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our glorious Constitution. And now that so great an effort as the slaveholders' rebellion, entirely satanic in its origin and nature, has been made at its very life, and which has been so greedily seconded by the aristocrats and tyrants of Europe, yet could it kill this noble life, containing as it does the cause of both God and man? Impossible! We see already the rebellion in its deaththroes. We see the glorious dawn of peace. Hallelujahs are ascending from our hearts. And now that the representative man of freedom in the West (as the Czar of Russia has so unexpectedly become in the East) has been foully murdered, does it injure the noble old cause against which the dragon has already launched so many blows? Not in the least. It will prove, as the end no doubt will show, a great blessing to the cause. Men may die; Satan may let loose his agents upon them: but the cause still lives. It is as immortal as our Elder Brother on the throne.

Universal freedom and brotherhood will only be the more surely, and perhaps the more rapidly, accomplished. The gospel shall more speedily have free course, and be glorified. The wrath of man shall praise Him; and the remainder He will restrain.

It is a sad event, indeed, which has happened, - a disgraceful event; probably actuated by nothing higher than the plotted revenge of a few individuals, at the failure of their bad cause. But it is the fool who says, that revenge is sweet. God has said, that sin is a bitter thing. The deluded murderer, as well as his instigators and accomplices, will, no doubt, soon be in the hands of justice, and then in the hands of an angry God. David would not kill Saul, when he had him in his power, though Saul was a wicked man, and God had specially promised the throne to David. But he in his piety declared, "I will not lift up my hand against the Lord's anointed." Saul was God's vicegerent on earth, as a king, to administer justice among men, though wicked

and unworthy. But here was one, who was likewise God's vicegerent to administer justice and truth, who was literally, what every ruler ought to be, no respecter of persons; who had stricken off the shackles from the slave; and yet, alas! by the hands of a poor deluded man, who could not raise his mind to grasp the glory of the great evolving problems of humanity, because he himself was a slave of Satan, — by such a man is the noble President, the Great Emancipator, basely murdered. Slanders and calumnies the good ever expect to bear; and these, though innumerable, he deemed never worthy a moment's attention. But who would have believed (the good President could not) that one who called himself an American citizen could have been so fiendish as this? But Satan ever overshoots the mark. Even the plans of wicked men are under the control of the Lord Jesus Christ, the friend of the sinful and the captive. Long have the friends of liberty prayed that he would turn the counsel of the wicked into foolishness. We have seen how he has done this, by permitting the slaveholders to rebel, and who have thus destroyed their cherished institution, and put themselves completely in the power of those whom they call their enemies, but, in fact, who were only the enemies of their wickedness. And now, by this last most abominable of deeds, they have only sunk their cause still lower, and injured it more irremediably. The departed President's fault, if such it might be called, was his extreme leniency, his kindness of heart. For look at the terms, which he no doubt approved of, if he did not suggest, which General Grant has offered to General Lee. The country was surprised at them. And this is but one illustration of his whole career. Indeed, many good men feared that he might yet endanger the Republic by excessive clemency; that the great cause of liberty was in peril from very kindness to its foes. But they have murdered this kind-hearted and good man,

