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 DELIVERED IN THE MEETING-HOUSE 
 
 FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH Or PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 APRIL 14th, 16th, and 19th, 1B65. 
 
 Reverend George Dana Boardman, 
 
Philadelphia, April 21st, 18G5. 
 The Key. George Dana Boardman. 
 
 Keverend and Dear Sir : Many of the undersigned were present at 
 the First Baptist Church on Friday, the 14tli instant, during tlie impressive 
 services there held in commemoration of the re-establishment of the National 
 Flag at Fort Sumter. Some of us were also present the following Sabbath, and 
 on Wednesday, the 19th instant, when our joy had so suddenly been changed 
 into mourning and our rejoicing into deep grief. 
 
 The occasion of the delivery of your noble, patriotic, and eloquent Address 
 being the fourth anniversary of the day when the gallant Major Anderson and 
 his brave compatriots were compelled to evacuate the Fort, and being also the 
 day and hour when, by direction of the President of the United States, the 
 same officer was ordered to raise the same flag over Sumter's ruined battle- 
 ments, — once more in our possession, — rendered your remarks peculiarly fitting 
 and appropriate. 
 
 Your words of cheer and hope, of joy and gratulation, stirred every heart, 
 and they deserve to be handed down to posterity, so that future generations 
 may know how Christians in this city felt at such a crisis in the history of our 
 country. We believe that at a time when, even amid the sound of cannon and 
 the smoke of our battle-fields, we can behold the dawning of Peace, such senti- 
 ments as fell from your lips should be disseminated far and wide. 
 
 The reference to our beloved President was as touching and truthful as it 
 was eloquent, and the tribute to his eminent worth, to his nobleness of heart 
 and integrity of purpose, is all the dearer to us now since the dastard hand of a 
 traitor has deprived us, in our time of greatest need, of his wise counsels and 
 safe guidance. 
 
 The addresses delivered by you last Sabbath and on the day of his funeral, 
 when the whole country was weeping and mourning as for the death of a dearly 
 loved parent, well deserve to be pondered over by us in our homes, — by the quiet 
 of our firesides. 
 
 Our noble President no longer lives on earth, but he will live forever in 
 the hearts of the people ; and in all future history, Abraham Lincoln will be 
 known and revered as the Martyr President of the American Kepublic. 
 
 We therefore request a copy of your several Addresses for publication ; 
 and, while sorrowing at the great loss we have sustained as a Nation, we can 
 heartily unite with you in rendering thanks to Almighty God for the gift of so 
 pure a patriot and for the victories which have been achieved by the armies of 
 the Union. 
 
 We remain, with sentiments of high regard, 
 
 Your brethren and fellow-citizens, 
 Thomas Wattson, Washington Butcher, 
 
 Wm. S. Hansell, Benjamin Bullock, 
 
 James Pollock, John C. Davis, 
 
 Horatio Gates Jones, Charles H. Aunkr, 
 
 Arch. A. McIntyre, Stephen A. Caldwell 
 
 Joseph W. Bullock, Edwin Hall, 
 
 Joseph F. Page, Alexander T. Lane, 
 
 H. C. Howell, Isaac H. O'Harra, 
 
 S. F. Hansell, Henry Clay Butcher. 
 
No. 1712 Vine Street, April 25, 1865. 
 
 To Thomas Wattson, Esq., William S. Hansell, Esq., 
 
 Hon. James Pollock, Horatio Gates Jones, Esq., and others. 
 
 Gentlemen : Your courteous note of the 21st instant, requesting for pub- 
 lication tlie addresses delivered in the meeting-house of the First Baptist Church 
 on the 14th, IGth, and 19th days of April, has been received. 
 
 Aware that the interest which attaches to these addresses springs altogether 
 from the grandeur of the events which occasioned them, I accede to your gene- 
 rous request, feeling assured that their imperfections will be hidden in the in- 
 tensity of the gloom which oppresses us all. 
 
 I am, gentlemen, with profound respect. 
 
 Your brother and townsman, 
 
 George Dana Boardman. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 Ox the night of December twenty-sixth, eighteen hun- 
 dred and sixty, a sudden stir began in the historic fort of 
 Moultrie. Men hurried to and fro, in silent haste, gather- 
 *ing together the rations, accoutrements, ammunition, and 
 other movable property of the fort; gun after gun was 
 silently spiked, and every gun-carriage burned. Last of all, 
 the flag-staff was cut down ; for the gallant Anderson had 
 resolved that the staff which had once borne the Star- 
 spangled Banner should never bear the accursed weight of 
 a traitor's ensign. And then the entire garrison, number- 
 ing scarcely sixty men, crept into the boats, and, with muf- 
 fled oars, under the lustrous gaze of the full moon, sped 
 straight under the bows of the South Carolina guard-ship 
 Nina, across the sleeping waters to the securer ramparts of 
 Sumter. The Charleston Courier of the next day makes 
 the following announcement : " Major Robert Anderson, 
 U. S. A., has achieved the unenviable distinction of opening 
 civil war between American citizens, by an act of gross 
 breach of faith. He has, under counsels of a panic, de- 
 serted his post at Fort Moultrie, and, under false pretexts, 
 has transferred his garrison and military stores and supplies 
 
6 
 
 to Fort Sumter." Breach of faith ? In what school of in- 
 famy had South Carolina chivalry been trained, that she 
 could brand the defence of the United States flag by a 
 United States officer, as a " gross breach of faith ?" The 
 day after the evacuation, a little before morn, Major An- 
 derson summoned his little force around the flag-staff of 
 Fort Sumter, for the purpose of raising the banner which he 
 had brought from Moultrie. The chaplain offered a most 
 fervent prayer that the God of our fathers would enable 
 that little garrison to maintain the honor of that flag un- 
 dimmed through the fiery ordeals which awaited, and the 
 entire garrison responded with a deep Amen. At twelve 
 o'clock precisely, Major Anderson, dropping on his knees, 
 and holding the lines in his hands, reverently drew the na- 
 tional ensign to the top of the staff, and then the entire 
 garrison burst forth into exultant hurras, again, again and 
 again repeated. That thrilling scene lives in song as well 
 as in history. Listen to an old man's ballad for December 
 twenty-six, nineteen hundred and ten : 
 
 Come, children, leave your playing this dark and stormy night; 
 Shut fast the rattling window-blinds, and make the fire burn bright; 
 And hear an old man's story, while loud the tierce winds blow, 
 Of gallant Major Anderson and fifty years ago. 
 
 After a recital of the evacuation, the scarred veteran con- 
 tinues : 
 
 I never can forget, my boys, how the next day, at noon, 
 The drums beat and the bands played a stirring, martial tune, 
 And silentlj' we gathered round the flag-staff strong and high, 
 Forever pointing upward to God's temple in the sky. 
 
Our noble Major Anderson was good as he was brave, 
 And he knew without God's blessing no banner long could wave ; 
 So he knelt with head uncovered, while the chaplain made a prayer, 
 And as the last amen was said, the flag; rose hie;h in air. 
 
 Then our loud huzzas rung out, far and widel}^ o'er the sea I 
 We shouted for the Stars and Stripes, the standard of the free! 
 Every eye was tixed upon it; every heart beat warm and fast. 
 As with eager lips we promised to defend it to the last ! 
 
 'Twas a sight to be remembered, boys, the chaplain with his book, 
 Our leader humbly kneeling, with his calm, undaunted look; 
 And the officers and men, crushing tears they would not shed, 
 And the blue sea all around us, and the blue sky overhead I 
 
 Three and a half months now crept away; months of 
 gloom and terrible apprehension. I need not go into par- 
 ticulars; it is enough to remind you that meantime Florida, 
 Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, and North 
 Carolina followed the example of South Carolina, and de- 
 luded themselves with the idea that, because they had 
 passed ordinances of secession, they had voted themselves 
 out of the Union. The halls of Congress echoed with the 
 infamous valedictories of senators and representatives, never, 
 I trust in God, to enter those halls again, save as prisoners, 
 to be impeached of high treason before the nation's judg- 
 ment bench. One bright scene alone relieved the darkness 
 of this horrible panorama; it was when the Old Public 
 Functionary, nervously swinging between the God of his 
 fathers and the Baal of slaveholding treason, on the fourth 
 of March yielded the chair of Washington to God's anointed 
 champion of American freemen, Abraham Lincoln, of Illi- 
 nois, crowned by the Grace of God and the National Will 
 
8 
 
 the Moses of the New World. But I must press on with 
 the narrative. 
 
 During these three months and a half, Fort Sumter was 
 closely besieged. The South Carolina insurgents had 
 strengthened the armament of Fort Moultrie and Castle 
 Pinckney, and erected many new batteries, so as to place 
 Sumter under the fire of nearly three-fourths of a circle, 
 mounting one hundred and forty guns in all, many of them 
 of very heavy calibre, while the besieging host numbered 
 seven thousand. They had also cut off* all supplies, so that 
 the garrison was almost reduced to the point of starvation. 
 On the eighth of April they learned that Government was 
 about to relieve the garrison by sending supplies and rein- 
 forcements. You will be interested, doubtless, if I recall to 
 you some of the correspondence which then took place. It 
 is historic. 
 
 "Montgomery, Ala., April 10, 1861. 
 
 "To General P. G. T. Beauregard, 
 
 "Charleston, S. C. 
 
 "If yoii have no doubt of the authorized character of the agent 
 who communicated to you the intention of the Washington Govern- 
 ment to supply Fort Sumter by force, you will at once demand its 
 evacuation; and, if this is refused, proceed in such a manner as you 
 may determine, to reduce it. 
 
 "L. P. Walker, 
 
 ' ' Secretary of War. ' ' 
 
 "Charleston, S. C, April 10, 1801. 
 " To Hon. L. P. Walker, 
 
 " Secretary of War. 
 
 " The demand will be made to-morrow at twelve o'clock. 
 
 " P. G. T. BeaureCxArd." 
 
