Class. 
 Book 
 
 
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 JO SI AH AND LINCOLN, 
 
 THE CREAT REFORMERS. 
 
 
 A TRIBUTE TO THE WORTH AND WORK OF OUR MARTYR-PRESIDENT, 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH, BASTON, PA., 
 
 On Ka*» J)uy, .liii'e I, 1H«5. 
 
 I.Y II I K PA8TOK, 
 
 Rev. CORNELIUS H. EDGAR, D. D. 
 
 11 
 
 EASTOJJ, PA.: 
 LEWIS GORDON. PRINTER. 
 
 18fW>. 
 

 
 
 ■ • 1 - ' 
 
OUR AMERICAN JOSIAH. 
 
 Easton, Pa., June 2, 1865. 
 
 Rev. C. H. Edgar, D. D. : 
 
 Reverend and dear sir: 
 Your able, touching and eloquent dis- 
 course upon the National Fast Day, was 
 listened to with deep interest and great sat- 
 isfaction by those present. 
 
 The undersigned, believing that its circu- 
 lation would do good, respectfully ask the 
 favor of having the manuscript for publica- 
 tion. "Very truly, 
 
 H. D. Maxwell, 
 Traill Green, 
 John Green, 
 E. F. Stewart, 
 John Pollock, 
 
 John Vanderveer, 
 E. D. Millard, 
 R. S. Chidsey. 
 S. Transeau, 
 H. Green. 
 
 This sermon is given to the press in re- 
 sponse to the foregoing note. C. H. E. 
 
 And all Judali and Jerusalem 
 mourned for Josiah. — 2 Chron- 
 icles xxxv. 24. 
 
 The mourning for Josiah was so spon- 
 taneous, so sincere, and so general, that, 
 for a long time after, it was spoken of 
 as unprecedented and never equalled. 
 From that time until now — nearly three 
 and twenty centuries, no ruler was 
 ever so lamented as the simple-heart- 
 ed, honest, young and sturdy Josi- 
 ah, — the God-fearing, patriotic, great 
 reformer. His character and work have 
 in our day found a parallel, and the 
 mourning of which our text speaks has 
 been surpassed. We do not assert that 
 
 a greater and a ber^f ^rffi^j sls^rately 
 passed away from among us — caught up 
 like Elijah in a chariot of fire, but we 
 dare say the grief is as sincere, and the 
 mourning far more widely extended. 
 Not intimating the least detraction from 
 the merits of the reformation by the 
 good King Josiah, we honestly believe 
 that larger numbers will be benefitted, 
 and more marked and permanent results 
 for good will take date with the admin- 
 istration of the equally good and not 
 less great President Lincoln. 
 
 " And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah : 
 and all the singing-men and the sing- 
 ing-women spake of Josiah in their la- 
 mentations." This tribute to worth 
 and this expression of mourning for a 
 good man and a great ruler has been 
 repeated and multiplied in our national 
 funeral which has continued for forty- 
 eight days and is this day consummated 
 by religious services throughout the 
 land. The priests and the choirs in 
 our Israel have taken up the weeping 
 prophet's lamentation, and with bowed 
 heads have exclaimed and on plaintive 
 harps have sung, The breath of our nos- 
 trils, the anointed of the Lord was talc- 
 en away in their pits, of whom we said, 
 under his shadow we shall live. 
 
 The exercises for which we meet are 
 
expressive of an appreciation of true 
 worth and great services : — they also 
 signify an acknowledgement of God 
 and our gratitude to him for a great 
 gift : — these public gatherings at the 
 grave of the dead on which the grass in 
 its new growth is not yet green pledge 
 us not only to the affectionate memory 
 of our Martyr but to the imitation of 
 his character and the perpetuation of 
 his principles : — we mean also by our 
 solemn assembling, to declare to the 
 Sovereign Ruler that we are humbled 
 under his rebukes, and that we repent 
 of the sins which have brought his 
 heavy hand upon us and stained our 
 glory and reduced our pride. These I 
 take to be the lessons of the occasion. 
 Little need be said to elaborate or enforce 
 these lessons after all that you have 
 heard from this pulpit, and all the ser- 
 mons you have read, with which, for 
 weeks, the press has teemed. Let us 
 suspend these lessons and recur to the 
 character and public work of him at 
 whose death all Judah and Jerusalem 
 mourned. If you see a parallelism be- 
 tween King Josiah and President Lin- 
 coln, you cannot say the preacher makes 
 it. If it exists, God made it. It is 
 ours to read it, mark it, learn it, and 
 inwardly digest it. 
 
