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 DISCOURSE 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE ^ 
 
 SECOKD PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, U ^^u 
 
 ALBANY, APRIL 16, 1865, RI^C^ 
 
 THE SUNDAY MORNING IMMEDIATELY SUCCEEDING 
 
 THE ASSASSINATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 WILLIAM B. SPRAGUE, D. D. 
 
 ALBANY: 
 
 WEED, PARSONS AND COMPANY, PRINTERS. 
 1865. 
 
.5 
 
 JJTOFCONSSISJ. 
 
 •SQ'OFWSH«iS^ 
 
DISCOURSE. 
 
 A day of darkness— [Joel II, 2.] 
 In uttering these words, originally prophetic 
 of fearful judgments upon the people of Israel, 
 I am sure I touch a chord that vibrates to the 
 inmost soul of our common country. And in 
 thus introducing my discourse I cannot but 
 compare the present with the past, — the third 
 Sabbath of April, 1865, with the third Sabbath 
 ot April, 1861. During the week preceding the 
 last mentioned Sabbath, I had prepared a dis- 
 course for the morning on some evangelical 
 topic, which had no direct reference to the 
 imperilled condition of the country. But late 
 on Friday evening the appaUingnews came that 
 war had actually commenced in a vigorous and 
 formidable attack on Fort Sumter. This intel- 
 ligence ihvew the whole community into a 
 paroxysm of surprise and horror ; and so sure 
 was I that you were too much excited to follow 
 me in the train into which I had intended to 
 lead you, that I thought I should only obey 
 the intimations of Providence in endeavouring 
 to fix your minds upon some of the lessons 
 so impressively taught by that terrible crisis— 
 and this conviction gave the complexion to my 
 discourse. I was prepared to address you this 
 morning on a subject of vital importance, espe- 
 cially to those whose miuds are in some degree 
 awake to their immortal interests ; but when 
 the paralyzing news of what had just occurred 
 at Washington met my eye yesterday morning, 
 I felt, as in the other case, that I should dis- 
 honour God's Providence if I were to attempt 
 
to direct your thoughts in any other channel 
 than that which had thus been opened to me. 
 The startling events which have just occurred, 
 must always stand out prominently in the his- 
 tory of the world ; and though they will afiford 
 matter for solemn reflection and warning in all 
 coming time, they can never come to us more 
 impressively than now, while the nation's heart 
 is writhing and bleeding in the most intense 
 agony. Let us then reverently pause, and hear 
 the voice of God, as it is speaking to us from 
 amidst this scene of deep and all pervading dark- 
 ness. 
 
 I. And the thought that presses upon us first, 
 is nearly akin to one which I had occasion to 
 introduce in connection with the funeral services 
 of the last Sabbath morning — How manifest is 
 it that clouds and darkness are round about 
 Jehovah's throne ! We readily assent to this 
 truth, as not only clearly revealed in Scripture, 
 but as having a continuous illustration in the 
 economy of Divine Providence ; but it is only 
 in the presence of the greater events, — events 
 that startle a nation or convulse the world, — 
 events such as those with which our own 
 nation is now in contact, that we gain any thing 
 like an adequate impression of this truth. 
 It has seemed to us a deep mystery that this 
 land of ours, consecrated, as it has been, by our 
 fathers' blood, and endeared by the most hal- 
 lowed remembrances, should have become the 
 theatre of desolating war ; that madness should 
 have so far reigned in the hearts of a portion of 
 our countrymen as to lead them to grasp 
 the sword, with a view to sever the bonds in 
 which the providence of God had manifestly 
 
united us ; that their malignant hostility should 
 have been suffered to plunge the nation into this 
 protracted scene of distress, and, I had almost 
 said, to convert the whole land into a mighty 
 grave yard. When we have looked out upon 
 the passing horrors, and have looked forward to 
 the uncertain dismal prospect, have not some of 
 us sometimes well nigh felt a staggering of our 
 faith, as if there were not an almighty and an 
 all-gracious hand hid in the darkness? And 
 not only has deep mystery pervaded the gen- 
 eral course of events, but the mystery has 
 seemed to culminate at particular points ; and 
 the most thoughtful and far-seeing have been 
 baffled in their attempts at explanation. 
 
