of the late Alonzo Potter, Bishop of Pennsylvania. He received his early education at the Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia and, after leaving school, obtained a clerkship in a business house, which he soon gave up to prepare himself for the ministry. He entered the Protestant Episcopal Seminary at Fairfax, Virginia, was graduated in 1857, and ordained a deacon a year later. His first charge was the small parish church at Greensburgh, Pennsylvania. After a successful pastorate there of two years he was appointed to the rectorship of St. John's, Troy, New York, where he was an incumbent for seven years. His next field of labor was as an assistant to Dr. Eastburn at Trinity Church, Boston, then Bishop of the Diocese. Here he remained for two years. In May, 1868, he was appointed rector of Grace Church, in New York City, and for sixteen years officiated in that capacity. He declined several highly honorable offices to which he had been elected from time to time during these years, among them the bishopric of Iowa in 1875. When, owing to failing health, his uncle, Horatio Potter, Bishop of New York, asked for a coadjutor, he was appointed as his assistant and on October 20, 1883, was consecrated for his new office. By the death of his uncle, on January 2, 1887, he succeeded to the full charge of the diocese. Bishop Potter is a contributor to both ecclesiastical and secular literature. In his religious views he is a broad Churchman, and much contention has of late arisen by his adhering to a policy which is looked upon as too tolerant by the High Churchmen of his diocese. Union College has honored him by conferring upon him the degree of doctor of divinity. He was also made a doctor of divinity and of laws by Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, and has received honorary degrees from Oxford and Cambridge, England. He bears the dignity of his high office with ease and grace. He is a pulpit orator of marked > power and eloquence. His sermons are never dull or pedantic, and his voice is rich and full of feeling. The "Centennial Address" is a good example of his best style of oratory. |