 I must refer you to the sacred record 
 for details as to the character and pub- 
 lic labors of the good Josiah. I shall 
 be as brief in the resume and exposition 
 as my jiurpo.se will allow. Hear this 
 
 certific.it i- and endorsement "Like un- 
 to Joniah was there no king before bitn, 
 
 that turned to tlio Lord with all his 
 
 heart, and with all his soul and with all 
 his might, according to all the laws of 
 Moses ; neither after him arose there any 
 like him." Let us rehearse a few items. 
 Ho was young and unskilled in the craft 
 of politicians when he was called to the 
 administration of the government. Pre- 
 ceding him with an interval of only two 
 years was the long and corrupt reign of 
 Manasseh, — one of the worst of men. 
 Manasseh had neutralized the work and 
 influence of the pious but not strong 
 Hezekiah — his predecessor, building 
 again idolatrous altars, passing his sons 
 through the fire of Moloch, using en- 
 chantments, dealing with familiar spir- 
 its, and wizards, and workingmuchwick- 
 edness to provoke the Lord to anger. 
 Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood 
 very much. He reigned fifty-five years 
 and was succeeded by Amon who reign- 
 ed two years, walking in the way in 
 which his father walked. Here was a 
 period of fifty-seven years of wickedness 
 and corruption . Surely the government 
 needed reforming. It needed new life- 
 blood infused into it to prevent a total 
 decay and demise, and tc perpetuate its 
 life and to fulfil its mission. It was to 
 such a state of things that Josiah suc- 
 ceeded. He was chosen by the people. 
 He was young, and pure, and did that 
 which was right in the Bight of the Lord, 
 and turned not aside to the right hand 
 or the left. Imagine the difficulties 
 under which lie began and prosecuted 
 tho work of reformation to whieh he felt 
 himself oalled. There were usages of 
 more than half a century which he was 
 bound to ignore and annul ; and as 
 
usage Is a kind of sacred sanction it re- 
 quired a firm hand as well as a pure 
 heart to set himself against time-strong 
 customs. You can easily conceive how 
 many must have been involved in one 
 way or another in idolatry as a business 
 as well as a religion. Priests served 
 the altars for their living ; mechanics 
 built them ; farmers found a market for 
 their cattle as victims ; weavers and 
 seamstresses and artists found a sale for 
 their tapestries and their skilful works 
 for ornament. When the proclamation 
 of the total abolishment of idolatry was 
 issued, what a howl of devilish hatred 
 of the good king there must have been 
 from those whose occupation was gone ; 
 and what a scorn and contempt by those 
 genteel and highly cultured idolaters 
 for this stripling reformer who had pre- 
 sumed to set himself against the doc- 
 trines and usages in which two genera- 
 tions had been educated. No doubt 
 many said it was a hard thing that those 
 who had grown rich and whose entire 
 business and family comforts depended 
 upon the continuance of the long-estab- 
 lisned policies of the preceding admin- 
 istrations must come to poverty if the 
 plans and proclamations of this young 
 reformer were allowed to prevail. So 
 it was not an easy task for the pious and 
 patriotic king. But he was right; he 
 was sure he was right, and so he '''went 
 ahead." "He did that which was right 
 in the sight of the Lord, and turned not 
 aside to the right hand or to the left." 
 And he was stronger than the usages, 
 stronger than the traditions, stronger 
 than the pecuniary interests, stronger 
 
 than the arrogant, genteel, indolatrous 
 aristocracy arrayed against him. He 
 won the day, 
 
 "For right is right, since God is God, 
 And right the day must win ; 
 
 To doubt would be disloyalty, 
 To falter would be sin." 
 