 But we had reached a point where light had 
 begun to shine out of the darkness; victory 
 had succeeded victory until the downfall of the 
 rebellion had been virtually accomplished ; in- 
 so much that the Chief Magistrate of our State 
 liad actually issued his proclamation, and it was 
 understood that the President of the United 
 States would speedily issue another, for a day 
 of thanksgiving, in view of the brightening of 
 our national prospects. But just at the 
 moment when the nation is getting ready to 
 bow herself in gratitude before her great Bene- 
 factor, the appalling fact comes upon us, like 
 the lightning's flash, that a demon in human 
 form has leveled successfully the instrument 
 of death against the President, and another has 
 attempted the same horrid experiment upon the 
 Secretary of State, and his son and assistant, 
 thus producing a complicated scene of murder, 
 and opening a bloody path out of the highest 
 places of human authority into the world un- 
 
6 
 
 seen. In our grief and sorrow, we cannot help 
 asking, wherefore it is that God is thus dealing 
 with us ; that the men who had been consti- 
 tuted the guides of the nation at this critical 
 and perilous crisis, should thus, in a moment, 
 be stricken down by the hand of a murderer, 
 and the great interests with which they were 
 intrusted possibly imperilled by the consequent 
 change ? We can only lay our hands upon our 
 mouths, and adore the unsearchable depths of 
 the Divine counsels, and reverently wait for the 
 light from God's throne to illuminate them. 
 Future years, future ages, will no doubt reveal 
 an explanation of these events, which will in- 
 crease the admiration of God's wisdom and 
 goodness, both on earth and in Heaven. 
 
 II. In the events we are contemplating is 
 mirrored forth, in a most impressive light, the 
 awful depravity of the human heart. 
 
 Look at the case as involving simply the guilt 
 of murder^ — the premature and violent termi- 
 nation of human life, — and that in the face of a 
 solemn prohibition from the author of life, with 
 a denunciation of the most terrible judgment 
 which a human being in this world is capable 
 of suffering — even that which, in his madness, 
 he ventures to inflict. He who commits murder, 
 under any circumstances, inflicts an evil which 
 it is impossible for him to repair — he breaks 
 up the wonderful, complicated, mechanism that 
 enters into our humanity — the tie which binds 
 together what is material and what is spiritual 
 in man he rashly sunders — all the relations 
 which a being, sharing a common nature with 
 himself, sustains, he terminates — and so, too, 
 he puts an end to all the opportunities for doing 
 
good, to all the means of spiritual culture, to 
 everj thing that enters into the idea of proba- 
 tion for eternity. Now, he who commits such a 
 crime, apart from all the peculiar circumstances 
 by which it is attended, is a monster ; and he 
 passes for nothing less, even in the estimation of 
 those whose hands are as bloody as his own. 
 
 But mark the peculiar, complicated guilt by 
 which this murder comes attended. In common 
 with every other similar act, it has thrown a 
 circle of relatives and friends into the deepest 
 mourning ; withdrawing from them one whose 
 kindly and generous qualities had bound him 
 to all of them in ties of affection, and to some 
 of them in cords of conjugal and paternal love. 
 But this is only the beginning of the sorrow 
 which it has occasioned. The victim was a man 
 whom a large majority of the nation had deemed 
 worthy to be placed at its head ; in whose wis- 
 dom and integrity they had full confidence ; 
 and under whose administration they expected 
 shortly to welcome the return of an honourable 
 and stable peace. They believed that he held in 
 his hands, under God, the destinies of the na- 
 tion ; and they expected that he would live to 
 be crowned with the whole nation's benedic- 
 tions ; and so implicit was the trust which they 
 reposed in him, that they scarcely feared any 
 adverse influences which the nation might have 
 to encounter. It was at such a moment that that 
 human fiend rushed forth, and, in the twinkling 
 of an eye, laid the President into the arms of 
 death. There was an air of desperate defiance in 
 the manner of the act, as well as in the act itself, 
 that showed a heart that had been steeped in the 
 venom of hell. I do not know that the wretch 
 
8 
 
 has been certainly identified yet, but it is safe 
 to presume that he was a repre-sentative of those 
 on whom rests the responsibility of having 
 deluged this country with blood ; nor is it 
 uncharitable to add, that, though his hands 
 actually performed the deed, yet it was probably 
 the carrying out of an infernal plot, in which 
 there had been an extended guilty participation. 
 History does not record another murder which 
 blends more of those qualities, in which are 
 concentrated the malignant horrors of the world 
 below. 
 
