and therefore was consummated the greatest crime the world ever saw, in audacity, combination, and success; in the choice of place, hour, and occasion: in the motives alleged; in all its episodes and parties; in a word, that tragedy of a second's duration, in which appeared the horrible and terrible spectre, Wilkes Booth, the most atrocious and the most daring of all criminals who have bequeathed their names to history. Truly, in order to sacrifice in such a manner so kind, so merciful a man, one so full of all goodness as Abraham Lincoln, it needed that in the universe there should also dwell a man with heart devoured by the flames of hell, and whose assassin arm should be strengthened with the terrible energy of the reprobate.

To slay Nero, the arm of a cowardly and base slave sufficed. Cain alone could have murdered Abel!

XIX.

In the honors which have been rendered to the great martyr of the age, in the tears which have been shed, and in the eulogiums which have been made by all mankind, there has been nothing fictitious or conventional. The liberation of the slaves had inscribed his name on the golden page of the saviours of humanity, which commenced with Moses, and had been closed with Washington.

His unbounded toleration of all creeds, all systems, and all things not condemned by law and justice, those eternal attributes of all nations, had made him the citizen of all countries, and therefore all have mourned for him as for a personal loss. His very enemies have furnished the noblest and most expressive epitaphs for his tomb. General Lee, on hearing of the crime, exclaimed, as his eyes filled with tears, "The man has gone who conquered the South before and more effectually than all the armies of Grant!" and that other remark of the implacable rebel, General Roger Pryor "The best friend of the South has gone," are not they of themselves the brightest crown of all which, in his funeral apotheosis, decked the brow cold in death of the dictator of good?

XX.

In his private habits, Abraham Lincoln was worthy of

the ancient name he bore. He lived as did the patriarchs of the early ages, with no other pleasures than love for his kin; with no other goods than the roof under which he passed his days; no other worship than that of God.— He belonged to no sect; he recognized the mystic supremacy of no church; but he was, notwithstanding, the most fervent christian, the most generous philanthropist, the sincerest and humblest of believers, as is shown by his speeches, harangues, messages to Congress, and, in short, by everything which fell from his lips or was written by his pen, which were ever clothed in the vastest and truest religious spirit. His enemies said that he only wrote sermons, because they could not understand that he, the generalissimo on sea and land, who commanded the largest armies and most formidable squadrons of which history speaks, was but a simple priest of Liberty; a humble and sublime liberator, who had come from the forests of the West to rule half a world with the two codes which contained all his belief and all his duties-the Constitution of the Union and the Holy Bible.

XXI.

But from all that has been said, it may, perchance, be thought that Abraham Lincoln was a grave, pertinacious, inflexible man. And, nevertheless, there was not in the United States a plainer, more jovial, and humorous man. The merry and jocose humor of "Old Abe" was proverbial, not only in the servants' rooms in the White House at Washington, but also in the cabins of the most unhappy slaves. He was ever laughing, ever joyous, and always accessible. A joke was the chief characteristic of his conversations in the family circle, as a certain biblical tone pervaded all that he said or wrote concerning his public mission. He could not converse without relating an anecdote, nor write without quoting from some parable.

On one occasion, while traveling in a stage coach, in 1848, making the circuit of the Illinois courts, he pretended to be an ignorant countryman, and made a young lawyer, his fellow-passenger, relate the most absurd stories about the comet which appeared that year. But his credulity, which he kept up to the end, was but an inno

cent joke, perfectly proper on such an occasion. On the following day, he saluted his astounded colleague as Abraham Lincoln, the Nestor of the Illinois Bar. Fifteen years later, on delivering to the aforesaid young lawyer his credentials as Minister to one of the American Republics, he recalled to his memory the story of the comet with that ingenuous mirth which is the frankincense of all good souls.

It is also told of him, that when our Envoy, Rear-Admiral Simpson, was presented to him, for the purpose of obtaining the permission of his Government to build ships of war for Chile in the ship yard of the United States, he gave the refusal in a peculiar characteristic manner. "We will receive you," said he, " as Envoy of a nation which we highly esteem, as a librarian receives all who visit his rooms. You shall have all at your disposal, look at everything, examine everything; but then you cannot have a single thing; you may not carry away the book lent to you, for it is my duty to return it safely to its place."

XXII.

