confederacy had been formally organized; treason was rampant in the highest places of the government, and the rebellion had defiantly entered upon its career. He knew not whom he could trust, nor upon whose loyalty and support he could rely. Spies and agents of the rebellion were in the offices of the government, and scattered in all parts of the land. Such difficulties and dangers had never environed a President in the discharge of his duties. His own life even was not safe. He was calm, considerate, and conciliatory in his policy, yet firm, determined, and unswervingly loyal to the constitution and the country. His honesty, integrity and patriotism were above suspicion, and he drew the loyal heart of the country to him. He had been but a little more than a month in office, when the attack was made on Fort Sumter, which was followed by its surrender and the inauguration of the war. I will not follow the history of the war during these sad and bloody four years, nor his course in reference to it. The events are fresh in your memory. Suffice it to say, the war had been successful under his administration, and he lived long enough to see repossessed nearly all the posts and fortifications which had been wrested from the government by the plottings of treason, the national banner floating in every state in the Union, nearly all the rebel seaports in possession of the national forces, the surrender and dispersion of the principal army of the rebellion, and the overthrow of the main cause which

produced it, human slavery. He died on the very day that the old flag, which four years before had been lowered by the force of armed treason from the walls of Sumter, was raised by loyal hands to its place again, and floated triumphantly in the breeze. He died with the dawnings of peace and reunion gladdening his eyes.

The work of ABRAHAM LINCOLN was done, and God permitted him to be removed. But so far as human hands and passions had to do with it, "the deep damnation of his taking off" we can never forget nor forgive. It was most atrocious in its character, combining the elements of horrid tragedy, as no like event recorded in human history had combined them- most shocking of all the acts which degraded human nature had produced. It was the consummation in full development of the demoniacal spirit of slavery and the rebellion, that spirit which had stricken down a SUMNER in the national Senate house, which had plotted to assassinate the President before his first inaguration, which had beat and shot down our soldiers in the streets of Baltimore, which had hanged and murdered Union men, which had starved prisoners to death in the foulest of human pens, which had applied the incendiary torch to our peaceful cities, and now crowned its hellish acts with this terrible deed. It was not the result of individual hate. It was not an individual act even. Its author was merely an agent, carrying out the plottings, abettings,

and plans of the rebellion, impelled by the inherent barbarism of slavery. Toward such a spirit we can indulge no peace nor clemency.

And then, contemplate the folly and uselessness of the act. This government is not a one man power. The removal of no single individual, nor of several individuals, could stop its wheels or jostle its movement. This the conspirators well knew, or might have known. To strike down the President therefore, did not change the government nor weaken its power. It moved right on, and it would have moved right on, had they fully accomplished their plans. This they might have expected. No good could come to the rebellion in the accomplishment of their purposes. The assassination of the President, and especially at the time it occurred, could add no strength to their cause. It only weakens it and makes it the more odious. The act is, therefore, marked by the weakest folly as well as the foulest crime. It could only gratify the most malignant hate, and stamps the rebellion with a damnation and disgrace, that coming years and the judgment of the world, shall only make the more strong and emphatic.

In the death of ABRAHAM LINCOLN, the nation has lost one of the wisest, purest, best of rulers, and even the rebellious south, one of its truest friends. That he committed mistakes, he himself frankly acknowledged. And where is the man, that has the assurance to say, that in his circumstances, and environed by his

difficulties, he should have committed less ones. Coming generations will estimate his character and appreciate his greatness and excellence, as we amid the passions, prejudices and excitements of the time, are unable to do. Says a foreign writer recently of him, "We all remember the animated eulogium on General Washington which Lord Macaulay passed parenthetically in his essay on Hampden. 'It was, when to the sullen tyranny of Laud and Charles had succeeded the fierce conflict of sects and factions, ambitious of ascendency or burning for revenge; it was, when the vices and ignorance which the old tyranny had engendered, threatened the new freedom with destruction, that England missed the sobriety, the self-command, the perfect rectitude of intention, to which the history of revolutions furnishes no parallel, or furnishes a parallel in Washington alone.' If that high eulogium was fully earned, as it was, by the first great President of the United States, we doubt if it has not been as well earned by the Illinois peasant proprietor and 'village lawyer,' whom, by some divine inspiration or providence, the republican caucus of 1860 substituted for Mr. Seward as their nominee for the President's chair. Mr. Lincoln has persevered through all, without ever giving way to anger, or despondency, or exultation, or popular arrogance, or sectarian fanaticism, or cast prejudice, visibly growing in force of character, in self possession, and in magnanimity, till in his last short message to congress on

the fourth of March (the inaugural) we can detect no longer the rude and illiterate mould of a village lawyer's thought, but find it replaced by a grasp of principle, a dignity of manner, and a solemnity of purpose, which would have been unworthy neither of Hampden, nor of Cromwell, while his gentleness and generosity of feeling towards his foes, are almost greater than we should expect from either of them." This is high testimony to his goodness and greatness, but the statement is not overdrawn.

In his sterling good sense, in his profound knowledge of human nature, in his wise interpretation of passing events, in his adaptation to the demands of the time, in his ingenuous frankness, in his sturdy honesty, in his incorruptible integrity, in his unswerving patriotism, in his kindness to friends and magnanimity to foes, in his excellence and goodness of heart, he will rank among the foremost men and rulers of his time. He did not attempt to be what he could not be, the cultured scholar, the accomplished diplomatist, the eloquent orator: he was himself, original, practical, strong, a man of the people, a great and good President. And yet, some of the brightest gems of thought and language that ever flowed from human pen, or fell from human lips, have come from him. And the crowning thing of all is, ABRAHAM LINCOLN was a CHRISTIAN, a man of faith and of prayer. The recognition of God, and a reliance upon God, · have been most marked characteristics of his presi