love and sorrow, to attempt the measure of his power. And partly, also, because only the great can comprehend the great. A clown cannot comprehend a Newton. Pontius Pilate could not comprehend Jesus Christ. History, alone, in the course of ages, can find authority to give the verdict of greatness.

Mr. Lincoln had borne his honors modestly and simply. He had not used them for his avarice or his ambition. He made no personal enemies in the bestowal of office, in the irritation of those to whom office was denied, through their conviction that it was bestowed for the furtherance of sinister ends of his own. He fell under no suspicion of using his high position for selfish objects; his office through him incurred no such contempt. He governed, or rather, with singular truth it may be said, he served, not according to his own wisdom, but according to the wishes of the people, whose servant he was, as he carefully made himself acquainted with them. We never felt that he was imposing on us. He was not using, contrarily to our will, the power we had intrusted to him. We found in him no special theories or abstractions, in pride of which he was pursuing his own way. He followed out no cold and heartless logic, to which the people must succumb. He indulged in no conceits. He indulged in no self-will. For such reasons, we confided in him and loved him.

And in estimating the will of the people, that he might guide his action in accordance with it, it is remarkable

how he did not consider alone, as public sentiment, the expressions of men in public station, nor influential newspapers, nor resolutions of conventions only. He saw a public mind, a popular will beyond all these. Nor was it alone the momentary expressions of public will, that he considered as public sentiment, from whatever sources they might be found to originate. He seems sometimes to have seen into men's sentiments more deeply than they saw themselves. He seems, with more than usual depth of insight, to have looked into human hearts in order to find therein the will of God. In man, he reverenced the voice of God; and, in his knowledge of God, he sought more clearly to read the thought of human nature, the general conscience, the universal and the final will.

In our overwhelming sadness, we say, "it is the worst news since the war begun." In a sense it is so. It appears to our hearts as in many ways the most horrible. Yet we trust it is not so bad for the nation, as great defeats in war would have been. It cannot be thought to be so bad, as treason of parties and states; nor so injurious as the foreign sympathy which has been so largely given to the cause of the rebellion; nor as the intervention of foreign powers and their recognition of the Confederate States would have been. The nation lives. The common idea that nations depend on individuals, and that their places, when vacated, cannot be supplied, history does not sustain. Among the modern discoveries of

science, none is more remarkable, and perhaps none better established than this, that the course of nations has its order and its law, and that God is working out, through all apparently accidental changes, still, his vast designs. The death of Julius Cæsar is a scarcely noticeable event in the course which the Roman people and empire were pursuing. It wrought no greater freedom to the aristocracy or the populace; it excited no further war; the national prosperity was not destroyed by it. When Marat died under the dagger of Charlotte Corday, the French Revolution became none the less sanguinary and horrible. Charles the first died his violent death, but tyranny did not die with him. Louis the sixteenth was also put to a violent end, but royalty lived in the hearts or the genius of the French people, and after a brief period again revived. Henry the fourth died by the hand of an assassin, but the Roman and the Protestant faith alike survived. Many more rulers and prime ministers have died by assassination. But nations are not subject to the dagger of an assassin, and the life of a nation is not concentrated into the life of an individual. The vitality of a nation, we have learned, is in the hearts of the people; in their private morals, in their schools for popular education, in their domestic virtues, in the religion which they believe in, in the liberty they love. The progress of our own nation has not been retarded in its essential elements, by the conspiracy that aimed originally at its life, and

the war by which it has striven to maintain its existence; no more can it be, by the individual hand that again sought its destruction by taking away the life of its chosen, its trusted and beloved ruler.

The lives of great men work more after death than during life. "Being dead, he yet speaketh" is true of all. The shadows of great men reach far down the ages; or rather, the light with which they shine, and the inspiration which their genius and virtues transmit, are found increasing often as the ages pass. The moral character, the elemental ideas of Cæsar, Alexander and Napoleon, are a living power in the world at the present day. Jesus was more felt at Jerusalem, and through the world, when the disciples and the people could no longer look upon his outward form, and fear and malice had succeeded in silencing his outward utterance. Whether it be through 'natural' causes, so understood, or 'supernatural' means, men live in their influence after death with more efficiency for the world, than during the continuance of their mortal life. The great and good are never nearer in spiritual power, than when they seem finally to have gone away from us. They impress the world more deeply by their wisdom; their counsels are better heeded; their virtues are more admired and more carefully and successfully imitated. The spirit that God has once sent into the world, he seems never to take away from it. The mortal dies and is seen no more; the family and the world are never, in the

workings of Divine providence, bereaved of the good God has once bestowed upon them. It multiplies with every year; succeeding ages only find it greater still.

And while we are now overcome with the most poignant grief in the sudden loss which we have sustained, it seems to be the general conviction, that Mr. Lincoln's work on earth was done. The war, immense as it was, is finished. The nation is essentially at peace. If we undertake to review the greatness of the work he has accomplished, we cannot measure it. We can only compare it with great religious movements, with the Reformation, or with the establishment of Christianity itself. This new organization of liberty deserves to be set side by side. with no less important events in the progress of humanity. Which is greater, the present, or the first American Revolution, some might hesitate to decide. By the proclamation of freedom, Mr. Lincoln opened one half of our land to the people, to liberal institutions, to the new civilization, and to the possibilities of advancing religion, as well as gave liberty to slaves.

His work can never be undone. The nation is safe. Possibly it is safer than in the continuance of his life. He was merciful, and the people treasure up no revenge. He was gentle; he was lenient; was he weak in tenderness? was he too accessible to personal sympathies? was personal friendship, or the power of distinguished names too great in influence over him?