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fighting, and its decision is at hand, and the result of the contest will affect the ages to come. If successful, republics will spread, in spite of monarchism, all over this earth. (Exclamations of Amen," ""Thank God!") I turn from the Army to the Navy. What was it when the war commenced? Now we have our ships of war at home and abroad-to guard privateers in foreign sympathizing ports as well as to take care of every part of our own coast. They have taken forts that military men said could not be taken, and a brave admiral, for the first time in the world's history, lashes himself to the mast, there to remain as long as he had a particle of skill or strength to watch over his ship while it engaged in the perilous contest of taking the strong forts of the enemy. I turn to the Treasury Department. Where shall the money come from? Wise men predicted ruin, but our National credit has been maintained, and our currency is safer to-day than it ever was before. Not only is this so, but through our National bonds, if properly used, we shall have a permanent basis for our currency; and they are also an investment so desirable for capitalists of other nations, that under the laws of trade, I believe, the centre of exchange will be transferred from England to the United States. But the great act of the mighty chieftian, on which his fame shall rest long after his frame shall moulder away, is that of giving freedom to a race. We have all been taught to revere the sacred character of Moses, of his power, and the prominence he gave to the moral law. How it lasts, and how his name towers among the names in Heaven, and how he delivered three millions of his kindred out of bondage; and yet we may assert that Abraham Lincoln, by his Proclamation, liberated more enslaved people than ever Moses set free, and these not of his kindred or of his race. Such a power,

When

or such an opportunity, God has seldom given to man. other events shall have been forgotten, when this world shall have become a network of republics, when every throne shall have been swept from the face of the earth, when literature shall enlighten all minds, when the claims of humanity shall be recognized every where, this act shall still be conspicuous on the pages of history, and we are thankful that God gave to Abraham Lincoln the decision, wisdom and grace to issue that Proclamation which stands high above all other papers which have been penned by uninspired men. Abraham Lincoln was a good man. He was known as an honest, temperate, forgiving man, a just man, a man of noble heart in every way. As to his religions experience, I cannot speak definitely, because I was nct privileged to know much of his private sentiments. My acquaintance with him did not give me the opportunity to hear him speak on this topic. I know, however, he read the Bible frequently; loved it for its great truths and for its profound teachings, and he tried to be guided by its precepts. He believed in Christ, the Saviour of sinners, and I think he was sin

cerely trying to bring his life into the principles of revealed religion. Certainly, if ever there was a man who illustrated some of the principles of pure religion, that man was our departed President. Look over all his speeches; listen to his utterances. He never spoke unkindly of any man; even the rebels received no words of anger from him; and the last day illustrated, in a remarkable manner, his forgiving disposition. A despatch was received that afternoon, that Thompson and Tucker were trying to make their escape through Maine, and it was proposed to arrest them. Mr. Lincoln, however, preferred rather to let them quietly escape, and this morning we read the Proclamation offering twenty-five thousand dollars each for the arrest of these men, as aiders and abettors of his assassination. So that in his expiring acts he was saying: Father forgive them; they know not what they do!' As a rule I doubt if any President has ever shown such trust in God, or in public documents so frequently referred to Divine aid. Often did he remark to friends and to delegations that his hope for our success rested in his conviction that God would bless our efforts because we were trying to do right. To the address of a large religious body he replied, "Thanks be unto God, who, in our national trials, giveth us the churches.' To a minister who said he hoped the Lord was on our side, he replied that it gave him no concern whether the Lord was on our side or not, for, he added, 'I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right,' and with a deep feeling, added, But God is my witness that it is my constant anxiety and prayer, that both myself and this nation should be on the Lord's side.' In his domestic life he was exceedingly kind and affectionate. He was a devoted husband and father.

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"During his Presidential term he lost his second son, Willie. To an officer of the army he said not long since, Do you ever find yourself talking with the dead!' and added, 'Since Willie's death I catch myself every day involuntarily talking with him, as if he were with me.' On his widow, who is unable to be here, I need only invoke the blessing of Almighty God that she may be comforted and sustained. For his son, who has witnessed the exercises of this hour, all that I can desire is that the mantle of his father may fall upon him. (Exclamations of ‘Amen.') Let us pause a moment in the lesson of the hour before we part. This man, though he fell by the hand of the assassin, still he fell under the permissive hand of God. He had some wise pur. pose in allowing him so to fall. What more could he have desired of life for himself? Were not his honors full? There was no office to which he could aspire. The popular heart clung around him as around no other man. The nations of the world have learned to honor him. If rumors of a desired alliance with England be true, Napoleon trembled when he heard of the fall of Richmond, and asked what nation would join him to protect him against our government. Besides the goodness of such

