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for death, exile for a term of years, - say ten years. This would be so moderate a punishment that it would pretty certainly be carried out. 2d. Then for those who have left the service of the United States to fight against it, and for the civil officers of the rebel States let the punishment be disqualification for any office, and inability to vote during ten years. So fast do things move in this country, that in ten years, when the exiles return, they will find no opening left for them, all their influence gone, others in their places, the whole machinery of state re-organized, and they all sent into obscurity and oblivion. 3d. Let all those who have committed specific crimes, such as murdering citizens, starving to death our prisoners, and killing colored persons in cold blood, be tried and punished for those crimes under the laws. 4th. Let all the common people who have been forced and cheated into rebellion be pardoned on taking the oath of allegiance and keeping it. 5th. Let no rebel State be re-admitted into the Union till its Legislature has passed the Constitutional amendment abolishing slavery in the United States.

This is my plan for reconstruction. Let the military government of the U. S. be continued over the States, and let garrisons of colored troops be kept in all the large towns. Let no State be re-admitted till a convention of the people has met, revising its Constitution and abolishing slavery, and till its Legislature has passed the Constitutional amendment. Let the Federal Courts for the District of Pennsylvania find indictments for treason against every member of the rebel government, rebel Congress, and every head officer in the rebel army. Let the Federal Courts in Ohio, Maryland, and Missouri, do the same. Then let Congress be called together, and modify the law, substituting exile for a term of years, and disqualification for office, under certain conditions. So that by accepting and submitting to the lesser punishment, they may escape the greater.

REV. GEORGE H. HEP WORTH.

MATTHEW IX: 15.

"CAN THE CHILDREN OF THE BRIDE-CHAMBER MOURN AS LONG AS THE BRIDEGROOM IS WITH THEM? BUT THE DAYS WILL COME WHEN THE BRIDEGROOM SHALL BE TAKEN FROM THEM, AND THEN SHALL THEY FAST."

BRETHREN, last Thursday morning I read to you the first part of the verse which I have chosen for my text. It was a day appointed for fasting, humiliation, and prayer; but so signal had been the victories of the few preceding days, that this people, with one accord, united their voices in a great chorus of thanksgiving. Little dreamed we then, that so soon the latter clause of my text would call this mourning nation to the saddest duty of its life.

Who can measure the great grief of this people? The blow came so unexpectedly, that we hardly yet know how to express our feelings in fitting words. Each man weeps for a friend in the loss of this our Foremost American Citizen. When the dreadful tidings first flashed upon our hearts, it seemed too appalling to be credible. We struggled against it. The wires have played us

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false, we said, and we almost grew indignant with the tamed lightning which but a few hours before had thrown the whole North into such a bewilderment of joy as it told us the story of the fall of Richmond, and which now changed our joy into the very bewilderment "The President is

of woe as it wrote upon the bulletin, dead!" We did not know how much we loved that good man, nor how much confidence we had reposed in him, until the fearful certainty of our loss assured us. Was ever public officer so sincerely mourned before? Every home of the North will drop its tear of genuine sorrow upon his grave, for mothers sent their boys to do the dreadful work of war all the more willingly because our commander-in-chief was so prudent, careful, and thoughtful; every hamlet will learn the lesson of the hour from its draped pulpit when the preacher shall tell how fell the unsullied patriot from the affections of the whole people into the bosom of immortal life; every city, from where the Atlantic wave moans its sorrow to the rising sun to where the Pacific sighs out its grief to the sinking orb, testifies its respect and love for the great man, by those emblems which sadly decorate every public building, if not every private residence, and which always tell us that the people's heart is heavy.

Brethren, it is not merely a brave warrior whom America mourns. No battle chieftain, however great his exploits in the field of danger and of conquest, could ever rouse such love as this we bear to Abraham Lincoln. It is not merely the clearness and sagacity of his mind that most we miss. No philosopher, however

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