"Headquarters Provisional Army C. S. A., 
 
 "Charleston, S. C, April 11, 1861, 2 p. m. 
 " To Major Eobert Anderson, 
 
 " Commanding at Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, S. C. 
 "Sir: The Cxovernmeiit of the Confederate States have hitherto 
 forborne from any hostile demonstration against Fort Sumter, in the 
 hope that the Government of the United States, with a view to the 
 amicable adjustment of all questions between the two Governments, 
 and to avert the calamities of war, would voluntarily evacuate it. . . 
 . . . But the Confederate States can no longer delay assuming actual 
 j)Ossession of a fortification commanding the entrance to one of our 
 harbors, and necessary to its defence and security. 
 
 "I am, therefore, ordered by the Government of the Confederate 
 States to demand the evacuation of Fort Sumter. All proper facili- 
 ties will be afforded for the removal of yourself and command, to- 
 gether with arms and all private property, to any j)ost in the United 
 
 States which you may select My aids, Colonel Chesnut 
 
 and Captain Lee, will, for a reasonable time, await your answer. 
 " I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 "P. G. T. Beauregard, 
 " Brigadier-General, Commanding." 
 
 "Headquarters, Fort Sumter, S. C, 
 "April 11, 18G1. 
 '' To Brigadier-General P. G. T. Beauregard. 
 
 " General : I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your 
 communication demanding the evacuation of this fort, and to say, in 
 reply thereto, that it is a demand with which I regret that my sense 
 of honor and of ray obligations to my Government prevent my com- 
 pliance. Thanking you for the fair, manly, and courteous terms pro- 
 posed, I am, General, 
 
 " Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 " Egbert Anderson, 
 " Major U. S. Army, Commanding." 
 
 "Headquarters Provisional Army C. S. A., 
 "Charleston, April 11, 1861, 11 p. m. 
 
 " To Major Egbert Anderson, 
 
 " Commanding at Fort Sumter, Charleston, S. C. 
 
 " Major : In consequence of the verbal observations made by you 
 to my aids, Messrs. Chesnut and Lee, in relation to the condition of 
 
10 
 
 your supplies, and that you would, in a few days, be starved out if 
 our guns did not batter you to pieces, or words to that effect ; and 
 desiring no useless effusion of blood, I have the honor to say that, if 
 you will state the time at which you will evacuate Fort Sumter, and 
 agree that, in the meantime, you will not use your guns against us 
 unless ours shall be employed against Fort Sumter, we will abstain 
 from opening fire upon you. Colonel Chesnut and Captain Lee are 
 authorized by me to enter into such an agreement with you. I am. 
 Major, 
 
 " Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 "P. G. T. Beauregard." 
 
 "Headquarters, Fort Sumter, S. C, 
 
 "2.30 a. m., April 12, 1861. 
 " To Brigadier-General P. G. T. Beauregard. 
 
 " General : I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your 
 second communication of the 11th inst., by Colonel Chesnut, and to 
 state, in reply, that, cordially uniting with you in the desire to avoid 
 the useless effusion of blood, I will, if provided with the proper and 
 necessary means of transportation, evacuate Fort Sumter by noon 
 on the 15th inst., should I not receive, prior to that time, controlling- 
 instructions fi-om my Government, or additional supplies; and that 
 I will not, in the mean time, open my fire upon your forces, unless 
 compelled to do so by some hostile act against this fort, or against 
 the flag of my Government by the forces under your command, or 
 by some jiortion of them, or by the perpetration of some act show- 
 ing a hostile intention on your part against this fort, or the flag it 
 bears. I have the honor to be. General, 
 
 " Your obedient servant, 
 
 " Egbert Anderson, 
 "Major tJ. S. Array, Commanding." 
 
 You see from this corresptondence just how matters stood. 
 Major Anderson frankly states to the insurgents that, in 
 consequence of the extreme scarcity of provisions in the 
 fort, he would be compelled in all events to evacuate by 
 noon of April 15th, unless supplies for the garrison should 
 meantime arrive. Now observe the mad, atrocious haste 
 
11 
 
 with which civil war was inaugurated. Unwilling to wait 
 till the 15th inst., only three days, and so avert, as the 
 rebel authorities would have us believe, " the useless effu- 
 sion of blood," and fearing, it may be, that supplies ivouJd 
 in the interim arrive, fifty minutes after Major Anderson's 
 manly note was penned, the following paper, signed by 
 Colonel Chesnut and Captain Lee, was put in his hands : 
 
 "Fort Sumter, S. C, April 12, 1861, 3.20 a. m. 
 " Sir : By autliority of Brigadier-General Beauregard, command- 
 ing the provisional forces of the Confederate States, we have the 
 honor to notif}' you that he will open the fire of his batteries on Fort 
 Sumter in one hour from this time." 
 
 In an hour the bombardment commenced. 0, my coun- 
 trymen ! what a scene then opened ! I do not wonder that 
 they did not wait till the sun rose, dreading to have that 
 burning eye of God witness the inauguration of the dread- 
 ful fratricidal massacre. Fiercely thundered for thirty-four 
 hours the balls of one hundred and forty guns against the 
 walls of the doomed fortress, and fiercely replied from ram- 
 part and casemate the guns of the little patriot band. It 
 was a most gallant defence. Human powers could do no 
 more. But it was all in vain. And from the steamship 
 Baltic, off Sandy Hook, April 18, 1861, the heroic Ander- 
 son sent the following stirring despatch to Mr. Cameron, 
 then Secretary of War : 
 
 "Sir: Having defended Fort Sumter for thirty-four hours, until 
 the quarters were entirely bui-ned, the main gates destroyed by fire, 
 the gorge wall seriously injui'ed, the magazine surrounded by flames, 
 and its doors closed from the efl:ects of the heat, four barrels and. 
 
12 
 
 three cartridges of powder only being available, and no provisions 
 but pork remaining, I accepted terms of evacuation offered by Gene- 
 ral Beauregard, being the same offered by bim on the 11th inst., 
 prior to the commencement of hostilities, and marched out of the 
 fort Sunday afternoon the 14th inst., with colors flying and drums 
 beating, bringing away company and private property, and saluting 
 my flag witb fifty guns. 
 
 " Egbert Anderson, 
 
 " Major First Artillery." 
 
 Since then four years, I could almost say four centuries, 
 have rolled away. God ! what years of national humili- 
 ation and agony have they been ! Verily, Thou hast given 
 us the bread of affliction to eat and the cup of tears to 
 drink. Thou hast led us by way of the wilderness and the 
 desert, through rivers of blood, and hast laid us down in 
 the hospital, the dungeon, and the unslabbed grave. But 
 all glory be to Thee ! God of our fathers ! Thou hast n'^ver 
 deserted us. If, for a small moment Thou didst seem to 
 hide Thy face from us, it was only that with greater mer- 
 cies Thou mightest gather us together again. Thou hast 
 gone forth wdth our hosts in the day of battle. Thy pillar 
 of cloud has led us by day, and Thy pillar of fire by night. 
 And when, at times, the national heart has grown faint, 
 and we have felt that all was lost. Thou hast renewed be- 
 fore our eyes the vision of the Hebrew Seer, and permitted 
 us to behold on every side, swarming over every hilltop 
 and through every valley, Thy chariots and steeds of fire 
 bounding to our deliverance. And now Thou hast brought 
 us to see the day for which heroes have fought and sighed 
 and prayed and died. Thou hast girded on Thy sword, 
 Most Mighty ! and led us forth conquering and to conquer, 
 till now we see this Confederacy, born of the pit, cloven in 
 
13 
 
 twain, and these in twain again ; its black chattel corner- 
 stone disallowed and rejected of its own builders; its forts 
 wrested from them; its capital abandoned; its legions, now 
 routed and flying like chaff before the Northern hurricane, 
 now overtaken and flanked and confronted, and caught 
 between the upper and nether millstones, and forced to yield 
 up their arms ; their general-in-chief a disarmed prisoner ; 
 the arch-conspirator and ringleader himself a panting fugi- 
 tive, his brow marked of God and the nation with the red 
 brand of Cain. 
 
 " Sing, then, unto the Lord a new song, 
 For He hath done marvellous things; 
 His right hand and His holy arm 
 Hath gotten Him the victory ! 
 Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the gods ? 
 Who is like unto Thee, glorious in holiness, 
 Fearful in praises, doing wonders ? 
 Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power ! 
 Thy right hand, O Jehovah, has dashed in pieces the enemy! 
 Thou hast sent out Thine arrows, and scattered them ! 
 Thou hast shot out Thy lightnings, and discomfited them ! 
 So let all Thine enemies perish, O Jehovah !" 
 
 To-day we have met to celebrate this great victory. 
 "But why," you ask me, "do you select this particular day, 
 rather than that, for instance, which commemorates the fall 
 of Richmond, or the surrender of Lee?" For this simple 
 reason : The National Flag is the symbol of the National 
 Autliority. It so thoroughly represents and even incarnates 
 to the popular heart the Government of which it is the sym- 
 bol, that wherever the flag is, there thie Government itself 
 
14 
 
 is, robed in full sovereignty. It was on the 14tli of April, 
 1861, that the National Authority was first symbolically 
 overthrown by the compulsory lowering of the national 
 flag at Fort Sumter. It is on the 14th of April, 1865, that 
 the National Authority is symbolically restored by the rais- 
 ing of the national flag on the spot where it was first struck 
 down, in sight, too, of the birth-place of the grand con- 
 spiracy and of the dishonored grave of its chief sponsor. 
 There is profound poetry in this order of the chief magis- 
 trate of the republic. There is a touch of nature in it 
 which makes him and the whole nation kin. He knew 
 the power of emblems and symbolic acts over the human 
 soul. He felt, as you and I cannot help feeling, that there 
 is a classic decorousness, an inherent propriety, an aesthetic 
 grace, a religious beauty, in thus symbolically announcing 
 to the world the reinstatement of the national majesty on 
 the very spot where the national majesty was first de- 
 throned. Nor, so far as I myself am concerned, can I 
 deem it a misfortune that this symbolic restoration of the 
 national authority takes place on the day so tenderly en- 
 shrined in the mournful homage of many of my Christian 
 brethren. For if ever that holy law which all mankind 
 had insulted and trampled on, was magnified again and 
 made honorable, — if ever the majesty of Jehovah's jus- 
 tice and authority was vindicated amidst triumphs the 
 most transcendent, it was when the Son of the Highest, 
 mercifully gathering into His own Divine person the penal- 
 ties of the race, and bowing His head beneath the thunder- 
 bolts of Jehovah's wrath, yielded up the ghost on the 
 Judean cross. Meet it is that the day which celebrates the 
 
15 
 
 vindication of Jehovah's ordinance of earthly government, 
 is the same which celebrates the triumph of His celestial 
 sovereignty. 
 