 And now, the thought which I wish to bring 
 home to you, in living reality, is, that this 
 fearful crime has been perpetrated by one who 
 shares a common nature with you and me ; and 
 hence it is not unfair to infer from it the well- 
 nigh unlimited susceptibilities of the human 
 heart to evil. It is unsafe to presume that we 
 are incapable of crimes which we have never 
 committed; because the powerful temptation 
 may not yet have had the opportunity to act 
 upon our inward propensity to evil, and no one 
 can tell but that it may come upon him with a 
 force which his reason and conscience will be too 
 feeble to resist. It is quite a supposable case 
 that the time may have been when the wretch 
 to whom we are referring would have shuddered 
 as much as you or I would have done, at 
 the thought of ever being chargeable with shed- 
 ding human blood; and possibly this might 
 have been his experience one year ago ; but the 
 fiend, though quiet, had a lodgment in his 
 bosom, and it required only the action of 
 circumstances to waken it into full energy. 
 In every heart before me, yet unrenewed, 
 
9 
 
 there lurks the same fiend; and you know not 
 now soon he may bring you into an ignoble and 
 fatal captivity. You may, indeed, never be 
 tempted to the crime of murder, or to any thing 
 that shall make you an outlaw from human so- 
 ciety—and yet you can never know to what you 
 may be tempted, so long as your heart is under 
 the dominion of the spirit of evil. Wherefore I 
 pray you to begin the conflict with this inward 
 monster at once; and be not satisfied till 
 you have effectually dethroned and banished 
 him. If you wait but a little longer, the silken 
 cord with which he has already bound you may 
 turn into an iron chain ; and yoa may soon 
 awake to the conviction that you are bound by 
 that chain for a whole eternity. 
 
 Oh that I could write this thought, as with 
 the point of a diamond, on the hearts of all the 
 beloved youth before me ! Because you are not 
 sensible of the vigorous workings of sin in your 
 heart, and because both your reason and moral 
 sense are revolted at those daring outrages that 
 seem to set both God and man at defiance, you 
 calmly repose in the conviction that sin has no 
 dominion over you that can furnish reasonable 
 ground for alarm. But herein, believe me, you 
 are yielding to a most dangerous self-deception. 
 You are really setting out in life in league 
 with the grand adversary of your soul ; for he 
 is represented in that principle of evil in your 
 heart ; nay, it is through that principle that he 
 stealthily operates to effect your ruin ; where- 
 fore I entreat you to summon all the powers of 
 your soul, in humble dependence on God's grace, 
 to a mighty eff'ort for your deliverance from this 
 inward usurper. Be not satisfied with any re- 
 
10 
 
 formation, outward or inward, that does not 
 involve that new creating process by which the 
 soul loses its grovelling tendencies and becomes 
 transformed into the Redeemer's image. And 
 having once reached the point of possessing a 
 regenerate nature, you have a right to expect 
 that your journey through life will be cheered 
 by the gracious and all sustaining presence of 
 your Lord and Saviour, and will bring you at 
 its close into the midst of the glory that sur- 
 rounds his throne. With such appalling pros- 
 pects on the one hand, and such glorious pros- 
 pects on the other, will you not permit us to 
 hope that your first and all engrossing object 
 shall be to accept the offered salvation, and 
 thereby plant yourselves on ground where you 
 will be safe in any emergency. 
 