who had done them no wrong; who had fairly been elected, by a vast majority of the people, a second time; who, by his severe labors to save the nation, and to maintain and extend the cause of human liberty, was, in very fact, spending himself for their benefit, and the benefit of their posterity, though, in their blindness and wickedness, they could not see it. They have murdered this man, who would only have been too good to them with their restoration to the Union. And now a man of iron sternness succeeds him, whose mercy towards the leaders, at least, will surely be far less; from whom they may expect justice rather than mercy. God saw this to be necessary in finishing up this great rebellion. He saw that that good and kind-hearted man would not be the one for this work; and he has taken him away. And, though the first sad news shocked every faithful heart, yet it is only in order to secure the triumph, more utterly to destroy the evil course. It is only to forward, by other and sterner instrumentalities which he had at hand, the great struggle in which Christ and his people are engaged. The gospel can never have free course, until the tyrants and oppressors of men are destroyed. Liberty is the forerunner of the gospel. The gospel, after it had been planted by the apostles, begat liberty, as her strong and sturdy son, the man-child who, ultimately, should go before her, to prepare her way. The gospel, pure and true, after occasional great triumphs, yet could only, in general, live in secret, till her own offspring grew to strength (especially exemplified in our nation), and who, by his strong and herculean arms, should strike down the opponents, and say to the heralds of the gospel, "Enter in: the way is prepared: proclaim ye the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God." And now a man of iron sternness holds the reins which are to secure the cause of liberty and God, and who is to draw the rebels back to their proper place in the Union (which they shall

not destroy), or who will mete out to them, if they persevere in their wickedness, the just deserts of their crimes.

The part which Providence designed our lamented President to play, he had completed. Little did he or any one think, that his work was so near done. But he had fulfilled well his part. His name will ever stand by the side of that of Washington. He has completed virtually the work which Washington begun. We have only, as yet, passed through the introductory chapter of our nation's history, during the last few years of which, the noble cause has been purged of the dross which necessarily, and to their mortification, adhered to it as it came from the hands of the fathers. It has passed through the furnace heated seven-fold, and must come out purified and refined. No longer will the theories and the facts of our government conflict; but, henceforth, all who tread the soil of our country will be free men: and thus only, will our Republic be prepared to take part consistently in the yet future conflict upon the remaining oppressors of mankind in other lands. For God undoubtedly intends to use us in this pouring-out of some of the latter vials of wrath upon his enemies. Not only has our war purged us of our chief sin, but has drilled us for the greater, not only national but international, conflict, and liberty's universal victory.

And here it may not be amiss to allude to the religious character of our beloved and respected Chief Magistrate. President Lincoln is well known to have been a praying man. When he left his village home to go to Washington, more than four years ago, and his fellow-citizens bade him farewell, as he stood on the rear platform of the train, his last words to them were, "Pray for me." And did ever man need a nation's prayers more? On the morning of his first inauguration, he rose early, and retired to a secret place, and prayed that God would enable him to do his duty in the great task laid upon him. And yet, perhaps, all this

time, he was not a Christian. All his proclamations, however, seem to be redolent with piety, and far superior, in this respect, to most, if not all, his predecessors, till we come to Washington. But, less than a year ago, a man from a Western State had business with the President, and, after it had been transacted, told him that he had a question to ask him, at the solicitation of some Christian friends. The question was, "Do you love Jesus?" The President burst into tears, and buried his face in his handkerchief, and, for a time, could not speak. But, oh! how precious to us that we have this record of his religious experience! He at length said, "When I left Springfield, I said to my fellow-citizens, 'Pray for me;' but I was not then a Christian. When my child died, soon after I entered upon my office, my heart was still rebellious against God. I was not then a Christian. But, when I walked the battle-field of Gettysburg, and saw the wounded and the dying, and felt, that, by that victory, our cause was saved, I then and there resolved, and gave my heart to Jesus. I do love Jesus." This is the testimony of his own lips upon his religious life; and is it not sufficient? Millions of loyal hearts and of freedmen have often prayed that God would bless that man with his grace. Often have I prayed in private, and in my family, as well as in public, that the faith of Christ might not be lacking to him. And could it be, it might well be asked, that so many prayers, especially from the thousands of slaves whose freedom will ever be associated with his name, could it be that all their prayers could have been unanswered? This testimony, from the President's own lips, proves that they were answered: "On that blood-stained field, I gave my heart to God. I do love Jesus."

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We mourn for the man. We hide our faces in shame at the awful crime which deprived him of his life. But we will still rejoice, as we remember that the cause of God and of liberty can never die. Men may die; but it is said of Christ," And He shall

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