 What now are some of the lessons which the scene trans- 
 piring to-day at Fort Sumter teaches the ages ? 
 
 The first is this : The American Republic is not a league, 
 but a nation ; not a confederacy, but a people ; not a con- 
 geries of States, but a Union ; being in fact the United 
 States, which is but another name for the American State. 
 This question has long been a matter for grave meditation 
 among political thinkers. But now it has been decided in 
 the crimson court of war. That decision is this : The 
 American Union is a vital, organic nationality, pervaded 
 by a common life, which binds together in indissoluble 
 union each and every member, thus making the whole 
 absolutely one. The Union is no mere series of States, 
 joined to each other by no organic bond, simply touching 
 each other like the grains of silex in a sand-box. Neither 
 is the Union some vast polyp, as many seem to imagine, 
 capable of division and subdivision, and still thriving on, 
 each fragment becoming the centre of a new life. But the 
 American Union is a vital, throbbing, indivisible organism ; 
 so that secession is something more than subtraction, or 
 even amputation : it is vivisection, suicide, murder, a death 
 as real as that proposed in King Solomon's order for bisect- 
 ing the child brought before him for adjudication. 
 
16 
 
 Another lesson which the scene now transpiring at Fort 
 Sumter teaches, is one which is addressed to foreign na- 
 tions. Democracy has been on trial, and we see the result. 
 When we take into consideration the awful magnitude of 
 the rebellion, gaining more and more of stupendousness as 
 time revealed more and more of its colossal proportions; 
 when we recall the long continuance of this painful, deso- 
 lating war, the hopes long deferred, and the terrible defeats 
 which ever and anon have befallen our arms; when we 
 take into consideration the oppressive burdens of taxation, 
 and the enormous rise of prices ; when we remember the 
 forebodings of oft^repeated and merciless conscriptions; 
 when we reflect that every widow who has lost a husband, 
 and every parent a child, and every family a member, has 
 been tempted to call in question the justice of the adminis- 
 tration and the righteousness of the war ; when we remem- 
 ber how sensitive the Americans, sons of revolutionary 
 fathers, are to the slightest encroachments on their per- 
 sonal rights as citizens, and then recall the sonorous and 
 everlasting oratory about constitutional rule, and arbitrary 
 arrests, and military despotism, and star-chamber courts, 
 and the ambitious schemes of the chief magistrate ; when 
 we remember how every city and hamlet of the North has 
 been infected with discontented men, secretly sympathizing 
 with the insurrection, and doing their utmost to discourage 
 the people and paralyze the Government ; when we remem- 
 ber that thousands and tens of thousands of men have been 
 secretly banded together as Knights of the Golden Circle, 
 or as Sons of Liberty, for the atrocious purpose of making 
 organized resistance to the powers that be ; when we re- 
 
17 
 
 member how Avide and profound at times, especiall}^ in the 
 earlier part of the war, has been the disaffection with the 
 administration in the loyal ranks themselves ; Avhen we 
 remember how the people, sickening with these woful 
 scenes of carnage and desolation, have sighed for the tran- 
 quillity and ease and beatitudes of peace ; in fine, when 
 we take into consideration the countless and tremendous 
 obstacles which have stood in the pathway of our rulers in 
 their effort to restore everywhere the national supremacy; 
 and, then, when we remember that, in spite of all these 
 tremendous obstacles, the large majority of the people have 
 ever been saying, even in the darkest hours : '' Let this war 
 go on ! This rebellion shall go down ! We have put our 
 hands to the work, and, God helping us, we will not falter 
 till we have beaten, crushed, trampled it down, and ground 
 it beneath our heels, till not a microscopic splinter be left 
 to pollute the soil over which has once floated the Star- 
 spangled Banner ; " — when we remember all these things, 
 and then recall the scene now transpiring at Fort Sumter, 
 I seem to hear a voice of awful majesty, which shall surge 
 like a billow of thunder against the reef of the coming ages, 
 exclaiming : " Democracy, under God, is not a failure ! " 
 Never in human historj^ has the question concerning a 
 republican form of government been jput with such distinct- 
 ness and grandeur of consequence. Never in human his- 
 tory has the question been answered with an emphasis so 
 imperial. Henceforth, let no defender of monarchical forms 
 of government dare say that Democracy is unable to rule 
 itself! That flag, whose reinstatement we celebrate to-day, 
 announces to the waiting ears of earth's nations, tliat the 
 
18 
 
 government the most capable of maintaining itself under cir- 
 cumstances the most adverse, is a government administered, 
 not by rulers born to the throne in the line of hereditary 
 succession, but by rulers crowned with the free l^allots of a 
 free people. And, standing here, I echo back with joyous 
 pride the diapason of the cannonade which rent the sky 
 over Fort Sumter at noon to-day : Long live the Republic ! 
 Long live the Republic ! 
 
 Thoughts crowd upon me; but I must not detain you 
 with them. The occasion is too simple for argument, too 
 self-suggesting and exultant for explanation. Yet I cannot 
 forbear alluding to a point which the swift rush of events is 
 forcing on our attention. " What shall be done," you ask 
 me, "with the insurgents in this hour of our triumph ?" A 
 grave, perplexing, baffling question this. I im^Dlore you, 
 fellow citizens, to answer it calmly, with generous regard 
 for those who may differ from you. Learn caution, con- 
 siderateness, generosity, from our nol^le, thoughtful, saga- 
 cious, far-sighted, inflexibly just, magnanimous Chief Ma- 
 gistrate. He who, with the blessing of the God of hosts, 
 has safely brought us through the wilderness to the Jordan, 
 will, with the same blessing, provide some means by which 
 we shall cross the Jordan itself, into the promised land. 
 Unquestionably, if ever the halter was a fit instrument for 
 ridding the earth of monsters, it is in the case of these mur- 
 derous, fiendish traitors, who inaugurated and guided this 
 colossal and gory treason. But let us be careful how we 
 permit these miscreants to become martyrs. The veriest 
 caitifi" that ever cowered beneath the majesty of the law 
 may gather around him the semblance of heroism, if you 
 
19 
 
 grant him the statelmess of a national gallows. On the 
 other hand, I cannot say to these wretched ringleaders : " I 
 forgive you, though you have drenched a continent in 
 blood, desolated our hearth-stones, massacred our brothers, 
 husbands, fathers, sons, on the gory battle-field, murder- 
 ously imprisoned in skeleton pens, and starved and tor- 
 tured into idiotcy and a nameless grave thousands of Ame- 
 rica's noblest heroes." I cannot say to such men as Davis, 
 and Benjamin, and Toombs, and Breckinridge, and Cobb, — 
 men Avho traitorously plotted treason while clad in the. robes 
 of the American Senate and Hall of Deputies, and murder- 
 ously lighted the torch that should lay in ashes our repub- 
 lican nationality: "Come back into our national embrace, 
 and we will treat you as though you had always been an 
 Ellsworth, a Lyon, a Baker, a Winthrop, a Birney !" But 
 this is what I would say, could I catch the ear of Presi- 
 dent Lincoln : " Seize some island of the sea ! Buy some 
 province of Europe, Asia, or Africa ! Prepare some Botany- 
 Bay ! Banish these felons thither ! Establish a rigorous 
 passport system, and make it as impossible for them to enter 
 this purified Republic as it was for Themistocles to return 
 to Athens, or as it is for a Bourbon to re-enter the empire of 
 Napoleon ! Let us do with them as the Lord God did with 
 the first murderer, and send them forth to be fugitives and 
 vagabonds in the earth, setting a mark on their brows, lest 
 any finding them should slay them. And then with Cain 
 shall they exclaim : ' My punishment is greater than I can 
 bear !' " 
 
 But while I would thus sternly dispose of the leaders and 
 arch-conspirators, I Avould speak words of forgiveness and 
 
2'0 
 
 good cheer to the multitudes they have duped. I would 
 learn a lesson from the cross, the lifting up of whose sacri- 
 ficial Victim so many in Christendom this day mournfully 
 celebrate. While, like the crucified One, I would show no 
 mercy to the apostate angels who tempted to sin, yet, like 
 the crucified One, I would enfold in my forgiving embrace 
 the multitudes tempted by them to rush on the thick bosses 
 of Jehovah's buckler of Civil Government, knowing not 
 what they did. To them I would say: "Come back, come 
 back into this disenthralled, regenerated, transfigured Re- 
 public, beneath the glorious mantle of that edict of Univer- 
 sal Emancipation, issued by the Chief Magistrate in Jan- 
 uary, 1863, and ratified by the j)eople, November 8, 1864." 
 Fellow citizens! be patient, and after a few more blows 
 from our peace-maker. Grant, they will do it; and then, with 
 a depth of meaning which the defender of the Constitution 
 did not conceive when he uttered the glowing words be- 
 neath the dome of the Capitol, thirty-five years ago, shall 
 an emancipated and exultant Republic announce to the 
 ages as its everlasting motto : Liberty and Union, now and 
 forever^ one and inseparable ! Yes, glorious Flag ! borne in 
 triumph by heroic legions from the Chesapeake to the Mis- 
 sissippi ; from Richmond to Mobile; thou art at last puri- 
 fied of thy stains, and to-day thou proudly floatest over 
 "•Hhe land of ihe free," as thou alwa^^s hast over "the home 
 of the brave." 
 