 III. Another obvious thought suggested by 
 this dark outrage upon humanity, is that many 
 at his best estate^ has not an eye piercing enough 
 to look far into the future. One hour, one mo- 
 ment, before the President received the fatal 
 charge, he saw nothing to indicate that he was 
 not as secure as any of the multitude around 
 him; nor was there one perhaps of all the 
 lookers on, save the assassin who was pledged 
 to the deed, and possibly some of his fiend 
 associates, who dreamed that there was any 
 murderous agency lurking there ; but in an 
 instant the deed that changed him into a corpse 
 was done. Yesterday morning a large part of 
 the nation was reposing gratefully in the thought 
 that his mind was busily, honestly, generously 
 at work in arranging the preliminaries of na- 
 tional peace ; and some who had never favoured 
 his administration before, thought they saw a 
 
11 
 
 bright spot in it now; but, on opening the 
 newspaper to see what the last twelve hours had 
 brought forth, what should glare upon them, in 
 almost frightful capitals, but the astounding 
 intelligence that the President, under an inflic- 
 tion of human vengeance, was just closing his 
 earthly career ; and the next deliverance of the 
 telegraph was that the assassin's triumph was 
 complete. There may have been, doubtless 
 there were, a herd of banditti, who were look- 
 ing for the event with eager hope, and who 
 welcomed it with malignant exultation ; but no 
 apprehension of it even was awakened in the 
 nation at large, until its crushing weight assured 
 us of its reality. 
 
 And herein we have represented to us another 
 of the most striking features of our present con- 
 dition— we never know on what ground the 
 next step we take may place us — we cannot tell 
 when pleasure will turn into pain ; when hope 
 will give place to disappointment ; when life's 
 day will come to a close amidst the night- clouds 
 of death. A ud the same remark applies to na- 
 tions as to individuals — that nation that we reck- 
 on most out of the range of vicissitude, and that 
 seems to have in it all the elements of substan- 
 tial prosperity and enduring growth, may be sud- 
 denly convulsed or riven by some internal or for- 
 eign influence, and other nations may be looking 
 on,perhaps anxiously, perhaps indifferently, per- 
 haps triumphantly, to see it perish. I do not 
 mean that the future is entirely hid from us, and 
 that we are left to grope our way into it without 
 any light from without or from within ; for Divine 
 Revelation throws some of its beams forward 
 upon our path ; and then there is sufficient 
 
12 
 
 uniformity in the operation of the general laws 
 of Providence, to enable us to form an intelli- 
 gent judgment, especially in respect to the more 
 remote issues of things — still it remains true 
 that the details of the fature are unknown to 
 us until they are revealed in actual experience. 
 Both individuals and nations are liable to find a 
 darkness that can be felt gathering around them, 
 when, a little before, not a cloud had been seen 
 to lower in their horizon. 
 
 And what is the great practical inference to 
 "be deduced from this characteristic feature of 
 our present existence, but that we should 
 always keep ourselves ready for tribulation, 
 girded for conflict? If God, in his gracious 
 sovereignty, is pleased to exempt us from 
 severe suflfering, and to fulfil the promise of any 
 given period in respect to a happy future, well 
 may we rejoice with thankfulness ; but, if He 
 sees best to dash our fond hopes, and cause us 
 to walk where the darkness gathers and the 
 tempest rages, still let us endeavour to maintain 
 such an attitude that we can walk fearlessly, 
 securely, triumphantly, even there. In other 
 words, let us keep our hearts filled with the 
 love of God ; and then the future, no matter 
 with what it may be charged, we can afford to 
 welcome. 
 
 IV. What a strange commingling of good and 
 evil, of joy and sorrow, does human life present ! 
 The President had just returned in safety from 
 an expedition to the seat of war, including also 
 a visit to the Rebel Capital. All his negotiations 
 seem to have been, in the highest degree, 
 satisfactory. He had returned with the full 
 confidence that the blood of the nation would 
 