a man his fame was full, his work was done, and he sealed his glory by becoming the nation's great martyr for liberty. He appears to have had a strange presentiment early in political life, that some day he would be President. You see it, indeed, in 1839. Of the slave power he said: 'Broken by it? I, too, may be asked to bow to it. I never will. The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the sup port of a cause which I deem to be just. It shall not deter me If I ever feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country, deserted by all the world besides, and I standing up boldly and alone and hurling defiance at her vicarious oppressors. Here, without contemplating consequences, before high Heaven and in the face of the world, I swear eternal fidelity to the just cause, as I deem it, of the land, of my life, my liberty and my love.' And yet secretly he said to more than one, I never shall live out the four years of my term. When the rebellion is crushed my work is done.' So it was. He lived to see the last battle fought and to dictate a despatch from the home of Jefferson Davis. Lived till the power of the rebellion was broken; and then, having done the work for which God had sent him, angels, I trust, were sent to shield him from one moment of pain or suffering, and to bear him from this world to that high and glorious realm where the patriot and the good shall live forever. His example teaches young men that every position of eminence is open before the diligent and the worthy, to the active men of the country. His example urges the country to trust in God and do right. Standing as we do to-day by his coffin and his sepulchre, let us resolve to carry forward the policy which he so nobly and wholly began. Let us do right to all men. Let us vow in the sight of Heaven to eradicate every vestige of human slavery, to give every human being his true position before God and man, to crush every form of rebellion, and to stand by the flag which God has given us. How joyfully we ought to be that it floated over parts of every State before Mr. Lincoln's career was ended. How singular is the fact that the assassin's foot was caught in the folds of the flag, and to this we are indebted for his capture. The flag and the traitor must ever be enemies. The traitors will probably suffer by the change of rulers, for one of sterner mould, who himself has deeply suffered from the rebellion, now wields the sword of justice. Our country, too, is stronger for the trial through which it has passed. A republic was declared by monarchies too weak to endure a civil war, yet we have crushed the most gigantic rebellion in history, and have grown in strength and population every year of the struggle. We have passed through the ordeal of a popular election while swords and bayonets were in the field, and have come out unchanged; and now, in an hour of excitement, with a large minority who pre

ferred another man for President, and the bullet of the assassin naving laid our President prostrate, has there been a mutiny? nas any rival proposed his claim? In an army of nearly a million of men, no officer or soldier has uttered one word of dissent, and in an hour or two after Mr. Lincoln's death, another leader, with constitutional powers, occupied his chair, and the government moved forward without one single jar. The world will learn that republics are the strongest governments on earth. And now, my friends, in the words of the departed, 'with malice towards none, free from all feeling of personal vengeance, yet believing the sword must not be drawn or borne in vain, let us go forward in our painful duty.' Let every man who was a Senator or Representative in Congress, and who aided in beginning his rebellion, and thus led to the slaughter of our sons and daughters, be brought to a speedy and to certain punishment. Let every officer educated at public expense, and who, having been advanced to position, has perjured himself and has turned his sword against the vitals of his country, be doomed to this. I believe in the will of the American people. Men may attempt to compromise, and to restore these traitors and murderers to society again; but the American people will arise in their majesty and sweep all such compromises and compromisers away, and shall declare that there shall be no peace to rebels; but to the deluded masses we shall extend the arms of forgiveness. We will take them to our hearts and walk with them side by side as we go forward to work out a glorious destiny. The time will come when, in the beautiful language of him whose lips are forever closed, 'The mystic cords of memory, which stretch from every battle field and from every patriot's grave, shall yield a sweeter music when touched by the angels of our better nature.' To the ambitious there is the fearful lesson of the four candidates for Presidential honors in 1860. Two of them, Douglas and Lincoln, once competitors, but now sleeping patriots, rest from their labors; Bell perished in poverty and misery, as a traitor might perish, and Breckenridge is a frighteued fugitive, with the brand of traitor on his brow. That will be vouched by the angels of our better nature. (Cries of "good, good.")

ABRAHAM

LINCOLN IS MOURNED BY TWENTY-FIVE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. Thus was laid to his silent rest the most illustrious citizen of the Nineteenth century. No other mortal ever went to his tomb amid such expressions of grief. Twenty five millions of people mourned him as children mourn the loss of a father. The emancipated blacks felt that they

had parted with their earthly saviour, the man who, under GOD, had been raised up to redeem them from oppression. And now, as we write, the wail of old England, the sorrows of all Europe, the sighs of every breast which contains a heart throbbing with the love of liberty, come borne to us by every burdened breeze from over the Atlantic. The world sympathizes with America in her grief, and the world accords to our cherished dead the meed of praise, the proud height of fame to which Mr. Lincoln's pure life, honest heart, and unsullied private and public character entitled him before the eyes of man and angels.

In his career we have seen how the flat-boatman and rail-splitter of the West climbed step by step until he reached the highest round of political preferment, as well as the loftiest place in the affections of his countrymen. We have seen how honesty of purpose won its way while beset by the wiles of political chicanery and deceit. We have seen how sterling principle lived down fierce opposition until the false and the wrong were forced to yield to the true and the just. We have seen a grand illustration of the practical democratic republicanism of our American system, in elevating a man from the humblest ranks of the people to the loftiest place on earth. And, finally, we have seen how the malignant hate of foiled traitors sped the Parthian arrow to the murdering of the most illustrious citizen of the Republic.

"An eagle, tower'ing in his pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed."

But the principles enunciated and struggled for by Abraham Lincoln are as imperishable as truth itself, and having performed his great mission upon earth, he has gone to meet his reward in another sphere, leaving to his fellow citizens, and to posterity, the enjoyment of the

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