.C8T r I ERRATA. — Page 11, line :ird from the top, instead of " live," read even. Page 14 — line lid from the top, instead of " procured," read pursued. Page 15, lines 5 and 6 from the top, read Hence, in his view, &x. ; and after " moral suasion " &c. be ' ' with him." Page 2-2, line live, before " vagrant", insert and. DISCOURSE AT THE FUNERAL SOLEMNITIES, OBSERVED AT BRIDGEPORT, UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE CITY AUTHORITIES, AFRIL 19th, 1841, \ COMMEMORATIVE OF THE DECEASE OF WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, PRESIDENT OF THE U. STATES, WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE APRIL 4, 1841. BY NATHANIEL HEWIT, D. D. PASTOR OF THE SOUTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. STANDARD OFFICE, BRIDGEPORT, CONN. 1841. Advertisement. WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, late President of the United States,, was inaugurated on the 4th of March 1841, and died suddenly on the 4th of April following, in the 69th year of his age. He was elected by an overwhelming majority, after a more sharp party contest than any that preceded it. The pecu- liar posture of the country both as to its domestic and foreign concerns, rendered the election of General Harrison, to those who confided in him, a most propitious event, and his decease has plunged the country into grief and consternation unex- ampled in our history since the death of Washington. Under these circumstances the following discourse was pronounced to a vast concourse of all parties. As a multitude were prevented from hearing it, being unable to enter the place of wor- ship where it was delivered, it is for their sakes chiefly, that the author consents to its publication, and not because he concurs in the over-estimation of its merit9 by hi» partial friends. Bridgeport, 21st April, 1841. To the Rev. Dr. Hewit ; At a meeting of the Committee of Arrangements for the late President's Funeral, convened by special notice, Charles Bostwick, Esq. was called to the Chair, and Wm. B. Dyer, Esq. chosen Secretary, it was Resolved, unanimously, That the thanks of this meeting be tendered to the Rev. Dr. Hewit, for his very able and eloquent discourse delivered at the Baptist Church on Monday last in commemoration of the decease of the late President of the United States, and that they respectfully ask of him a copy for publication. Resolved, That Charles Bostwick, D. B. Nichols, andS. B. Jones, be a Com- mittee to carrv the above Resolution into effect. CHARLES BOSTWICK, Chairman. To Charles Bostwick, D. B.Nichols, and S. B. Jones, Esqrs. Committee, c$-c. : Gentlemen — I herewith submit to your disposal the discourse mentioned, with my thankful acknowledgements for the favorable notice you are pleased to lake of it. Very respectfully, Your obedient servant, NATHANIEL HEWIT. Bridgeport, April21st, 1841. DISCOURSE. Well known among you, brethren and friends, as being no party man in temporal affairs, J can with the more assurance call upon you to lay aside your animosities as a divided people, and unite conscientiously with me, in aiding us all to lay religiously to heart the decease of the late President of the United States, which we have assembled to solemnize. Although praise of the praiseworthy dead, is due both to them and the living, that "the good which men do may not be interred with their bones ;" and that their examples may the more be commended to those who come after them, yet this service inform to the memory of William Henry Harrison, I must leave to those who better know his merits, and are more competent to set them forth for the instruction of mankind. Illustrious men, who emulously strove to honor him living, will perpetuate his name in words more durable than brass and marble. To those tributes of admiration for his qualities as a man, and of gratitude for his services as a benefactor of his country, wet with tears for his premature death, I must refer all present who, with them, com- mitted to his hands the public welfare, and who deplore his early removal as a national calamity, for that relief of blighted hopes and bereaved affection, which is found in recalling the images of the fair, the great, and the good who are hidden from us in the darkness of the grave. Before we turn our attention to the sudden decease of the Chief Ruler of our country, an event hitherto unexampled amongst us, and in which we have all a common concern, we shall do violence to ourselves as being also tenants of clay, and at a hand's breadth from the unseen world, if we linger not awhile in the house of mourning, where we see the end of all flesh, and lay that also to heart. Standing beside the remains of President Harrison, we cannot fail of seeing the hand. writing of the finger of God upon them, copied from his word, and in this case so impressively verified: "Man in his best estate is altogether vanity J" We