Abraham Lincoln joined, to a sound, practical judgment, common to men of his race, the most exquisite simplicity of language. It was said of him that no man in the United States could say more in fewer words, nor greater things in more humble language. The frugality of his habits could be compared only with the modesty of his character. Never did he drink any kind of liquor during his long and austere life, nor did he even allow himself the innocent use of tobacco. His dress was as unpretending as that of the old Puritans. In Washington, as at Springfield, he used to buy the first suit he saw in a tailor's show-window; and had his wardrobe been appraised at the time of his death, it would not have been valued at more than that of his predecessor and friend, General Taylor, who, while President of the United States, was wont to appear in the streets of Washington in a common suit, the total value of which was estimated by passers-by at "nine dollars."

XXIII.

His personal looks did not fail to harmonize with his

disregard for appearances. That man, gifted as he was, with such rich qualities of soul and mind, had, like the opaque vase of Scripture, a common, almost vulgar, look. He was very tall, bony, thin and gaunt, and his coarse features gave no signs of the gentleness of his soul, save in that ever present smile which death itself found playing round his lips. He was the backwoodsman of the West, removed to the Capitol at Washington, in all his original rusticity, which seemed to lend increased strength to his innate power. He was the same wood-cutter of the Ohio, seated on the throne of human democracy, save that the destinies of the world now depended upon his

axe !

XXIV.

Such was Abraham Lincoln, the liberator of the slaves —the new Moses who dictated to the disinherited race of Ham the tables of the covenant like unto those received on Sinai by the Hebrew people-the people of the Saviour of mankind-Jesus Christ.

He lived an honest man, and died, like the saints of the Christian calendar, anointed with blood and the glory of martyrdom. His grand mission of humanity, of duty, and responsibility, being ended, he had not, like Washington at Mount Vernon, or Jackson at the Hermitage, that last happiness of great and toil-worn men, a peaceful death at the close of the long and arduous work to which they were called on earth by the Supreme Distributor of callings.

Neither did he close his eyes in death, as did his predecessors, Adams, Jefferson, and Monroe, on the great day of their country, as though that country wished to display its brightest gems as she gathered them for ever into her bosom. Abraham Lincoln ceased to exist on a still more solemn day. The redeemer of the slaves died on the day on which the Redeemer of all mankind was crucified on Calvary!

*

Let his memory be blessed throughout all ages to come!

XXV.

And until those ages shall arrive, with their royal offerings of reward and justice, let thy name, oh! Abraham Lincoln be known and proclaimed as Benefactor by all

the oppressed of the earth; let thy memory be glorified with hymns of gratitude and praise by all free men who know thy origin, wood-cutter of the forest, and have heard of thy end, oh! martyr of liberty! Let thy new redeeming doctrine of government, clothed in the white robe of that grand truth, unspotted as it came from thee, be inscribed in the book of the destinies of the New World, by the side of Washington's Farewell and Monroe's Doctrine-those two covenants of that American democracy of the propagation of which they were the first apostles, as thou hast just been made the martyr. Let thy simple homestead at Springfield be consecrated by the ovations of the world. as the humble temple of thy humble virtues; let thy love for all that was good, and for thy fellow-men, let thy veneration for home and family, let thy constant fear of the All-Powerful and of thy country's verdict, sole guide of thy guiltless conscience-let thy charity for all who, hungry in body or soul, thou feddest with thy bread or didst relieve with thy wisdom-let all these, like a choir of angels, be grouped around thy tomb, with all the other emblems of those sublime gifts which have made thy name couspicuous amongst those of thy fellow-beingsthy Probity and thy Poverty!

Yes! oh, Abraham Lincoln ! blessed be thy poverty, at which the proud and haughty ones did scoff, whom thou didst afterwards humble and subdue but to pardon; and which covers with shame and confusion all those who, born like thyself, did not know how to remain poor when powerful as thou wast, humble dictator of a world of opulency!

Yes! oh, Abraham Lincoln ! let thy grave, opened by the tears of thy fellow-countrymen, in the very centre of thy glorious Union, serve henceforth, as Washington's at Mount Vernon, for an altar of consolation and oblations. to the pilgrim who searches throughout the universe for the worship of his persecuted creed; to the exile who bears on his forehead the impress of cruel tyranny; to the emigrant who comes to thy soil in search of bread for his loved ones; to the negro-slave who shall journey from all lands and from all islands wherever thy voice may have broken his fetters, to ask for his tutelary genius and to bless him; to the human race, in fine, who acknowledges thee as an apostle of truth, as a creator of a new era in