 The following were the leading acts 
 and doings of his reign. He* caused 
 the temple to be repaired which had 
 been neglected and filled with rubbish 
 and filth while the great majorities of 
 of the people had been wedded to idol- 
 atry. In prosecution of this work the 
 "book of the law" was found in the 
 house of the Lord. Of course the in- 
 stitutes of Moses and the moral code 
 had been neglected, — the very book 
 containing them, which was their con- 
 stitution, having been lost and forgot- 
 ten. The discovery of this book was 
 reported to the king, who, when it was 
 read to him, rent his clothes in expres- 
 sion of repentance in behalf of the peo- 
 ple, and in grief that as a nation they 
 had exposed themselves to the wrath of 
 Jehovah. He institutes immediately a 
 solemn inquiry of the Lord as to duty. 
 In view of the evils threatened because 
 the people had forsaken the God of their 
 fathers, he convokes the Senators and 
 rehearses to them the law : and then 
 swears them and himself swears to walk 
 after the Lord and keep his command- 
 ments. With steady purpose and stur- 
 dy blows and untiring vigor he proceeds 
 upon the mission to which he felt him- 
 self called. His reign was long enough, 
 for he finished his work, though he died 
 in his prime. In that short time, and 
 
in face of all the opposition he met, he 
 rebuilt and cleansed the temple, re-es- 
 tablished the Passover, destroyed the 
 altars and vessels of Baal, caused the 
 leaders who had seduced the people 
 from their allegiance to Jehovah to be 
 put to death, and he put away the work- 
 ers with familiar spirits. In one of his 
 proclamations occur the words, "Keep 
 the Passover unto the Lord your God 
 as it is written in the book of the cove- 
 nant." This shows us the man purpos- 
 ing to carry out the institutes of Moses 
 and Samuel, adhering to the constitu- 
 tion which had been given to their fore- 
 fathers, the spirit of which had, under 
 the corrupt administrations of his two 
 predecessors, qute died out. And sure- 
 ly there was not holden such a Passover 
 from the days of the judges that judged 
 Israel, nor of the kings of Judah. And 
 like unto him was no king before him, 
 that turned to the Lord with all his 
 heart, and with all his soul, and with 
 all his might, according to ail the law 
 of Moses, neither after him arose any 
 like him. And when he died all Ju- 
 dah and Jerusalem mourned for him. It 
 was right. It was due. The memory 
 of the just is blessed. The righteous 
 shall bo had in everlasting remembrance. 
 Tho mourning was spontaneous, public 
 and merited. 1 1 is character was pure, 
 his labors great, his services beneficial. 
 You cannot withhold tho meed of your 
 approbation of such a man, and of the 
 success of labors so herculean. You 
 honor yourselves, and you honor human 
 nature, and you honor tho grace of 
 tho Redeemer, when you applaud tho 
 
 man who sets himself to do right in the 
 fear of God, whether in a humble or in 
 a more extended sphere. If the crowds 
 in Jerusalem and the inhabitants of the 
 villages and the peasants in the rural 
 districts ceased from their labors and 
 their recreations on the day in which 
 Josiah was shot, and made a great mourn- 
 ing for him for many days, and if strong 
 men bent their heads and gave way to 
 long-unaccustomed tears, you say it was 
 a tribute to personal worth and to pub- 
 lic usefulness ; and you say too, they 
 honored themselves in thus mourning 
 for the king who came suddenly to a vi- 
 olent death when they thought his work 
 was not yet done and fain hoped he had 
 many years to live in which to serve his 
 country. 
 
 We have a similar occasion and as 
 good cause to mourn. "We did mourn 
 when the news was flashed through the 
 land that President Lincoln had been 
 assassinated. We do not cease to 
 mourn. Though we wept while our af- 
 fliction was fresh till it seemed that the 
 fountains of tears would run dry — wept 
 tears of pity, of grief, of rage, and of 
 wrath, — and though so many startling 
 events have occurred since that black 
 day to occupy our thoughts, — and though 
 all the land was draped in mourning, 
 and millions thronged to join a funeral 
 train of sixteen hundred miles in length, 
 and tho voico of the orator was heard in 
 eulogy from every rostrum, and tho 
 prayers of pastors and solemn dirges as- 
 cended from every synagogue and church 
 and cathedral from tho centro to tho 
 border, — and though our bereavement 
 
awakened the sympathies and condolence 
 of peoples across the waters who had 
 hitherto wished us no good, — so that in 
 fact there has never been such mourn- 
 ing, still, so far from having exhausted 
 our grief and notwithstanding the good 
 news of peace which has made us glad, 
 we are called to spend one day in spe- 
 cial commemoration and mourning and 
 humiliation, and we think it well to as- 
 semble in response to the call to pay 
 another formal though I am sure it will 
 not be a final tribute of a grateful na- 
 tion to her beloved benefactor. 
 