 In conclusion, I congratulate you, my countrymen, on 
 the bright portents which are gilding the horizon. Watch- 
 man ! what of the night ? Watchman ! what of the night ? 
 
21 
 
 The watchman saith : The 7nornmg cometli ! Peace is near 
 at hand. I already feel my cheek fanned with the beating 
 of her halcyon wings. All glory be to Thee, Thou Prince 
 of Peace! Thou hast not died in vain. A millennium 
 awaits the groaning, travailing creation, more resplendent 
 than that which dazzled the eye of England's poet-laureate, 
 when, in mystic trance, he 
 
 Dipt into the future, far as Iiunian eye could' see, 
 
 Saw the Vision of the workl, and all the wonder that would be ; 
 Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, 
 Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; 
 Heard the heavens fill with sho-uting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew 
 From the nations' vdrj navies grappling in the central blue; 
 Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm. 
 With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm; 
 Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd 
 In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. 
 
 Then shall dawn that blessed era, foretold by seers of 
 every time, and sighed for by holy men of every clime, 
 when all men's good shall 
 
 Be each man's rule, and universal Peace 
 Lie like a shaft of light across the land, 
 And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, 
 Through all the circle of the Golden Year. 
 
 Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy 
 Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall 
 be, world without end ! 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 At ihe request of numerous friends, the Order of Services observed on the \-ith inst. is 
 
 subjoined. 
 
 ORDER OF SERVICES. 
 
 I. THE LOED'S PEAYEE. 
 II. TE DEUM LAUDAMUS. 
 III. EEADING FEOM THE HOLY SCEIPTUEES : 
 The Triumphal Song or Deborah in Commemoration of the Hebrew 
 Victory over the Canaanitish Confederacy, 1300 B. C. 
 
 THE ODE. 
 
 Thus sang Deborah and Barak, Son of Abinoam, 
 In the daj^ of victory thus they sang : 
 
 The Prelude. 
 
 For the avenging of Israel, 
 
 For the free self-oifering of the people, 
 
 Praise ye Jehovah ! 
 Hear, O ye Kings ! Give ear, ye Princes ! 
 I to Jehovah, even I will lift the song, 
 I will sound the harp to Jehovah, God of Israel. 
 
 The Exodus. 
 
 O Jehovah ! when Thou wentest forth from Seir, 
 When Thou marchest through the fields of Edom, 
 Quaked the earth, and poured the heavens, 
 Yea, the clouds poured down with water ; 
 Before Jehovah's face the mountains melted, 
 Sinai itself before Jehovah's face, 
 The God of Israel. 
 
24 
 
 The Dismay. 
 
 In the days of Sharagar, Son of Anath, 
 In Jael's days, untrodden were the highways ,- 
 Through the winding by-path stole the traveller ; 
 Upon the plains lay the deserted hamlets, 
 
 Till I, Deborah, arose, 
 
 Till I arose, a mother in I&raeL 
 They chose gods that were new ; 
 Then war was in all their gates ; 
 Shield was there none or spear 
 Among forty thousand sons of Israel. 
 
 The StfMBioKS. 
 
 My soul is yours, ye chiefs of Israel T 
 And ye, the self-devoted of the people. 
 
 Praise Jehovah ! 
 Ye that ride on white-dappled she asses^ 
 Ye that sit to judge on rich carpets,. 
 Ye that plod in the way. 
 Come meditate the song ! 
 
 From amidst the shouting of the dividers of the spoils , 
 Between the water-troughs and by the springing wells,. 
 There let them rehearse the righteous acts of Jehovah, 
 The righteous acts of His headship in Israel, 
 And let the thronged gates repeat the song I 
 
 Awake, awake, Deborah ! 
 
 Awake, awake, utter a song ! 
 Arise, Barak, and lead captive thy captives,. 
 
 Thou son of Ahinoam ! 
 
 The Gathering to the Eendezvous. 
 
 With Barak went dov/n a valiant force against the mighty ; 
 
 "With me, Deborah, went down Jehovah's people against the strong ; 
 
 First : Ephraim, from the Mount of Amalek ; 
 
 And after Ephraim the hosts of Benjamin; 
 
 From Machir came down lawgivers ; 
 
 From Zebulun those that bear the niarshal's staff;. 
 
 And Issachar's brave princes came with Deborah, 
 
 Issachar, the strength of Barak ; 
 
 They burst into the valley in his footsteps. 
 
25 
 
 Thk Kecreants. 
 
 By Reuben's fountains there was deep debating; 
 
 "Why sattest thou between the sheepfolds ? 
 
 Was it to hear the piping to the flocks ? 
 
 By Eeuben's fountains deep were the searchings of the heart 
 
 And Gilead beyond the Jordan lingered ; 
 
 And Dan, why dwelled he among his ships? 
 
 Asher reposed on the shore of the sea, 
 
 And in his harbors dwelt. 
 
 But Zebulun was a death-defying people, 
 
 And Naphtali on the high places of the field. 
 
 The Battle. 
 
 Came the kings and fought. 
 Fought the kings of Canaan 
 By Taanach, on Megiddo's waters ; 
 Gain of silver took they not. 
 
 Prom the heavens they fought ; 
 
 The stars from their courses 
 
 Fought against Sisera ; 
 
 The torrent Kishon swept them down. 
 
 The ancient torrent, the torrent Kishon. 
 
 Trample down, O my soul, their might ! 
 
 Then stamped the clattering hoofs of prancing horses 
 
 At the flight, at the flight of the mighty. 
 
 The Curse. 
 
 Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of Jehovah ; 
 Curse ye with a curse the inhabitants thereof; 
 Because they came not to the help of Jehovah, 
 To the help of Jehovah, with the heroes ! 
 
 The Avenger. 
 
 Blessed above women be Jael, 
 
 The wife of Heber the Kenite, 
 
 O'er all the women blessed, that dwell in tents f 
 
 Water he asked, milk she gave. 
 
 The curded milk in her costliest bowl. 
 
 Her hand she stretched out to the tent-pin. 
 
 And her right hand to the hammer of the workmen. 
 
 Then Sisera she smote, she clove his head, 
 
 She bruised, she pierced his temples ; 
 
 Between her feet he bowed : he fell : he lay : 
 
 Between her feet he bowed : he fell : 
 
 Where he bowed, there he fell dead. 
 
26 
 
 The Mother of Sisera. 
 
 Through the window stretched forth and lamented 
 The mother of Sisera through the lattice ; 
 " Why is his car so long in coming ? 
 Wherefore tarry the wheels of his chariots?" 
 
 The wise ones of her princesses answer, 
 
 Yea, she repeats their answer to herself: 
 
 " Surely they are finding, are dividing the prey; 
 
 One damsel, two damsels for each hero ; 
 
 To Sisera prey of divers colors, 
 
 A many-colored robe, and richly broidered, 
 
 Many-colored, and broidered round the neck !" 
 
 The Triumph. 
 
 So perish all Thine enemies, O Jehovah ! 
 
 But they that love Thee, 
 
 Are as the sun, when he goes forth in his might. 
 
 IV. SINGING-, National Hymn.— " My country, 'tis of thee." 
 
 V. PKAYEK— By Eev. Thomas H. Stockton, D.T>. 
 
 VI. SINGING, The Star-Spangled Banner. 
 
 VII. ADDKESS— By the Pastor. 
 
 VIII. SINGING, Battle-Hymn of the Kepublic. — " Mine eyes have 
 seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." 
 
 DOXOLOGY. 
 
 Praise God from whom all blessings flow, 
 Praise Him all creatures here below, 
 Praise Him above, ye heavenly host. 
 Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 
 
 IX. BENEDICTION— By Eev. J. Newton Brown, D.D. 
 
*' ^mi thou ^cndutuni h4\mt a ^milc and ^m[.' 
 
DEATH, THE LAW OF LIFE. 
 
 A DISCOURSE, 
 
 DELIVERED ON THE SUNDAY MORNING AFTER THE 
 
 MURDER or PRESIDENT LINCOLN, 
 
 IN THE MEETING-HOUSE OF THE 
 
 FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 April 16, 1865. 
 
 Reverend George Dana Boardman, 
 
 PASTOR. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 S H E R M A N & C O., PRINT K R S. 
 
 1865. 
 
DISCOURSE, 
 
 What a day, or rather uiglit, is tliis, mj countrymeii I 
 How intoleral)le tlie burden that crushes us ! "What ! 
 Abraham Lincoln dead? The idol of his countrymen, 
 the true, the pure, the good, the loving, the heroic, the 
 great-souled father of his people dead, murdered, gone 
 away from us forevermore ? O God ! We cannot bear 
 it ! How can I stand here with this great grief so fresh 
 in my heart, and discourse to you about it ? It seems 
 almost like sacrilege to attempt it to-day. On another 
 and more appropriate occasion, when my thoughts are 
 calmer and more orderly, I will otfer my tribute to him 
 who lies on the nation's bier. This morning I ask you 
 to pass from the darkened chamber of a personal grief 
 into a broader and serener temple, where the quivering 
 chords of our hearts may lose somewhat of this painful 
 tenseness, and where considerations of a more general 
 and impersonal nature may raise the soul to loftier and 
 calmer heights. May the Father of consolation help 
 us while we ponder those words of the Redeemer, 
 which are recorded in the twenty-fourth verse of tlie 
 twelfth chapter of the Gospel according to St. John : 
 
 " Verihj, rcrili/, I say unto you: except a corn of vJtca.i 
 
32 
 
 fall iiito the ground and die,, it abideth alone; but if it die, it 
 bringeth forth much fruit.''' 
 