should read that inscription as written alike upon the living and the dead. In his best estate man is a vanity, as well as when he can hold that estate no longer, and when he is forced away from it, lo go down to the place occupied in common by the lowliest and loftiest of men. Here likewise let us beware of the incense offered to the living by the funeral pageantries for the dead. These the more frequently inflame the pride of man, whilst they seem to rebuke it, and soothe the aspirations of ambition and vain- glory which they ought to chastise. Man's idolatry of man is the distemper of the race. Mindful of this, let us commemo- rate the gifts and graces of the deceased, wherein as one of ourselves, he can be an example to us all. Were I to expatiate at length on the person and life of Harrison, I would scrupulously shun eulogiumson those endowments which he had in common with other celebrated men, but who neverthe- less were the basest of mankind. His extraordinary powers, both natural and acquired, his opponents themselves being judges, were under the direction of his conscience ; and that, according to the testimony of his friends, was purified and illumined by " the wisdom which is from above." I speak this of him with all due caution ; for I am well aware with what facility illustrious men, after their decease, are garnished with virtues they never had, and enthroned above with the saints of the Most High, whose fellowship they scorned whilst here below. Most persons, and the foremost of these are the eminent themselves, assume it as a thing of course, that the " highly esteemed amongst men," must be even more so with God ; and that all who have rilled a high place on earth, must have a higher in heaven. How eagerly a very small matter, if it have a little of religious savor, is seized on and magnified as conclusive evidence of a great man's fitness for the Kingdom of God ; as if a transient and equivocal notice of the christian religion on his part, was equivalent to " the faith and patience of the saints !" There is indeed a magnificence in worldly greatness which seduces the strong-minded and confounds the weak. But it is not a grandeur that is true and real. It is a vain show : the gorgeous drapery merely, which passion puts on the otherwise naked deformites of fallen man, and this ruined world. Reason alone, without the help of scripture, is able to discover that * the fashion of this world passeth away." And were great men rational only, they would be humble; and were small men rational likewise they would envy the great no more. It is passion, not reason ; it is depraved human nature more debased by mis- culture, rather than purified by refinement ; it is infidelity hid beneath the forms of Christianity, not the " faith once delivered to the saints ;" which arrays the affairs of this life in scarlet, and purple and gold, and then devoutly worships them. The purse, the sword and the sceptre are great and glorious in the eyes of men of great passions, weak reason, and no faith. How does man's mortality explode the dreams of mighty passion ! When .. the vast powers of extraordinary men are in thraldom to that sorceress, what a sorrowful spectacle of the degradation of our nature appears ! and when one of these sons of the mighty is smitten down to the dust, what a havoc is made of the great passions of his breast ! What a prodigy is man ! the more great, the more prodigious ! The great man of the world sees all things but truth, learns all things hut wisdom, does all things but his duty, bears all things but self-denial, gains all things but peace of mind ; is-- praised by all voices except that of his conscience ; with every thing glori- ous in life except that it is short, and soon to terminate in the grave, which he nevertheless casts out of his thoughts, or pushes forwards into the obscurity of a remote and uncertain future, whence of a sudden t death springs upon him from that obscurity, as a thief in the night, and hurls him in agony, remorse and despair with violence out of the world ! It wa9 not so with President Harrison. If he had great pas. sions, he served them not. During a long life, they were in subjection to his strong moral sense. I know not that his repu- talion in private or public lift*, is stained by any habitual vice ; and am yet to learn that he ever perpetrated an offence against good morals. In all the grades of the human family, we occa- sionally meet with individuals in whom the personal and relative virtues of moral integrity seem to be natural. It appears to have been so with him. " All these he observe d from his youth up." When moreover the social affections are united with a strong moral sense, and both are expanded by learning and ripened by age and experience, a character is formed which all the world is ready to admire. Such persons are for the most part pronounced without hesitation to