 With all your knowledge of the events 
 of the four past years — a knowledge 
 burnt in by war, the very fires of which 
 have revealed and illuminated the hon- 
 esty and wisdom of Abraham Lincoln, 
 it is not necessary to go into a minute 
 analysis of his character or a detail of 
 the public events with which his name 
 will stand forever indissolubly connect- 
 ed. The parallelism between the char- 
 acters of these reformers of twin-spirit, 
 and the important and difficult work it 
 was the mission of each respectively to 
 perform, you must have perceived. If 
 your conviction was carried that the 
 mourning for the one was right, so was 
 it right that such a funeral should be 
 given, and that one day should be spe- 
 cially devoted to religious ceremonies in 
 commemoration of our American Jo- 
 siah. 
 
 In his antecedents Abraham Lincoln 
 was not an unknown man, nor an untried 
 one. He was however in a certain 
 sense a new man. Having no tangling 
 alliances with professional politicians 
 
 and therefore asking favor of no one and 
 owing favor to no one, he was called 
 fresh from the people to such a work as 
 no man in this nation if in all time has 
 had and no man in all our future histo- 
 ry will again have to accomplish He 
 sets out on his journey to enter upon 
 that work with calm reliance on God 
 asking the people to pray for him, fully 
 persuaded that without divine guidance 
 he cannot succeed, and with it he can- 
 not fail. Sublime simplicity ! What a 
 child's spirit, what filial faith is this, 
 and what a guarantee of heaven's wis- 
 dom to inspire him, for the meek will he 
 guide in judgment and the meek will he 
 teach his icay. It is Josiah's spirit, 
 and Josiah's God was his help in time 
 of need. 
 
 His great business was a single one, 
 and that was to Rebind the Union. 
 There was but one method of doing it 
 and that was to unbind the slave. 
 He did the latter, and thus accomplish- 
 ed the former. 
 
 He was called to his high office by 
 the people at a time when the genius of 
 freedom seemed weary of her stay with 
 a people who had done her less honor 
 than they professed. He unfurled the 
 Stars and Stripes. Freedom saw her 
 favorite banner in the hands of her 
 faithful son. She perched upon it as 
 he carried it forward to the rescue of the 
 nation and of the rights of man. Here- 
 after forever where that dear old flag 
 shall float will freedom make her home, 
 and the people rejoice in their nation's 
 redemption and integrity. He was 
 called to weld the broken chain which 
 
t; 
 
 had held the States together, and to 
 show that our fathers had not with so 
 much cost and sacrifice spun only a rope 
 of sand. He was called to rehuild the 
 house — the temple of our nationality, 
 and to bring out and republish that old 
 book of the covenant which our fathers 
 bequeathed us, the true intent and right 
 interpretation of which had been for- 
 gotten for at least one if not many ad- 
 ministrations. That covenant said the 
 Union is one, E pluribus unum. It 
 was his business to republish and main- 
 tain that doctrine. He has done it. In 
 his way to the accomplishment of his 
 mission lay a giant hindrance. It must 
 be conquered or he must fail. The 
 question came to be simply the union 
 