 I. Thoughtless or dull must that man's spirit be 
 which does not feel a quickening influence in these 
 spring days of vegetative activit}^ He need not visit 
 some great farm, or forest, in order to be assured of the 
 wonderful transformations going on in nature around 
 him. If he have but a single tree growing by his win- 
 dow, or a single rose-bush, or a square foot of grass-plat 
 in his yard, he may discover, if he will, evidences of an 
 activity as intense and wonderful in its way as when a 
 nation is engaged in the shock of arms. Look at3road 
 to-day on the vegetable kingdom around you. What 
 stujDendous energies are at work, upheaving the soil, 
 draining the underground reservoirs of a continent, 
 throwing the whole atmosphere of earth into commo- 
 tion, supplying the waste of animal expenditure by 
 vegetable growth, and carrying on that sublime para- 
 dox of compensation in nature which preserves equi- 
 librium by means of perturbations ! But not only are 
 great transformations going on. Observe, also, the 
 intense life everywhere prevalent. All nature is in- 
 stinct with the most vigorous vitality. An exuberance 
 of vital force is everywhere exhibited, from the loftiest 
 pine to the tiniest lichen. Behold the bursting seed, 
 the protruding shoots, the opening leaves, the unfold- 
 ing buds of spring! Whence all this abounding life? 
 Next autumn you will put your hand to the sickle, and 
 
33 
 
 reap the golden ears. But wlience will come jonr 
 
 glorious crop ? Ah ! the law of the harvest is death. 
 
 " Except a kernel of wheat fall into the ground and die, 
 
 it abideth alone ; but if it die, it bringeth forth much 
 
 fruit." It is because the seeds you plant in spring are 
 
 dying that your fields in autumn will be white to the 
 
 harvest. 
 
 My heart is awed within me when I think 
 Of the great miracle that still goes on, 
 In silence, round me, — the perpetual work 
 Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed 
 Forever. ***** 
 Lo ! all grow old and die; but see again, 
 How on the faltering footsteps of decay 
 Youth presses, — ever gay and beautiful youth 
 In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees 
 "Wave not less proudly than their ancestors 
 Moulder beneath them. * * * 
 
 Life mocks the idle hate 
 Of his arch enemy Death, — yea, seats himself 
 Upon the tyrant's throne, — the sepulchre, 
 And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe 
 Makes his own nourishment. 
 
 II. The like principle holds in the animal kingdom. 
 The life of the body depends on the destruction of its 
 own material. No part of an organism or living me- 
 chanism can act without wearing away. Every action 
 of the organism, w^hether in motion that is voluntarj'- or 
 involuntary, whether in emotion or volition, involves 
 attrition, the wasting away, the absolute loss and death 
 of animal material. The processes of life are at the 
 same time the processes of death. The condition, the 
 law of physical life, is physical death. 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 This, then, is the grand law of life that prevails in the 
 physical world, whether vegetable or' animal. Death 
 must precede life. Death is the source, or, rather, the 
 means of life. The death of the seed is the law of the 
 harvest. " Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a 
 kernel of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth 
 alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." 
 
 Now, this multiplication of the seed through its own 
 death our Lord uses as a most significant parable and 
 lesson. As in the physical world, so in the spiritual : 
 Death must 'precede Life. Growth comes through decay; 
 glory through disgrace ; joy through woe ; peace through 
 war ; victory through defeat ; life through death. 
 
 III. Observe how this principle holds true of the Son 
 of God Himself. He could not, as the Son of 3Ian, be- 
 come perfect except through suffering. In fact, this is 
 the primary and very particular application of the para- 
 ble of the kernel of wheat dying, as our Lord Himself 
 set it forth. While discoursing in the temple on the 
 Wednesday before He died, message was brought to 
 Him that certain Greek proselytes were waiting in the 
 outer court to see Him. They were Gentiles, who had 
 given in adhesion to some of the tenets of Judaism. 
 They had heard of His fame, and of the triumphal 
 entry which He had just made into the City of the 
 Great King. And now they themselves being in Jeru- 
 salem to attend the Passover, they wished to see the 
 illustrious Stranger for themselves, and learn by per- 
 sonal acquaintance whether He were the Saviour their 
 
35 
 
 own hearts so sighed for. Deeply moved by this touch- 
 ing request of these Gentile proselytes, our Lord accedes 
 to their wish. In their hearing He reveals, by means of 
 this exquisite similitude we are considering this morn- 
 ing, that Messiah's glory was to come through Messiah's 
 shame; Messiah's triumph through Messiah's defeat; 
 Messiah's throne through Messiah's grave. The kernel 
 of wheat abideth alone, unless it decay and die. It is 
 only by decaying and dying that it adds to itself, and 
 brings forth fruit. Just here, men and brethren, does 
 this death of the kernel stand forth as a most wonderful 
 shadow of Christ's work. For the Son of Man died 
 that He might rise again a spiritual harvest of regene- 
 rate humanity. So long as Jesus remained on earth 
 without dying, the Divine life was confined to Himself: 
 He abided alone. It was only when He cast otf, in dying, 
 the earthly integument, that liberty of growth became 
 possible. And when, at length, the harvest time shall 
 come, Jesus will be found, like the kernel of corn, 
 which, having died, has passed through its stages, first 
 the blade, then the ear, then the full com in the ear, to 
 be no longer " afo??.e," but to have " brought forth much 
 fruit J' The people, whose sins He had borne on the 
 accursed tree, will be gathered into the heavenly gar- 
 ner, as the mighty harvest of the travail of His soul. 
 The heavenly seed was sown in the ground, and died, 
 that it might evolve itself into a mighty increment, and 
 display itself in the glorious blossom and fruitage of 
 redeemed humanity. Verily, as He Himself said to the 
 
36 
 
 Gentiles tliat sought His presence, the hour of His 
 death was the hour of His life ; the hour of His defeat 
 in crucifixion the hour of His triumph in redemption. 
 
 IV. Observe, again, how this principle holds true of 
 man in all the deeper aspects of his nature. If the 
 Captain of our salvation could not be made perfect 
 except through suffering, how can He lead forth His 
 many sons unto glory, unless they, too, tread in the same 
 path of sorrow and agony ? Oh, no ! It is a law just as 
 universal and inexorable in the kingdom of moral 
 growth as in that of vegetable, that the spirit, like the 
 seed, shall die before it can live. Let no human being 
 think he can gather in his heavenly harvest till he has 
 passed through trial, disaster, and death. And, in fact, 
 the very next words which our Lord utters, after deliver- 
 ing this parable of the dying kernel, and as if in expla- 
 nation of it, are these: "He that loveth his life shall lose 
 it ; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep 
 it unto life eternal." In other words, man's spirit must 
 undergo a certain sort of decay and dissolution, must 
 pass through what the world calls ignominy and defeat, 
 before it can be quickened into the new life, and enter 
 on the fruitions of a bright eternity. Glance now at some 
 illustrations of this principle as applied to man's spi- 
 ritual nature. 
 
 1. Look, for instance, at the prime doctrine of Re- 
 generation. What, in fact, is the great mystery of the 
 New Birth but the decease of the spirit, — the old man 
 dying, that it may rise again the new man and the 
 
37 
 
 better? All ! there are some of you present who know 
 experimentally what this parable of the dying seed 
 means as applied to the great fact of conversion. There 
 was a time when you, dear child of God, died. There 
 was a decay of earthly hopes and prospects, of earthly 
 devices and methods of salvation; and such were the 
 bitterness of your remorse, and the depth of your peni- 
 tence, and the agony of your spirit, that, in very truth, 
 in being born again, in being quickened by the vitaliz- 
 ing energies of the Holy Ghost, you passed through 
 what may indeed be called the pangs of dissolution. 
 
 2, So, too, does our parable explain, the meaning 
 and the ministry of affliction. There must be a bruis- 
 ing of the spirit — a lacerating, tearing away of the 
 tendrils that cling to earthly props — a blighting and 
 decay of the fondest hopes and plans — an utter abase- 
 ment of pride and self-confidence — a painful breaking 
 down of the will — a dying agony of spirit, before the 
 soul can multiply its powers into any glorious harvest. 
 It is only when we are weak that we are strong. Oh, 
 think it not strange, then, my friend, that you, who 
 have tried to walk humbly before your God, have been 
 called to pass through such fiery trials. Ask that 
 mighty oak, which has triumphantly breasted the whirl- 
 winds of centuries, how he became so colossal and 
 strong ; and he will answer you, that once he was but 
 a little acorn, h'ing idle on the soil, and the heedless 
 foot of a bounding deer tramped it beneath the sod; 
 and then it decayed and died, and its greatness and its 
 
38 
 
 glory date from its death. Think it not strange, then, 
 that you shoidd endure trial and sorrow, and die years 
 before your body reaches the grave ; for it is the law of 
 the spiritual harvest. IsTo man can become spiritually 
 great till he has spiritually died. The only way to the 
 heavenly crown is from the earthly cross. 
 
 V. The same principle is applicable to nations. So 
 far as mortal penetration can go^ God's universal method 
 of governing is this : Growth through decay ; victory 
 throuo'h defeat: life throuo-h death. And nations are 
 no exceptions. It is not possible that a nation should 
 achieve true greatness except through the discipline of 
 defeat, and the throes of a mortal agony. It is the law of 
 growth and establishment. There are no Christians like 
 those who have been tried in the fires of affliction. And 
 there are no nations which attain such true majesty of 
 character as those which successfully burst through the 
 avenues of disaster and spiritual, heartfelt dissolution. 
 