13 
 
 soon stop flowing, and that the remaining years 
 of his Presidency, though years of toil and anxi- 
 ety, would still be years of comparative quietude. 
 But there was not so much as the interval of 
 a moment between this state of apparent secu- 
 rity and joyful anticipation, and his becoming 
 the subject of the heaviest earthly calamity 
 which mortal man is capable of suffering. And 
 then mark the sudden reverse to which the 
 nation has been subjected. The fourth anniver- 
 sary of the cold-blooded and barbarous attack on 
 Sumter had come, and it was to be signalized — 
 no doubt was signalized — by the restoration of 
 the old flag to its legitimate place, and by the 
 very hands from which it had been ignomin- 
 iously and cruelly wrested. We all felt that 
 it was a glorious day ; and though we could not 
 be present to join our voices in the jubilant 
 strains that marked the ceremony, yet we were 
 there in spirit, rejoicing that that cherished 
 emblem of our country's liberty was raised from 
 the dust and spread to the breeze, instead of the 
 foul emblem of treason that had usurped its 
 place. All over the land, wherever there were 
 loyal hearts, there were joyous hearts — all felt 
 a thrill of exultation at the thought that Right- 
 eousness had finally triumphed on the very spot 
 where the first open onslaught upon the 
 Union was made ; and close by the spot 
 whence the malignant decree, that we were no 
 more one but twain, emanated. But in the 
 closest possible contiguity to this general jubilee 
 was an event that has not only caused the tide 
 of joy to set back, but has opened a fountain of 
 bitterness in the nation's great heart, and has 
 
14 
 
 seemed to veil the very heavens over our heads 
 in sackcloth. The nation went to sleep, amidst 
 grateful associations, to dream of the pledges of 
 better days, but awoke to have her heart set to 
 bleeding by the fearful discovery that she was 
 without a head. 
 
 Now does not this illustrate the mixture of 
 joy and sorrow which forms so leading a char- 
 acteristic of our probationary state ? Is not the 
 life of every individual, is not the history of 
 every nation, an exemplification of this princi- 
 ple of the Divine government ? And is not the 
 reasonableness of this providential arrangement 
 as apparent as the reality 1 Are not afflictions 
 and mercies both necessary to the development 
 of the best form of moral life, either individual 
 or national 1 An unbroken course of calamity 
 would depress and overwhelm the spirit, and de- 
 stroy, in a great degree, the power of active exer- 
 tion; whereas a uniform and long continued scene 
 of prosperity would, with equal certainty, beget, 
 in such hearts as ours, a spirit of pride, and 
 self-confidence, and forgetfulness of our Supreme 
 Benefactor. Is not then the actual arrangement 
 of Divine Providence far better than any other 
 that our poor wisdom could substitute for it 1 
 If it is our privilege to escape from trouble 
 where we can, in consistency with a good con- 
 science, is it not equally our duty to submit to 
 it patiently and confidingly, where no legitimate 
 way is open for our deliverance ? If we are not 
 called upon to thank God directly for our afflic- 
 tions, surely we are bound to gratefully ac- 
 knowledge his wisdom and goodness in that 
 constitution of things in which afflictions and 
 mercies are made to intermingle. 
 
15 
 
 V. From the blood that has been shed there 
 comes a voice rebuking us for having put too 
 much conjidence in an arm of flesh, and charging 
 us to trust the living God only. 
 
 Are we not, upon a review of our national 
 history during the last four years, forced to the 
 conclusion that the war has been conducted, to 
 a great extent, in the spirit of a practical athe- 
 ism ; that the Church has, in some degree, 
 shared with the world in its idolatry of leaders 
 and generals, and in its hard utterances and 
 gloomy forebodings when they have been sup- 
 posed to prove themselves incapable or unfaith- 
 ful? If, in our prayers, we have recognized 
 our need of Divine guidance and help, is there 
 not reason to fear that in our habitual tone of 
 thought and feeling we have been too much in 
 sympathy with those who have been looking 
 for great results to man rather than to God ? 
 Are there not certain names on the list of our 
 military heroes with which, in our inmost 
 hearts, we have identified our hopes of deliver- 
 ance out of our trouble, far more than w© have 
 done with "the name of the Lord," which is 
 our only " strong tower ?" Have not a large 
 portion of the people really believed and 
 practically declared that, chiefly through the 
 wisdom and integrity and patriotism of the 
 nation's head, was the salvation of the country 
 to be accomplished ? But lo ! what a rebuke 
 has God, in his providence, been sending to 
 us I One general after another, whose name we 
 had already begun to enshrine for posterity, has 
 passed into inactivity and comparative obscur- 
 ity ; and if mentioned at all on the historic 
 page, it will be only in connection with some 
 