 WITIIOUT SLAVERY, Or SLAVERY AY IT II- 
 
 OUT UNION. It was not a new question 
 to him, but he waited, patiently biding 
 his time until he proposes the issue and 
 puts the gravest and most complicated 
 troubles which had shaken the nation 
 from the beginning, in a form so simple 
 that every one could understand it. To 
 his clear calm mind it had for many 
 years crystalized into this brief compre- 
 hensive statement. When he came to 
 work out the problem Providence had 
 given him to 6olve, Slavery was old and 
 strong and impudent. It had elbowed 
 decent people out of the so-called belt 
 society in the Capital. It had looked 
 with eager eye on Texas and Mexico, 
 and, under specious pretexts, bad ei 
 teiidi'd it. area. it. had virtually spiked 
 ■ in- iii the nation's ships of war on 
 
 the OOUt of Africa set to watch the 
 hlavc-stealers. It had stunned to the 
 
 floor in the halls of Congress the elo- 
 quent advocate of freedom and an ad- 
 vanced civilization than whom its boasting 
 chivalry never had a superior in culture. 
 It had said give, give, and still insatiate 
 was ever making new demands. It had 
 required the tongues of the preachers 
 of the gospel of truth and liberty to say 
 its heathen Shibboleth, and had silenced 
 by expulsion and imprisonment those 
 whose tongues could not and would not 
 pronounce the jargon of barbarism. And 
 after it had been outargued in the press, 
 and on the floor of Congress, and on tho 
 stump, and in the lyceum, and in the 
 pulpit, it withdrew and aimed the guns 
 which it had stolen from the nation 
 against the very mother at whose breasts 
 those had been nurtured who counsel- 
 led that withdrawal and who manned 
 those guns. So strong, so exacting, so 
 defiant was 'slavery. Such the odds 
 against which our standard-bearer had 
 to contend. But truth is stronger than 
 error : freedom is stronger than slavery : 
 the love for the Union was stronger than 
 the interests of a section or a class. We 
 know the result of a conflict which has 
 made the land shake and has arrested 
 the attention of the world. Great is 
 the gain, but how great our loss. 
 Our grief is still poignant. l>ut there 
 is a relief to our long anxieties, for 
 the question is settled and the agony 
 is over, tho Union is restored and our 
 nation is free. The meteor rebellion 
 which glared in the southern sky has 
 burst, and, a> tiny might have known, 
 those are most hurt who walked ID its 
 lurid light boasting that it was a better 
 
sun than the old one which lighted and 
 cheered alike their sires and ours. 
 
 It was Mr. Lincoln's great work to 
 reform the nation, and he did it by 
 transforming the chattel into a man. 
 He unbound the slave and so rebound 
 the Union. He saw with sagacious eye 
 the coming conflict and said in a nice 
 contrast and exact meaning in the 
 words, " I do not expect the Union to 
 be dissolved, but I do expect it will 
 cease to be divided." When the issue 
 had been taken and while the war was 
 raging with varying success, he spoke 
 as with the voice of a sage and a proph- 
 et, " This issue embraces more than the 
 fate of the United States. It presents 
 to the whole family of man the question 
 whether a constitutional government 
 can maintain its territorial integrity 
 against its own domestic foes." He tells 
 us that his heart gravitates towards the 
 freedom of the individual man. His 
 profession of faith on this subject is, 
 " I am naturally anti-slavery. If slav- 
 ery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." 
 And yet he was not an enthusiast, ab- 
 sorbed in the worship of the negro, for 
 he well said, " In giving freedom to the 
 slave we assure freedom to the free." 
 He fully appreciated the measure and 
 the meaning of the great war, and with 
 an eye upon the future said, " The fiery 
 trial through which we pass will light 
 us down in honor or dishonor to the 
 latest generation. We say that we are 
 for the Union. The world will not for- 
 get that we say this. We know how to 
 save the Union. The world knows we 
 
 do know how to save the Union. We 
 — even we here — hold the power and 
 bear the responsibility." Upon his 
 conviction of the responsibility and of 
 t':e efficiency of the means, and of the 
 right to do what he did, and with a 
 respectful regard for the opinions of his 
 fellow men, and with the profoundest 
 acknowledgment of Jehovah's justice 
 and favor he closes that document which 
 will make his name immortal — a state 
 paper which turned four millions of 
 things into men, with these memorable 
 words, "Upon this, sincerely believed to 
 be an act of justice, warranted by the 
 constitution upon military necessity, I 
 invoke the considerate judgment of man- 
 kind, and the gracious favor of Almigh- 
 ty God." With what fervency did he 
 pray in that most religious state paper 
 that was ever penned or published by 
 any of our rulers — his last inaugural — 
 and how speedily was it answered, 
 " fondly do we hope, fervently do we 
 pray, that this mighty scourge of war 
 may speedily pass away." How beauti- 
 ful and fitting, how tender, how paternal, 
 and how christian, the last public official 
 sentence that ever fell from his lips, 
 "With malice toward none, with charity 
 for all, with firmness in the right as God 
 gives us to see the right, let us strive 
 on to finish the work we are in, to bind 
 up the nation's wound, to care for hitn 
 who shall have borne the battle, and for 
 his widow and orphans ; to do all which 
 may achieve a just and lasting peace 
 among ourselves and among all nations." 
 Such was the mission of our JosiAH, 
 viz: to rebind the States, to demonstrate 
 