be great and good. But we must be re- minded that these endowments, if they be not graced by " an unction from the Holy One," will " lift up the heart of man with pride, and bring him into the condemnation of the Devil." It is indeed better for the world every way, that great men should employ their talents in good works, even if they do it " to be seen of men," than that they should despise both man and God, and become throughout monsters of wickedness. But however illustrious such persons may become by words and deeds, if they aim no higher than the praise of men, they gain no more than it ;" they have their reward." When removed from the world they serve, their revenues of praise are cut off forever. Let eminent men then beware ! If the people praise ye ; and in their blind admiration exclaim, "ye are gods!" believe them not ; for thus saith the Lord, " ye shall die liko men, and your glory shall not descend after you." President Harrison, we trust, was not a slave to sordid ambi- tion ; neither was it the ruling passion of his heart to court the praise of men. Men-pleasers do those things which please men, be they what they may. Especially is this case with those who aspire to office and power. These do obeisance to public opinion, and change with every wind of popular doctrine. But he thought for himself; or rather he inquired for truth at the fountains of wisdom both divine and human. His inaugural speech is all his own. No other man could have written it. It has no pattern, and can have no imitation. With intrepid in- tegrity he speaks out what, in the fear of God, he believed to be the truth, regardless alike of friend or foe. This is not the way of ambitious men, who are swayed by the lust of popular favor, or seek it that they may aggrandize themselves. He went up to power, we have reason to believe, with clean hands and a pure heart. He bargained not for suffrages with promises of office, and as a President he had no debts of the candidate to pay by the robbery of his country, or by a merciless proscription of those in office, whose only fault was that they honestly preferred another to himself. Had he been a servile tool of factious men, impelled by avarice, selfish ambition, revenge or any other base motive, or by a combination of them all, would he have done thus ? Is this the way of the world 1 Do not forget, that I am not eulogi- zing the chieftain of a party ; but am aiming to find an honest man, who held fast to his integrity in the midst of temptations to sacrifice it, which are come to be so great, as to lead multitudes of sagacious men to the belief, that no man living is proof against them. Hence preparations are vigorously making to shear the office of President of those prerogatives, which without the name, make it more potent than many of the crowns of Europe. If this be so, how does it augment the evidence that Gen. Harrison was a partaker not only of the virtues of moral integrity as a man, but also of that "faith" whose "victory" is "to overcome the world." He was not in form a member of a Church of Christ. Suppos- ing him to have been a " believer in Him with all his heart," this neglect on his part was an act of disobedience to his Lord and Saviour of no trivial magnitude. He humbly acknowledged his sin, and doubtless with unfeigned sorrow, in the presence of his pastor, adding withal that he had long been deeply convinced of the truth and importance of the Christian religion. Years ago he was a teacher of a Bible class in the Episcopal Church in Cincinnati, and of course he had for a long time been much more than a nominal and merely formal adherent to Christianity in general.* This delay of his proposed subjection to the gospel ♦On his journey to Washington, he said to a physician at Pittsburgh, who found him late in tho evening reading the Scriptures, " It has grown to be a fixed habit and ordinances of Christ may be explained consistently with his sincerity as a hopeful disciple, although that neglect cannot be justified. It is by no means uncommon for men of a strong native moral sense, as was the case with him, and of scrupulous integrity, to be slow in falling in with the peculiarities of the pure gospel of the grace of God. Their integrity blinds their con- sciences to the depravity of their hearts in the sight of God. Thai sin natural conscience cannot discover before it is enlight- ened by the law of God understood in its spiritual meaning and absolute perfection. It is guilt which expounds to man's polluted and ruined soul the mysteries of Christ and him crucified. Up- right men are free for the most part from those vices and that flagrant impiety, which are ordinarily the first, and in multitudes, the chief means of convincing sinners of their guilt and exposure to the wrath of God, and which impel them to flee for refuse without delay to the mercy of the gospel. Or he may have had that same deep self-abasement and profound awe of the divine majesty of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, "God manifest in the flesh," which appeared in the Roman Captain who, though no Jew outwardly, yet was one inwardly, for he loved that nation, and built them a synagogue, and yet thought himself not worthy to go unto Christ, or that he should come under his roof, but of whom nevertheless the Lord himself pronounced, " that he had not found so great faith " as his, " no not in Israel. 