the plain of Moab resounded with the cry of sires and sons, mothers and maidens, so now there will be mourning in the camp, and mourning on the prairies, and far away over the mountains; but nowhere keener anguish and disappointment than among the sable hosts whom his noble heart and hand has freed. All men unconsciously speak of him as our beloved President. And the hand of the assassin has embalmed him with all his virtues and greatness, and made him sacred and sublime in our fond, loving hearts, and in the heart of the world forever.

Were I to select some one thing by which to characterize Abraham Lincoln, I should name his profound apprehension and appreciation of the popular instinct; that instinct which is true to the right as the needle to the pole, in all storms, and on every sea. He believed in God; he believed God was to be recognized in this war. He believed that the set of the loyal masses, the deep, silent current, which bears on events is in the line of God's advance. And, thus believing, he governed himself by his apprehension of the people, and of God as manifest in their silent set or drift. As the philosopher learns the plans of God from an unprejudiced study of nature, so he learned the purposes of God from the instincts of the people. As the naturalist discovers from the structure of the animal what its mode of life and habits must be, so he saw from the essential peculiarities of our government whither our future must tend. He did not mean to be ahead of the popular feeling, for then there would be a re-action against his policy. He did not mean to be much behind it, for then some other agent

might be sought through which to give it expression. And so regarding the voice of the loyal people in this great crisis of the republic as the voice of God, he kept his ear open and his eye attent, and marshalled his policy not quite abreast of the divinely led masses. He sought not to control an age thus moved and inspired, but to be controlled by it.

Herein was his wisdom; herein his greatness; herein his power. This was the secret of his success, the source of that light which, in all coming time, shall gild with unfading splendor the name of Abraham Lincoln.

As the Netherlands mourned for William, Prince of Orange, as France mourned for Henry IV., "we have

we have lost our father!" so America

lost our father,

mourns to-day.

"Such was he, his work is done;

But while the races of mankind endure,

Let his great example stand

Colossal, seen of every land,

And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure;

Till in all lands and thro' all human story,

The path of duty be the way to glory.

But speak no more of his renown,

Lay your earthly fancies down ;

And in the vast cathedral leave him,

God accept him, Christ receive him."

1. And now, my friends, what are the lessons of this great calamity? First of all, submission. God reigns; we are absolutely dependent and sinful. The Emperor Mauritius seeing all his children slain before his face at

the command of the bloody tyrant, and usurper, Phocas, himself expecting the next stroke, exclaimed aloud, in the words of David: "Righteous art thou, O Lord, and upright are thy judgments." This event takes us by surprise, but the origin, maturity, and perpetration of this awful crime was all under the sleepless eye of God. For reasons which we cannot fathom now, nor find, He has permitted it. Perhaps when this day, the 14th of April, forever marked in our calendar; marked by the humbling of the flag at Sumter; marked by the exaltation of the flag four years after, — perhaps, when the 14th of April comes round four years hence, we shall know more of God's designs in permitting this foul murder of our beloved President. There is ONE whom the hand of violence cannot reach; and He has not led us thus far to desert and destroy us now. Meanwhile, as becomes us, let us bow our heads in meek submission to the divine will. Surely his footsteps are in the great deep; his designs are hidden from us in the dark: but let us trust him; let us cleave unto him. Submitting penitently to the rod of affliction, lot us put our hand in his, and say, Father lead, Father spare and bless.

2. A second lesson is this: Execute justice in the land. What is the foundation of our confidence in God? Is it not that he will do right? Is it not what David says, over and over again, in all his trials,—justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne? And just these justice and judgment are the foundation of every throne, and of every government. I spoke on Thursday, as far as it was appropriate to my theme, of the tremendous mistake and folly and sin, for the

people of a great nation to think that they can neglect or violate the laws of God with impunity. Just here has been our danger. There has been a miserable, morbid, bastard philanthropy, which, if it did not make the murderer's couch a bed of flowers, and set his table with butter and honey, made him an object of sympathy, and, after a while, of executive clemency. We are weak in our sense of justice. Why, how long is it since a man was pursued in the streets of Washington, and, though begging for his life, shot to mutilation? He was guilty of a foul crime? Yes. But did that give the injured man a right to murder him? Are there no courts, no ministers of justice in the land? But the murderer was acquitted, with applause in the court-room. Only this very spring, a young woman shot one of the clerks dead in the hall of the Treasury-building. To be sure, she said that he had broken his vow to marry her. And when I was in Washington, a few weeks since, it was confidently expected that she too would be acquitted. And here in Massachusetts, not to speak of other States now, where the punishment of murder is death, the guilty wretch, who could brood over his infernal plan for weeks, and finally, after several attempts on the same day, execute it upon an innocent, unsuspecting young man, and all for the sake of a few hundreds, or, at the most, thousands of dollars, is allowed to live, and become an object of sympathy. To shield his forfeited life imperils that of every young man who stands behind a counter in Massachusetts. Living, he is an encouragement to all persons like-minded to do likewise. saith the Governor, ye shall not surely die.

Yea,

And so in regard to the leaders of this infernal rebellion; the feeling was gaining ground here to let them off really without penalty. They are our breth

ren, it is said. Then they have added fratricide to the enormity of their other crimes, and are unspeakably the more guilty.

The punishment which a nation inflicts on crime is the nation's estimate of the evil and guilt of that crime. Let these men go, and we have said practically that treason is merely a difference of political opinion.

I do not criticise the parole which was granted, though, for the life of me, I cannot see one shadow of reason for expecting it will be kept by men who have broken their most solemn and deliberate oath to the same government. It was not kept by the rebels who took it at Vicksburg. Nor will I criticise, for I cannot understand, the policy which allows General Lee to commend his captured army for "devotion to country," and "duty faithfully performed." But I considered the manner in which the parole was indorsed and interpreted as practically insuring a pardon; and to pardon them is a violation of my instincts, as it is of the laws of the land, and of the laws of God. I believe in the exercise of magnanimity; but mercy to those leaders is eternal cruelty to this nation; is an unmitigated, unmeasured curse to unborn generations ! It is a wrong against which every fallen soldier in his grave, from Pennsylvania to Texas, utters an indignant and unsilenced rebuke. Because of this mawkish leniency, four years ago, treason stalked in the streets, and boasted defiance in the halls of the Capitol; secession