 Here, then, in this terrific war, in the desolations of 
 our homesteads, in the occasional disasters and humili- 
 ations of the battle-field, and specially in this crushing 
 blow which fell on us yesterday morning, do I discover 
 evidences of the Father's loving-kindness. For, I do not 
 believe, Avhat many persons seem to imagine, that all 
 our disasters are lulioUy to be traced to human agency. 
 Could we lift up the curtain which conceals God's plan 
 of guiding this nation, I believe that we should discover 
 that He had employed a system of providential arrests 
 and clogs, which should hamper and sometimes sud- 
 
39 
 
 (lenly balk some of our best-laid schemes. I believe 
 this, not because our national histoiy is an exception to 
 God's general method of administering human affairs, 
 but because it is in harmony with it. The observant 
 reader, wliether of biography or of history, must have 
 been impressed with the fact that God not only governs 
 the affairs of men and of nations, but also often advances 
 their best interests by confounding their wisest counsels, 
 and suddenly tripping up their most promising schemes. 
 It is most unsagacious, then, to say the least of it, to 
 conclude that every national disaster, whether in the 
 cabinet, the Congress, or the field, is to be traced solely 
 to human agenc3^ To do this, is to take a practically 
 atheistic view of the great campaign. Xo ! God, as the 
 Providential Disposer of incidents, can ver}^ easily find 
 some method by which to defeat us, and yet we be 
 utterly mistaken in assigning the cause of defeat. And 
 tills I believe He has repeatedly done in our national 
 history, specially in the conduct of this war, our gene- 
 rals themselves being as much mistaken as to the 
 source of the defeat as we were. And, however broad 
 in statesmanship we may be, or energetic in purpose, 
 or profound in strategy, or heroic in the field, I believe 
 tliat God will continue, ever and anon, to balk suddenly, 
 in some way for the present misunderstood by us, our 
 most consummate schemes, till the national heart feels 
 at its very core that the Lord God of Hosts is the real 
 ruler of America, and that President, Secretary of State, 
 general, soldier, citizen, is strong only as Almighty God 
 
40 
 
 stoops down from His throne, and helps him to be 
 strong. And this is the way our God is teaching us. 
 Our wisest thinkers are but as blind men groping after 
 light and an open way. And the blessed thing is that 
 the dear God has taken our poor, stricken, pall-clad 
 nation into His own hands, bringing the blind by a way 
 that the}^ knew not, leading them in paths that they 
 have not known, hedging up their wa}^ with briers, 
 making a wall that they should not find the paths, allur- 
 ing them into the wilderness, that He may at last speak 
 comfortably unto them, and open for them in the Volley 
 of Achor a door of hope. 
 
 Glance, now, at some of the blessed fruits which the 
 dying of the nation lias already yielded. 
 
 1. See, for instance, how the calamities of this war 
 have tended to reveal us unto ourselves. Prosperity is 
 a miserable school for self-knowledge. But adversity 
 has a wonderful self-revealing power. The nation un- 
 derstands itself a great deal better than it did four years 
 ago. We have not the same overweening vanity that 
 made us so ridiculous in tlie opening of this appalling- 
 struggle. Very diiierent is the national feeling to-day 
 from what it was on that eventful Sunday morning in 
 July, 1861, when our army so recklessly and vain-glori- 
 ously marched to the field of Bull Run, and almost 
 every paper in the ISTorth positively predicted an easy 
 victory, which should decide beyond cavil or peradven- 
 ture, the issue of the war. We understand ourselves 
 better now. We are more humble. "We feel more 
 
41 
 
 keenly ouv dependence on God for tlie happy issue of 
 tlie struggle. Hence, when victory perches on our ban- 
 ner, as when Richmond fell and Lee surrendered, in- 
 stead of rending the air with our boastful and atheis- 
 tic huzzas, as was our wont over our earlier successes, 
 we now instinctively gather togetlier in reverent prayer 
 and adoration, and the song that swells on our lips, as 
 was the case before Independence Hall and in Wall 
 Street, is the Doxology to the Father, the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost. Our growing self-knowledge, learned in 
 the school of adversity, is gradually di'iving the nation 
 nearer and nearer to Him " from whom all blessing's 
 flow." And self-knowledge is one of the grand elements 
 of real greatness. The self-revealing power of suffering 
 is making us humbler, and, therefore, greater. For he 
 that humbleth himself shall be exalted. Thus does the 
 dying seed unfold into the golden harvest. 
 
 2. Another blessed fruit of this desolating war, and 
 specially of the awful tragedy which is ensanguining its 
 flnal act, is, that it has thrown us out of the benumbing 
 routine of stitfening habits and tendencies, thus liml)er- 
 ing us afresh to the manifold purposes of Divine Provi- 
 dence. We need, specially as a^young, growing nation, 
 still in its formative stage, to be every little while pow- 
 erfully agitated, lest we become paral^-zed through 
 sheer monotony of action and sentiment. Uninter- 
 rupted prosperity produces the same effect on nations 
 that it does on individuals; it tends to stunt the growth, 
 weaken the capacity, debase the nobilit3\ Of all calami- 
 
42 
 
 ties, considered as affecting those who have capacity for 
 growth, nothing is more fatal than simple stagnation. 
 It is a great blessing to be convulsed and dislodged, 
 whenever our wheels have worn so deep as to preclude 
 liberty of diversion. God's law for powers is progress ; 
 and Y)rogress can take place only at the cost of convul- 
 sions and throes. Every new crystallization implies a 
 previous commotion and effervescence. Better for the 
 human spirit all the commotions of change than the 
 numb palsies of monotony. 
 
 Better men should perish, one by one, 
 Than that earth should stand at gaze, like Joshua's moon in Ajalon ! 
 Through the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day : 
 Better fifty j'ears of Europe than a cj'cle of Cathay ! 
 
 . But aside from its being essential to progress, it is an 
 admirable thing to have the national heart ever and 
 anon profoundly stirred ; for it is thus made sensitive 
 to the quickening and plastic influences of the Spirit of 
 God. Calamities tend to make the human spirit flexi- 
 ble, limbering and adjusting it to the movements of the 
 Divine. Surveyed from this point of view, the arousal 
 of the national sensibility is of inestimable value. It is 
 good, and I say it in the presence of these sad, funereal 
 emblems, that a great tide of pathos should ever and 
 anon sweep over a people. In this view, the desolations 
 and l)ereavements of this war, and, specially the awful 
 calamity before which the nation now stands aghast, are, 
 under God's j^rovidence, a perturbing, loosening force, 
 knocking away the bolts that imprisoned the soul, and 
 
43 
 
 letting into its opened chambers and corridors the win- 
 nowing, gladdening gales of the Spirit. Accordingly, I 
 expect that, when the immediate, turbulent excitements 
 of this assassination and of the war, as a whole, are over, 
 a profound religious awakening will pervade the conn- 
 try. I confidently look for greater triumphs of Messiah 
 than those which were won after the terrible financial 
 commotions of 1857. The national heart has been 
 touched and laid bare by the finger of Almighty God, 
 and the lacerated organism will be sensitive to the Di- 
 vine Breath. Brethren in Jesus ! This is your hour 
 with God ! Be ye princes with Him, and prevail ! 
 
 3. Still another fruit of this devastating scourge, is 
 the development of the nation's true nobility. Xever 
 does a man know the force or grandeur that is in him, 
 till some nnghty calamity or passion has revealed his 
 soul. Viewed in this light, war, terrible scourge as it 
 is, has its gains as well as its losses. Oh, no ! The na- 
 tions cannot live, much less grow, without the severe, 
 but quickening and unfolding discipline of this terrible 
 thing. The nation's heart must die before it can blos- 
 som in beauty, or multiply its powers in harvest. And 
 wdiat a harvest of spiritual magnificence has the national 
 suflfering and death already yielded! What outbursts 
 of generosity have there been ! Wliat floods of sacred, 
 lofty sensibility have surged over the land ! "What 
 splendors of heroism have lighted np the firmament, 
 grandly illustrating (may I reverently say ?) Jehovah's 
 sublime law of vicarious suftering ! Even the seed dies 
 
44 
 
 vicariously in order to the harvest. What a magnificent 
 hecatomb has been the nation's offering, not by com- 
 pulsion, not in superstition, but in solemn, rational, 
 heroic joy ! This mighty army, not of conscripts, but 
 to so ver}" large extent, of volunteers, has not only 
 offered itself; it has been silently offered by count- 
 less hidden hearts quite as heroic ; by wives, mothers, 
 sisters, lovers ! Oh, I thank the Lord of heaven and 
 earth, that He hath so woven the web of the nations as 
 to permit the American people to set before the ages 
 the grandest human illustration the world has ever wit- 
 nessed of that sublime principle which seems to pervade 
 the universe, and which lies as the very corner-stone 
 of Redemption, — Vicarious Sacrifice! 
 
 4. I have been speaking of the application of this 
 principle, life through death, to nations. Let me bring 
 this point still nearer home, even to these bleeding 
 hearts of ours that as yet refuse to be comforted. The 
 richly kerneled and tasselled stalk springs from the 
 death of the solitary seed. Even so, the nation's tri- 
 umph and greatness may spring from Abraham Lin- 
 coln's death. Had he been permitted to live till the 
 term of his great office had expired, and, afterwards, in 
 a green old age, to die amidst the tranquillities of his Illi- 
 nois home, he would still have been the glorious noble- 
 man tliat God crowned him in his birth ; but he might 
 have abided alone, fructifying into no national harvest. 
 "VVe should still have revered him, as we revere all of 
 God's great ones ; but no nation would have been born 
 
45 
 
 of him. But when, heneatli the sufFeranee of an inscru- 
 table Providence, the assassin's bullet laid him low, the 
 glorious seed died, that it might no longer abide alone, 
 but bring forth much fruit. Even here, in the cause of 
 Liberty, as in the cause of the Church, it shall be found 
 that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Repub- 
 lic. Take courage, then, my countrymen : for even now 
 I see springing from the tear-wet bier of Abraham Lin- 
 coln the green and tender blades which foretell the 
 birth of an emancipated, united, triumphant, trans- 
 figured, immortal Republic. Even so, Father! For 
 thus it seemed good in Thy sight ! 
 
Jn 
 
 (^' 
 
 ^mxrrutm. 
 
AN ADDRESS 
 
 IN COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 Abraham Lincoln, 
 
 PRESIDENT OP THE UNITED STATES, 
 DELIVERED IN THE MEETING-HOUSE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 lirst ^^M €\\m^ at I^Md^^in, 
 
 ON THE LAY OF HIS FUNERAL AT THE NATIONAL CAPITAL, 
 
 APRIL 19, 18G5. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Reverend George Dana Boardman, 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 SHEEMAN & CO., PEINTEES. 
 