> 
 
 nationality, to reform the people to the 
 original idea of every man's inalienable 
 right to life, liberty and the pursuit 
 of happiness. Such was the method 
 which his instinctive sense of justice 
 prompted, and the constitution warrant- 
 ed, and Providence put into his hands 
 to use, to wit: the abolishment of slav- 
 ery. He used the means ; he accom- 
 plished the end. 
 
 There have been enough to curse him. 
 It was to be expected. The curses of 
 such are an honor. Of a greater than 
 he it was said "let him be crucified." 
 But millions of a dark-browed and 
 down-trodden race rise up from their low 
 estate as things into recognition as men 
 and call him blessed. Ages to come will 
 find his story in their school-books. 
 Every child in all future time in all the 
 world will learn the name and worth of 
 the great Emancipator. Washington, 
 forever "first in the hearts of his coun- 
 trymen," will no longer stand alone and 
 without a rival, though himself far above 
 all Grecian and all lloman heroes. His- 
 tory, not disturbing the Father of our 
 country in the loftiest niche in the tem- 
 ple of Fame, will place beside him our 
 own beloved Lincoln • and, as he as- 
 cends to the honors he has earned, I 
 seem to see the grand form of the hith- 
 erto peerless Washington bonding to 
 welcome his twin-patriot to that high 
 eminence, generously and gladly sharing 
 with him the people's profoundest rev- 
 erence and undying gratitude. 
 
 "Since Washington n<> man bath sat 
 
 1 1 Doonsciom greatness all his own.) 
 go good, 10 great, so grandly wise, 
 
 So meekly on llie people's throne. 
 
 Like Washington, he lived to save 
 A race from bondage, and he died 
 
 As loved, revered, and wept as he, 
 To stand in glory by his side." 
 
 "What an elevation ! He was once a 
 poor boy. At the age of ten he went to 
 hard labor. He had small opportunities 
 at school. What made him great ? He 
 would have been great even though he 
 had n' ver been President, — great, 
 though ie had never been famous. He 
 was desirous of gettiug solid learning. 
 He read the best books he could get, 
 and thoroughly mastered whatever book 
 or work he undertook. He had no idle 
 or vicious habits. He was not profane. 
 He used no intoxicating drinks. He 
 controlled his appetites and governed 
 his temper. He was an observer of the 
 Sabbath, and a diligent reader of the 
 Bible. He was an advocate of temper- 
 ance. He had a reputation for honesty 
 and. uprightness These are the ele- 
 ments of greatuess. "He that is slow 
 to anger is better than the mighty; and 
 he that ruleth his spirit than he that 
 taketh a city." 
 
 We are too near him to measure him. 
 While in the shadow of a mountain you 
 can have no just conception of its gran- 
 deur. Your first view of Niagara does 
 not fill you with the awe which inspires 
 you after you have stood again and again 
 surveying its wondrous volume and stu- 
 pendous height, and hearing the as- 
 tounding eloquence of its power. As 
 in a picture, 
 
 Time*! sombreus touches soon eorrad the 
 
 pieoe ; 
 Mellow each tint and i>id each discord cease ; 
 
 Eter tone of light pervades the \> ii<>l<' 
 And steals a pensive languor o'er the soul, — 
 