16 
 
 disastrous and mortifying failure, by means of 
 which he had sunk into insignificance. And 
 now, at the very moment when the arm of the 
 President seemed strongest, death has palsied it 
 — his friends were looking to him with unlim- 
 ited confidence to carry the system of measures 
 which he had inaugurated into full accomplish- 
 ment in the restoration of peace ; but suddenly 
 the appalling fact forced itself upon them that 
 his last word had been spoken, his last earthly 
 labour accomplished. 
 
 And what, think you, is the legitimate inter- 
 pretation of these calamitous dispensations ? Is 
 it that the Lord is not on our side, and that we 
 are therefore to abandon our country's cause in 
 despair ? Or is it that we may spare our 
 own efforts in this terrible conflict, and leave 
 the matter for infinite wisdom to bring to an 
 issue, independently of any agency of ours 1 
 Forbid it, Heaven forbid it, that we should thus 
 misinterpret the dealings of God toward us. 
 For have we not evidence already, bright as the 
 sun at noonday, that the Lord is on our side — 
 yes, on our side, in spite of all our forgetful ness 
 of Him — else what means the recent succession 
 of victories which have culminated in the sur- 
 render of the flower and strength of the Rebel 
 Army ; in our possession of the Rebel Capitol ; 
 and in the wandering off of the Rebel President 
 as a miserable fugitive and vagabond in the 
 earth, seeking to hide himself from the hand of 
 retributive justice 1 What meant those multi- 
 plied tokens of rejoicing and songs of triumph, 
 which were greeting our eyes and our ears on 
 every side, when the newspapers revealed to 
 us the fact of our national bereavement ? I tell 
 
17 
 
 you, my friends, we have no reason to despair 
 of the Divine aid — on the contrary, there is 
 every thing to inspire us with the hope that the 
 work which God has begun in our "behalf he 
 will carry on to its full completion ; and hence, 
 though the day which, had been appointed for 
 thanksgiving has been changed, by a proclama- 
 tion from our Chief Magistrate, to a day of pub- 
 lic mourning, yet surely the sorrows to whicb 
 we give utterance at the throne of mercy, must 
 be qualified by a spirit of devout thankfulness. 
 Let us, then, in humble reliance on Divine 
 counsel and aid, address ourselves to our duties 
 as citizens, as patriots, as Christians, with a 
 courage that never falters and a constancy that 
 never wavers. Let us do our duty as faithfully 
 as if we had no other dependence — let us trust 
 God as implicitly as if, in ourselves, we were 
 utterly powerless. 
 
 And from this standpoint sure I am that we 
 need not be afraid to face the future. Even 
 now, while the country is weeping beside the bier 
 of her assassinated President, she may afford to 
 lift her eye upward, and nerve herself for fresh 
 action, in the confidence that she is destined to 
 see a better day. What other signal calamities 
 may await us, before the storm shall have 
 subsided into a perfect calm, no human wisdom 
 is adequate to divine — we can afford to leave 
 that with the great Ruler of nations, and wait, 
 in the faithful discharge of our duty, until 
 God's appointed time for our deliverance shall 
 come. The whole community — with the ex- 
 ception of those whom Humanity herself refuses 
 to recognize — join in a hearty reprobation of 
 the act that has so suddenly filled the land with 
 
18 
 
 mourning ; and may we not hope that this will 
 be the signal for the abatement of party spirit, 
 and the merging, in some degree, of political 
 prejudices and animosities into a common desire 
 for the security and the exaltation of our noble 
 institutions. The best tribute we can render to 
 the memory of our departed President, is to 
 labour intelligently,vigorously, perseveringly, to 
 carry out what we believe was his honest and 
 earnest purpose — the preservation of the Union 
 and the restoration of peace ; and if we fail to 
 do this, will not all our sorrowful utterances in 
 view of his death, nay, will not the very mourn- 
 ing in which we have draped this place of our 
 solemnities, bear testimony against us ? 
 
LB S '12