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can be no doubt that, in his known respect for established rights, as well as in his known justice, impartiality, and benevolence, South as well as North had begun to look upon him as their surest friend, and as the safe arbiter in whom they could both trust to exact no more and to claim no less than might suffice to make their reconciliation perpetual."

From the MORNING STAR.

"For Abraham Lincoln one cry of universal regret will be raised all over the civilized earth. We do not believe that even the fiercest partisans of the Confederacy in this country will entertain any sentiment at such a time but one of grief and horror. To us Abraham Lincoln has always seemed the finest character produced by the American war on either side of the struggle. He was great not merely by the force of genius-and only the word genius will describe the power of intellect by which he guided himself and his country through such a crisis—but by the simple, natural strength and grandeur of his character. Talleyrand once said of a great American statesman that without experience he divined' his way through any crisis. Mr. Lincoln thus divined his way through the perilous, exhausting, and unprecedented difficulties which might well have broken the strength and blinded the prescience of the best-trained professional statesman. He seemed to arrive by instinct by the instinct of a noble, unselfish, and manly nature at the very ends which the highest of political genius, the longest of political experience, could have done no more than reach. bore himself fearlessly in danger, calmly in difficulty, modestly in success. The world was at last beginning to know how good, and, in the best sense, how great a man he was. It had long indeed learned that he was as devoid of vanity as of fear, but it had only just come to know what magnanimity and mercy the hour of triumph would prove that he possessed. Reluctant enemies were just beginning to break into eulogy over his wise and noble clemency when the dastard hand of a

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vile murderer destroyed his noble and valuable life. Assailed by the coarsest attacks on this side the ocean, tried by the sorest temptations on that, Abraham Lincoln calmly and steadfastly maintained a policy of peace with England, and never did a deed, never wrote or spoke a word which was unjust or unfriendly to the British nation. Had such a man died by the hand of disease in the hour of his triumph the world must have mourned for his loss. That he has fallen by the coward hand of a vile assassin exasperates and embitters the grief beyond any power of language to express. He lived long enough to accomplish his great patriotic work, and then he became its martyr."

From the STANDARD.

"The startling news which was yesterday received from America is such as to throw into the shade even the tremendous catastrophe of the fall of Richmond and the surrender of Lee's army. * * All texts and sermons of the mutability of human affairs, and the instability of life, pale into insignificance before this tremendous commentary. Much as we have condemned the attitude of the American people during this civil war, and though we have from the first opposed the policy and censured the acts of the late President of the United States, we must sympathize with the nation which is widowed by this sudden bereavement. Now that he is dead the good qualities of the unfortunate Lincoln seem to come into the foreground."

From the EXPRESS.

"President Lincoln is dead. Even now it seems hard to conceive that before long the anxiously expected news from America will flash along the wires from time to time with no mention of his familiar name. He is gone -too soon, indeed; and yet, had it been earlier, how far greater had been our loss. He had lived to show the world how just, and moderate, and wise he could be in the moment of his great triumph; he had lived to point out the way to that peace and reconstruction which to

the faint-hearted and the evil-minded seemed so hopeless; and what is more, he had lived to inspire a whole people with the spirit of peace and good-will towards that section of their race with whom they had so long contended in bitter warfare."

From the GLOBE.

"It is too soon to estimate the depth and breadth of this great calamity to America and Europe. Mr. Lincoln had come nobly through a great ordeal. He had extorted the approval even of his opponents, at least on this side of the water. They had come to admire, reluctantly, his firmness, honesty, fairness, and sagacity. He had tried to do, and he had done, what he considered to be his duty, with magnanimity. He had never called for vengeance upon any one. In his dealings with foreign countries, and in his expressions with regard to them, he had come to be remarkable, because, among American Presidents, he showed a justness of view and tone which was not common. In the hour when the cause he had laboured for was about to triumph, and peace once more prevail over a torn and bleeding continent, he was shot in the back at a theatre by a cowardly assassin.

"It was easy enough to slay him. He went about unguarded. We were told that assassination was not in the American character, as if that character were radically different from the character of men in other parts of the world. The lawlessness which prompted men to fire New York, in the hope of burning it down, which led the Confederate refugees in Canada to commit felonies in Vermont, has now struck at the head of the State, and has taken his life. How the wretched assassins could hope to benefit their cause by foul murder it is difficult to conceive; and one shudders to think of the consequences that may flow from this hideous crime."

From the PALL-MALL GAZETTE.

"Since the day when Henry IV. was stabbed by Ravaillac, a fouler, or more detestable, or more deplor

able event than the assassination of President Lincoln was never committed in this world. The loss itself is unspeakably great, not only in the United States, but to ourselves. For four years Mr. Lincoln discharged the most difficult duties which could fall to the lot of a human being, not indeed in a way to strike the imagination of those who care for mere external show, but with a degree of substantial judgment and good sense which it would be almost impossible to overrate. He was our best friend. He never lent himself to the purposes of that foolish and wicked minority which tried to set enmity between America and England. He never said or wrote an unfriendly word about us. It would be hard to show that he made one false step in the management of the great trust committed to him."

From the CALEDONIAN MERCURY.

"In view of the terrible calamity involved in the death of President Lincoln, and the circumstances connected with it, the first question likely to arise is, 'What effect will it have on the future of the war, or on the probability of an early and satisfactory peace ?' To this we believe we can give an answer, which the future will demonstrate to be correct. The war will be proceeded with, and the work of reconstruction will go on as certainly, as surely, and as successfully as if the calamity itself had not occurred. The American people readily accommodate themselves to circumstances, adverse as well as favourable; and while they will mourn with sincerest sorrow the loss of one so eminently sagacious and good, they will also prosecute to its early and satisfactory completion the work he so faithfully and firmly showed them how to perform. Vice-President Johnson has already assumed the reins of office. He is a tried man, a more thorough Abolitionist even than President Lincoln himself, and one also who will abate neither jot nor tittle of the national demands. Notwithstanding his unfortunate appearance at the occasion of his inauguration, he is believed in and trusted by the American people. He has done

much good service to the State in his day-he has displayed a firmness and fearlessness against the slaveholding faction which has endeared him to the thoroughgoing emancipationists of both North and South; and while he will want the suave manner, and genial temperament, and long-sighted perspicacity of honest old Abe,' he has other qualities which not less fit him to be the wise and powerful ruler of the destinies of a great nation passing like refined gold out of a furnace of fire. We have no doubt he will rise to the dignity of his position and the responsibilities of his office; and that, carrying out the typical idea to which we have given expression, he will perfect like Joshua with the Judges, what Moses was not permitted to perform. Rulers die, nations live, God reigns. This is our comfort and consolation in the midst of sudden calamities, overwhelming the spirit and drowning the soul in grief, and this is especially our consolation in the contemplation of the awful end of the father of a regenerated people."

From the SPECTATOR.

“There never was a moment in the history of his country when firmness, and shrewdness, and gentleness were so unspeakably important, and the one man in America whose resolve on the crucial question was unchangeable, whose shrewdness statesmen indefinitely keener than himself could never baffle, whose gentleness years of incessant insult had failed to weary out, who, possessed of these qualities, was possessed also of the supreme power, and who had convinced even his enemies that the power would be exerted under the influence of the qualities, has been taken away from his work. The future of the black race still oscillates between serfage and freedom, and the one man sure to have preferred freedom, and preferring to have secured it, has been removed; the feeling of the white race fluctuates between forgiveness and vindictiveness, and the one man whose influence would have insured mercy has been murdered amidst the race who are striving to forgive by the class

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