 1865. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 How different tliis scene, mj countrymen, from tliat 
 which was witnessed last Friday morning within these 
 walls!* Then all was gladness and triumph and festal 
 song and gay festoon. Now all is grief and apprehen- 
 sion and requiem and ebon drapery. Why this awful 
 change ? Why this universal suspension of business, 
 tliis awful stillness of the cities and the hamlets? Why, 
 if men appear in the streets, do they walk with slow 
 and measured tread, their hearts failing them through 
 fear, and a grief more crushing than fear ? Why from 
 countless spires toll the funereal bells? Why from fort 
 and arsenal and camp and military academy and navy- 
 yard and man-of-war mournfully boom the half-hour 
 guns ? Why, from the Golden Gate in the far-off" West 
 to the St. Croix, aye, to British Newfoundland in the 
 far off' East, from every flagstaff' and window and bal- 
 cony and colonnade, from car and engine and steed, 
 float the funereal emblems, fluttering like the ebon 
 wings of countless death-birds ? Why this darkness 
 that has fallen on all the land, a darkness so thick that 
 
 * This allusion is to the festive services in commemoration of the 
 re-establishment of the national flag at Fort Sumter, April 14. 
 
52 
 
 it may be felt? Why this cry that goes up from every 
 hearthstone, a universal, piercing cry, such as there was 
 none ever like it, nor can be like it any more ? It is 
 liecause there is not a house in all the land in which 
 there is not one dead. The nation's Father has been 
 struck down in all his scentle kino-liness. And we could 
 almost ask the very sky to quench its too bright sun, 
 and come down to meet our anguish, closing around 
 and enshrouding in its celestial pall the mighty heart 
 that lies so still and cold and dead. O God ! help us to 
 be strong to-day as we gaze on Abraham Lincoln lying 
 dead on the nation's bier ! 
 
 I cannot, stricken countrymen, speak long to you to- 
 day. I trusted, last Sunday, when I gave the announce- 
 ment for this occasion, that, ere this, I should have 
 regained sway over myself. But in preparing for this 
 solemn hour I have felt the same indescribable stupefac- 
 tion that 1 felt on that dreadful Saturday morning. For 
 an hour or two after I read the curdling tale, I felt such 
 a strangeness as I never had felt before, and as I pray 
 God I may never feel again. I felt no anger, not even 
 sadness. I read the awful intelligence over and over 
 and over again ; and still it hardly affected me more 
 than if I had never read it at all. And thus an hour or 
 two passed on, in which, like thousands of my country- 
 men, the soul itself seemed benumbed. And though 
 subsequently the horrible stupefaction passed away, to 
 be succeeded by most poignant bitterness of soul, yet, 
 in endeavoring to arrange my thoughts for this dreaded 
 
53 
 
 occasion, I have felt the same stupefying, freezing hor- 
 ror creeping over me again. It seems to me that brain, 
 lieart, pen, are paralyzed. Instead of attempting to say 
 anght to-day, I feel like escaping from the presence of 
 nn' fellow-men into some secluded forest-dell, where I 
 may breathe out a sorrow too sacred for words. All I 
 can do is to bring the briefest tribute, and reverently 
 lay it, amidst the dew of your tears, at the feet of the 
 mighty dead. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln was born of respectable parentage 
 in Kentucky, February 12, 1809. In 1816, his parents 
 removed to Indiana, where in their new home Abraham 
 spent the next ten years in hard manual labor on his 
 father's farm. The onh" school education which he 
 ever received was that which he obtained at intervals 
 during this time, amounting in the aggregate to about 
 a year. In 1830 he removed with his father to Illinois, 
 and in the following year was employed as one of the 
 hands in navigating a tlat-boat down the Mississi})pi to 
 Xew Orleans. On the breaking out of the Black Hawk 
 war, in 1832, he served his country for three months as 
 the captain of a volunteer company. On his return he 
 began the study of law, to which he devoted himself 
 with most persistent assiduity. In 1834 he was elected 
 to the legislature by the highest vote cast for any candi- 
 date in the State, which position he held for six years 
 in virtue of consecutive re-elections. ^leanwhile he had 
 removed to the capital of the State, Avhere he rapidly 
 
54 
 
 rose to great distinction as an advocate in jury trials. 
 In 1846, at the age of 37, Illinois sent him as one of her 
 representatives at "Washington. His Congressional ca- 
 reer was marked by a scrupulous devotion to the duties 
 of his office, by an inflexible adherence to principle, by a 
 generous, intelligent sympathy with all measures of re- 
 form, among which I may particularly mention the reso- 
 lution which he oflered, on January 16, 1849, for the abo- 
 lition of slavery in the District of Columbia, on what he 
 conceived to be a constitutional basis. After the expira- 
 tion of his Congressional term, he applied himself ar- 
 dently to his profession till that dark deed, the Repeal 
 of the Missouri Compromise, called him again into the 
 political arena. He Avas immediately acknowledged as 
 one of the most prominent political leaders in the State. 
 In 1858 he was unanimously nominated by his party as 
 candidate for United States Senator in opposition to 
 Judge Douglas. You have not forgotten how these 
 two remarkable men canvassed the State together, with 
 what extraordinary ability and courtesy the debate was 
 conducted on both sides, and how profound an interest 
 the canvass excited throughout the Union. The result 
 of this contest was, that though Mr. Lincoln received 
 a popular majority of four thousand votes, yet Mr. 
 Douglas was elected Senator by the joint ballot of the 
 legislature. On May 18, 1860, he was unanimously 
 nominated by the Republican National Convention a 
 candidate for President, which nomination was rati- 
 fied by the people on November 6, and, on the 4th of 
 
55 
 
 March, 1861, having succeeded in reaching Wasliington 
 in spite of the most desperate obstacles to prevent it, 
 was inaugurated the sixteenth President of the United 
 States. At twenty minutes past four o'clock on the 
 morning of April 12, 1861, the grand conspiracy in- 
 augurated civil war in America by opening the fire of 
 one hundred and forty guns on Fort Sumter, Major 
 Eobert Anderson commanding. Who needs to have 
 the tale, henceforth so harrowing, repeated ? It is 
 enough to think of the dead President, without dwell- 
 ing on the intervening years of mingled woe and glory. 
 One event, indeed, must be specialized; for it overtops 
 all the other great events of this unparalleled epoch, 
 as towered the Olympian Jove above the lesser gods of 
 the Grecian heaven. Your own swelling hearts have 
 anticipated me when I tell you that it was the Eman- 
 cipation Proclamation of January Ist, 1863. Without 
 particularizing further, it is enough to say, that in the 
 terrific and long-continued tornado which burst upon 
 the country on the bombardment of Sumter, when- 
 ever the ship of state plunged most wildly amidst 
 the engulfing billows, or grated most heavily on the 
 foundering reefs, or echoed most hoarsely w^ith the 
 shrieks of the despairing, one man there was who ever 
 walked her deck with quiet intrepidity, his great heart 
 ever true and trustful, his clear brain ever vigilant 
 and wide-sweeping, his strong hand ever untrembling, 
 towering, placid and imperial, like Neptune's brow, 
 above the white foam, and smiling it into peace. After 
 
56 
 
 a canvass of unexampled intensity, throughout which 
 he preserved the same calm beauty of soul, he was, on 
 the 8th of November, 1864, re-elected President of the 
 United States by an almost unprecedented electoral 
 majority; and on the 4th of March, 1865, he reassumed 
 the executive functions in an Inaugural of most impres- 
 sive yet gentlest majesty. On the 14th of April, 1865, 
 the national flag was by his command re-uplifted on the 
 raniparts of Sumter, as a symbol of the re-establishment 
 of the national sovereignty throughout the Republic; 
 and on the evening of that memorable day the kingliest 
 man that ever breathed the air of the Western hemi- 
 sphere was laid low by a bullet thrice accursed, for it 
 was sped by an assassin, a traitor, and a slavery wor- 
 shipper. 
 
 Such, in briefest terms, is an outline of the career of 
 America's foremost son. What more can be said as we 
 gather in tearful reverence around his bier? Without 
 distinction of lineage, he gained a distinction which no 
 lineage could give. Born among and as one of the 
 common people, he ever retained, amidst a courtliness 
 of power which European dynasties a thousand years 
 old might envy, a fellow-feeling with the common 
 people, by his own inherent greatness rising to be their 
 typal aggregate, embodiment, and symbol. But pass- 
 ing over those years of boyish poverty and struggle, 
 and also the years of youthful brain and will endeavor, 
 and conquest too, let us gaze on him when, in the ma- 
 
57 
 
 tiirity of his powers, lie wields a sceptre more august 
 than that of Roman Cajsar. It is diificult to form a just 
 estimate of his character; for, its vast proportions are 
 lost in its extraordinary symmetry. For, as in entering 
 for the tirst time St. Peter's basilica at Rome, you are 
 disappointed, because the grandeur of outline is melted 
 and lost in the exquisite adaptation of detail, so to the 
 thoughtless observer the character of the late President 
 seems less great than it really was, because lost in its 
 perfect equipoise and rounded globe. But let us pro- 
 ceed with our attempt at delineation. The historian to 
 be born a hundred years hence will, I judge, say of 
 Abraham Lincoln something as follows. 
 