1 ' Be these things as they may, and however reluctant any one may be to attribute to him a name and a place among the follow- ers of the Lamb, certain it is that he " witnessed a good confes- sion before many witnesses." He was not ashamed of Christ and of his words, when he went up in clouds of ell human glory, to be installed supreme ruler of one of the great nations of the earth. Standing up in majesty more august and imposing than is worn by emperors and kings, he cast down his garland of triumph at the foot of the cross, and did homage to him who was slain thereon, in the presence of the high and mighty of the land, and the tens of thousands of the people at his feet. We should here specially advert to the fact, that this homage to the christian religion was the voluntary offering of the man, and not a ceremonial belong- ing by law or custom to the office or the occasion. When vacant thrones in the old world are mounted by their hereditary succes- sors or otherwise, the ceremonial of their inauguration therein, with me now, to read a portion of the Scriptures every night. I am never so late retiring, or go weary, as to intermit that practice. It has been my habit for twenty years — at first as a matter of duty, but it has now become a pleasure. I read the Bible every night. — [Extract from the National Intelligencer. Rev. Dr. Hawley, Pastor of St. John's Church where the President wo«hin«d stated at hi* funeral that he was to have been admitted to the communion of the Church the Sabbath uucceeding hit death. is made up chiefly of religious rites, imperative on the heira of the crown, and exclusive of their own cordial concurrence. Not so is it here. No religious formalities, unless the oath of office be one, are prescribed or demanded in order to the full investiture of our rulers with all their legal prerogatives. The homage of President Harrison to Christ, was most evidently the homage of the man ; spontaneous, frank, reverential ; in terms of artless simplicity, unambiguous, express and full ; a sublime and melt- ing example of the strength and loveliness of christian faith when it is enthroned in the hearts of the great. Let no man here sur- mise that this devout act was a crafty device of a man of wiles and snares, to bribe to his footstool the more religious of the people. Other men no less sagacious than he, and no less desir- ous of the favor of all classes of our countrymen, and not more over scrupulous as to their proceedings, than he is thought by any to have been, thought not of that expedient ; or if they did, found something in it which made it a burden too grievous to be borne. May we not then believe that from the heart, "he honored Christ before men," and that, according to the faithful word of Christ, the Lord both of the living and the dead, Christ now honors him before the " face of his Father in heaven, and before his angels."" If moreover, he left his retirement, where he had all a wise man wishes, a good man enjoys, and a truly great man alone appreciates, not from the impulse of sordid ambition, but in obedi- ence to the will of God's providence, then his sudden death may well be regarded, as it respects himself, a martyrdom to christian riirhteousness. As things now are in our country, and as they are like to be more and more so hereafter, the successful candi- date for our republican crown is more a victim than a victor. That crown is one of iron ; and he needs to be more or less than man who can wear it long. Without presuming to scrutinize the secret will of God, or to explore the issues of life and death, may we not suppose, that the fresh and tender emotions of a heart, generous by nature, and enlarged by a long and diversified life through scenes which sharpened its susceptibilities to all that belongs to one's kind and country, chastened by the law and purified by the gospel, mellowed by the charities of home, and deepened by calm meditation in the shades of retirement, and those solemn communings with things unseen and eternal, which press so closely on a christian man of nearly three score years and ten, were unable to bear the rough and impetuous rushings in upon him of but who can apprehend the position of our President in times like ours ? The frame work of the outer man gave way, when the floods of great waters came upon him, and '« the beauty of Israel is slain upon her high places : how are the tnii