9 
 
 bo it will be with the great Reformer. 
 Those who come after us, though they 
 cannot mourn his loss as we do, will sec 
 
 with them. Our minds quickly leave 
 the past and are absorbed in the present j 
 and even impatient with the present we 
 
 his worth as we do not. The picture leap into the future and inquiringly 
 
 wonder what the morrow will bring forth. 
 There is liability of missing the religious 
 benefit of this great national affliction, 
 because there is a general and confident 
 belief that our present Chief Magistrate 
 is so exactly suited to the times. For 
 this we are thankful. But this does not 
 remove the sorrow though it alleviates 
 it. We still mourn though we dare not 
 murmur. We must be humble, and 
 repent, and renew covenant with the 
 God of our fathers lest that come upon 
 us which is written, "I gave her space 
 to repent and she repented not : — Eph- 
 raim is joined to his idols, let him alone." 
 What then do we mean by this meet- 
 ing and these religious services ? We 
 mean to express and leave on record our 
 appreciation of the private worth and 
 the public services of the man we mourn. 
 This we have done in comparing him 
 with the purest man and most success- 
 ful reformer that ever sat upon the 
 throne of Judah. But this is not the 
 whole of the significance of this occasion. 
 We hereby make an implied pledge to 
 imitate him, and to sustain, to adhere 
 to, and to perpetuate his principles and 
 his policies. "The God of Israel said, 
 He that ruleth over men must be just, 
 ruling in the fear of God." We accept 
 this as high authority for the right 
 qualification in a ruler. Then we must 
 ourselves be that which we require in 
 our rulers. If we mourn for the fallen 
 Chief Magistrate we thereby praise him : 
 
 of his public life will improve by time. 
 Our new nation taking date in 1865 
 will connect his name with its future 
 prosperity, as we have dated our grand 
 development hitherto with the lame of 
 Washington and the ever menorable 
 1776. We hardly dare look far into the 
 future of our history lest our eyes be 
 dazzled with the glory which beams 
 upon it if a benignant Providence shall 
 continue to favor us. In all that his- 
 tory the fearful agony to put down the 
 great rebellion will not be forgotten, nor 
 will he cease to be remembered who 
 more than any other man travailed and 
 agonized and delivered us. Though he 
 died too soon, as the nation's tears have 
 testified, he lived long enough to see 
 that his work and labor of love had not 
 been in vain. He saw of the travail of 
 his soul and was satisfied. 
 
 We must not use this occasion for 
 useless eulogy. It was not to praise the 
 dead and nothing more, that we were 
 summoned from our homes and from 
 business on this secular day. We are 
 called by the President's proclamation 
 to public mourning, humiliation and 
 prayer, as well as to the commemoration 
 of the "prince and the great man" in 
 our Israel. It is well to pause again. 
 We still mourn, though our elastic 
 spirit has risen from the blow under 
 which we bent. We live in the midst 
 of hurrying events, and these hurry us 
 
10 
 
 if we praise him we thereby bind our- 
 selves to imitate him and carry on his 
 work. Therefore when you rise and go 
 forth from this day's services, go and 
 be as he was; go and according to your 
 place and ability do as he did. 
 
 We also mean that while afflicted, we 
 are thankful for the great boon of hav- 
 ing had such a ruler set ever us in di- 
 vine providence. This is a day of 
 Thanksgiving in which we remember 
 the way in which we have been led out 
 of the dark night of the past four years, 
 and the leader whom the God of Israel 
 gave us. The surest way of receiving 
 further favors is to be thankful to the 
 Giver for the favors already received. 
 
 It is also for humiliation and prayer 
 that we are here. We are humbled in 
 shame and in penitence. It is a shame 
 that the first and only assassination of a 
 Ruler which has occurred in two and a 
 half centuries has occurred just where 
 among all nations and in the person of 
 all men it was least to be expected. — 
 Nowhere is life felt to be so secure. 
 Nowhere does the just restraint of civil 
 government press so lightly. There was 
 never a man and is not one alive of more 
 kindness of heart than was our murder- 
 ed President. In him was no persona' 
 oause to provoke the fiendish deed. It 
 was only as the representative of Union 
 and freedom that the assassin sought 
 his life. And it was only as the assas- 
 sin was himself the representative of 
 ideas at war with our national ideas that 
 lie did it. And therefore wo blush for 
 fihame that our beautiful country has 
 teen the theatre of war against the best 
 
 government which has blest mankind, 
 and the scene of the direst tragedy that 
 has ever damned its hero to deathless 
 infamy. We are humbled and ashamed 
 that Abraham Lincoln — purely an Amer- 
 ican production, the growth and expos- 
 itor of our institutions— could not be 
 left to ripen into a still more mature de- 
 velopment, and to shadow with his be- 
 nign influence when hoary with age and 
 piety and wisdom, the millions who 
 lament his "untimely taking off." 
 