 He was not a man lustrously brilliant in any one 
 direction. N^o one faculty of brain markedly towered 
 over another. But he was none the less great in that 
 his greatness was so rounded, having less the transient 
 dazzle of the meteor than the steady quiet sparkle of 
 the fixed star. His logic was intuitive rather than ten- 
 tative, instinctive rather than elaborative. He was wont 
 to come to his conclusions less by the laborious row- 
 ings of his reason than by the unconscious floatings of 
 Ills instinctive, inborn shrewdness and sagacity. Hence 
 the facility with which he detected the pivotal point in 
 any question, however complex. Hence the ease and 
 l)recision with which he led the people to catch the 
 same point, leading them directly thither by the avenue 
 of a diction which, however peculiar and homely, was 
 
as straiglitforward and pellucid as his own judgment. 
 Hence, also, it was that he so rarely made mistakes. 
 Hence it was that every public act or plan of his, how- 
 ever wide-spread or intense the execration with which it 
 was first received, was sure, sooner or later, to win the 
 applauding verdict of the people. Guided thus by a 
 system of well-nigh infallible instincts, by which he 
 knew what he ought to do, and when to do it, and how 
 to do it, he might well have taken as his own motto the 
 heraldic bearing of the Earl of Buckinghamshire, Nulla 
 vestigia retrormm. 
 
 But because the instinct of the late President was in- 
 tuitive leather than ratiocinative, it does not follow that 
 he was not intellectually great ; for as, according to the 
 profounder theologians, the intuitive John was greater 
 than the syllogistic Paul,, so, it seems to me, that Mr. 
 Lincoln, intellectually surveyed, stands in the very first 
 rank of those who have, in either hemisphere, wielded 
 the sceptre. He had an unusually comprehensive mind, 
 taking in at a glance all the aspects of the most many- 
 sided question, almost always coming unerringly to a 
 conclusion, when an inferior and less spherical mind 
 would have been puzzled and paralyzed by a seeming 
 contradiction, as, for instance, when a social or a poli- 
 tical necessity is balanced by a legal or constitutional 
 diificulty, or when a pressing moral obligation is offset 
 by a present practical impossibility. Seeing all sides of 
 a question, and intuitively just, he was enabled to equate 
 the problem, thus steering the ship of state safely be- 
 
59 
 
 tween the Charybdis of fanatic propulsion and the 
 Scylla of timorous procrastination. The highest eulogy 
 that can be pronounced on the intellectual character of 
 a ruler, in times of great civil convulsion, is that it is his 
 policy to have no policy, content with keeping his ship 
 trim as he permits her to sweep downwards with the 
 precipitous torrent. That eulogy the late President de- 
 serves beyond anj' ruler the world has seen. 
 
 And yet Mr. Lincoln was not wanting in executive 
 force. Because he made no pretensions to special firm- 
 ness, and vaunted not his purposes, people at first 
 imagined that he was irresolute. But as time rolled 
 on we began to see that beneath that mild, unassuming 
 exterior lay an imperial will, that serenely swayed all 
 who came in contact with him, however high in the 
 military or executive councils of the nation they stood ; 
 and yet so quiet was this sway that they hardly knew 
 that the sceptre was over them. Observe the modest 
 assurance with which he rules the Secretary of State 
 and the Lieutenant-General, placidly reserving to him- 
 self every ultimate responsibility. Nor was his inflexi- 
 bility less than his force. All the powers of earth could 
 not drive him to take a step till he thought it was right; 
 and when convinced that it was right, all the powers of 
 earth could not prevent his taking it. And all this, 
 too, was without the slightest ostentation. Like a wire- 
 bridge across a mountain gorge, he could sway to the 
 softest zephyr, yet, like the same wire-bridge, the whirl- 
 wind could not uproot him. 
 
60 
 
 Gifted with this intellectual judgment so instinc- 
 tively infallible, and this gentle steadfastness of will, 
 the late President blended with it a moral nature re- 
 markably pure, keen, sensitive, and controlling. He 
 was the very soul of integrity. It were as much as a 
 man's liberty, certainly more than his expectations, 
 were worth, to enter the presence of Abraham Lincoln 
 witli either flattery, threat, or bribe. Himself as trans- 
 parent as crystal, he loathed whatever was refractive or 
 opaque. He was absolutely incorruptible. Shrewd be- 
 yond most men, his shrewdness was the clear, piercing 
 vision of a clean, single heart, that knew not how to 
 
 Spread its sails 
 "With 'vantage to the gale of others' passions. 
 
 Conscious of personal integrity, self-reliant, constitu- 
 tionally genial, having an abiding faith in the instinct 
 and persistence of the people as a corporate whole, as- 
 sured of the justice of the majestic cause, and having a 
 deep confidence in the overruling and merciful God, he 
 was enabled to retain, in hours of darkest gloom, a 
 cheerfulness of spirit, which often found vent in broad- 
 est and most grotesque humors. I doubt not that this 
 constitutional blithesomeness of soul was one of the ele- 
 ments which contributed to the preservation of his life 
 beneath the most crushing responsibilities that ever fell 
 on man. And amidst all these distracting, hardening, 
 shrivelling cares, he ever retained the same freshness 
 and tenderness of soul. While just and kind to all, he 
 
61 
 
 was, to the very last, in a special sense, the poor man's 
 friend. And among all those who weep over his un- 
 timely death, the chief mourners of the land, next to 
 the members of his own family, are the sable millions 
 whom his own hand had set free. I honestly believe 
 that there never trod the earth a more sympathetic, 
 unselfish, large-hearted, forgiving man than he. "WTiat- 
 ever tilled up the vast circumference of that soul, the 
 thought of Abraham Lincoln's own self was no occu- 
 pant of it. By one of those spontaneous consents of the 
 people, which spring up only on the soil of truth, he 
 was instinctively styled Father Abraham. lie was in- 
 deed the father of the whole American pc-ople, from the 
 St. Lawrence to the Mexican Gulf, and he lived only in 
 his children. For them, east and west, north and south, 
 lo^'al and insurgent, he lived, and prayed, and schemed, 
 and toiled, taxing every power of his clear and compre- 
 hending brain, and every sensibility of his delicate and 
 boundless heart. I know not whether he was a Chris- 
 tian. The All-seeing alone knows that. Accounts, 
 however, of his devotional habits have occasionally 
 reached us too well-authenticated to be set aside. Cer- 
 tainly he had a deep and abiding sense of the holy au- 
 thority of God, and an inspiring confidence in His mer- 
 ciful providence. I could have wished, indeed, that 
 since he must fall, he had fallen elsewhere, engaged in 
 a purer service, which had some " relish of salvation 
 iu't." But let that glide into oblivion. It is the solitary 
 cloud that flecked the expanse of his public career. 
 
62 
 
 If ever mortal obeyed "VVolsey's dying counsel, it was 
 Abraham Lincoln : 
 
 Cromwell ! I charge thee fling away ambition ; 
 
 By that sin fell the angels ; how can man, then, 
 
 The image of his Maker, hope to win by 't? 
 
 Love thyself last ; cherish those hearts that hate thee ; 
 
 Corruption wins not more than honesty. 
 
 Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, 
 
 To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not ! 
 
 Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy Country's, 
 
 Thy God's and Truth's ! Then, if thou fall'st, O Cromwell ! 
 
 Thou fall'st a blessed martyr ! 
 
 And this is the man so augustly rich in the elements 
 of an exalted manhood, who has suddenly been stricken 
 down, not by an adventurous invader from a foreign 
 soil, seeking to avenge his own nationality; not by a 
 reckless highwayman, who must needs replenish his 
 empty purse ; not by a staggering madman, crazed by 
 his potations; but by an American desperado, who, 
 whether the appointed and duly certified organ of con- 
 spirators or not, it matters little, is nevertheless the 
 actual summation and type of that slaveholding power, 
 which, rather than lose its grasp on the sable chattels 
 made in God's image, after His likeness, has been will- 
 ing to drench a continent in fratricidal blood. Oh, 
 what a type and symbol of this whole insurrectionary 
 movement of the South, this assassination of President 
 Lincoln has been ! If ever the genius of suicide took 
 upon itself the impersonation of a human form, it was 
 when this colossal slaveholding conspiracy was epito- 
 
63 
 
 mized and became incarnate in the person of tlie dia- 
 bolical miscreant, wliose only passport to immortality is, 
 that, when the martyr President fell, his descending 
 shadow fell on Aim, and set his name in blackness of 
 darkness forever more. And yet, were a merciful Om- 
 nipotence to restore to life the dead President, I doubt 
 not that though some of us may at first have interpreted 
 the voice of his blood, like that of the world's first 
 martyr by the gates of Eden, as a cry for vengeance, yet, 
 when those gentle lips moved again, we should hear a 
 voice, which, like the sweet cadence that softly billowed 
 the air on the first Good Friday, speaketh better things 
 than that of Abel. And I believe that even to-day there 
 are thousands of penitent ones in those desolated South- 
 ern homes, whose rebellious pride has been subdued by 
 this awful parricide, and who, were the privilege allowed 
 them, would come and 
 
 Kiss dead Caesar's wounds, 
 And dip their napkins in his sacred blood ; 
 Yea, beg a hair of him for memory, 
 And, dying, mention it within their wills, 
 Bequeathing it as richest legacy 
 Unto their issue. 
 
 Yes, it shall be said of the martyred President as was 
 said three thousand years ago of the grand old Hebrew 
 judge and patriot, " The dead which he slew at his death 
 were more than they which he slew in his life." 
 
 My countrymen ! I have woven my garland, simple 
 and unworthy as it is, and hung it on the bier. It is 
 
64 
 
 scarce fitting to linger longer. For even now the sad 
 cortege has begun to move which shall bear to his last 
 sleeping-place all that is mortal of the martyr statesman, 
 patriot, emancipator, and friend. And as in the days of 
 King Joash, when the body of the dead Israelite, on 
 being let down into the sepulchre of Elisha, and on 
 touching the bones of the mighty prophet, was revived 
 and stood on its feet again, so may God grant that as 
 the nation's dead heart reverently touches to-day the 
 dead heart of the great patriot, it may be quickened into 
 life again, and stand before the astonished nations in all 
 the strength and splendor of a new-born majesty! 
 
 Yes ! move on in majestic state to thy Illinois tomb, 
 amidst the bowing ranks of a weeping nation, thou 
 illustrious martyr for us all ! Thy dead, murdered 
 corse is the watchword, and, with God's grace, the 
 victor ptean of an emancipated, chastened, glorified 
 Republic ! 
 
 Wn Q"en 
 
 ■•■-I