 There is also the shame for sin which 
 well becomes us. From Isaiah's stand- 
 point and with his eye, the man of God 
 seeing the desecration of the Sabbath, 
 and the open profanity, and the shame- 
 less intemperance, and the growing lux- 
 ury, and the grasping covetousness, and 
 the rampant infidelity, — all too preval- 
 ent, would be apt to say, "Ah sinful na- 
 tion, a people laden with iniquity ! Why 
 should ye be stricken any more?" It 
 is well that among the many significan- 
 ces of the deed of horror and of the les- 
 sons of this day of humiliation, that we 
 afflict ourselves and fast and search our 
 ways and repent and turn to the coven- 
 ant God of the fathers of our nation with 
 full purpose of new obedience. The 
 heart of the people is now soft. Peace 
 has come to sot its seal upon the wax 
 which the great war has softened. 
 Were it mine to engrave the legend to 
 be stamped upon the soft, warm, new 
 heart of this people, "redeemed, regener* 
 ated and disenthralled" from secession 
 and rebellion and war and slavery, and 
 now unified by all their toil and sorrow, 
 it should bo BOUSES! to THE LORJ». 
 
11 
 
 We are now entering upon a new era 
 in our history. It is the era of Justice 
 and Democracy. Justice, let us hope, 
 and not Policy is to be our national aim 
 and individual motive. Hitherto with 
 all our boast we have been Oligarchs and 
 Aristocrats and not Democrats; for not 
 all the men in the nation have been free. 
 The new President echoes the heavenly 
 message of which the Martyr was the 
 mouth of God, that under the necessi- 
 ties of the times and the authorities of 
 the land, by the sense of mankind, and 
 in justice, the bondman is released from 
 his shackles. Now, a true christain is a 
 democrat ; every man is his neighbor, 
 and his neighbor is his brother. We are 
 all democrats in name. Let us be 
 christians and then we shall be demo- 
 crats in fact. And then, like Justice 
 whose bandaged eyes sees not a man's 
 color or dress or equipage but only seeks 
 to know if he is a man, we shall put the 
 ballot in the hand that was not too black 
 or hard to carry our muskets. We 
 ■ought to deem him good enough to vote 
 who was willing to die for a country 
 which we conceded was as much his 
 as ours when we asked and accepted 
 him to fight for us. The war has 
 made the slave a freedman; — let the 
 peace which this war has conquer- 
 ed make him a freeman. In war 
 he was a fellow countryman and a 
 fellow soldier. Christianity and de- 
 mocracy demand that now he shall be 
 recognized and hailed a fellow citizen, 
 a. fellow sovereign ; — just as on the plat- 
 form of a common salvation we hail all 
 who are renewed by the grace of Grod 
 
 by the higher style of fellow christian, 
 and brother in the Lord. This is the 
 work which our lamented President has 
 bequeathed to us. To do it will be the 
 fitting evidence of repentance of our past 
 sin in withholding from the bondman 
 those rights which are defined in the 
 great charter of our nation. It will be 
 safe, for the negroes are loyal. It is 
 just, because they are men. It is due, 
 because they have earned it. It is 
 necessary, because they will be unpro- 
 tected without it. It is consistent, for 
 there can be no genuine democracy 
 without it. It is the dictate of human- 
 ity. It is the spontaneous offering of 
 hearts grateful for noble services. It 
 is the development and application of 
 Christianity. It is the logical corollary 
 of the Proclamation of the already world- 
 honored Emancipator. 
 
 These are the last services of the 
 great funeral. Shall we turn away from 
 the grave around which the people have 
 gathered to-day without a reflection that 
 we too are mortal ? And ean we, dy- 
 ing hearers, under the impression that 
 we must also pass away, indulge in pride 
 or ambition or malice, or shall we pre- 
 sume to defer the needful preparation ? 
 We could not have been told more em- 
 phatically that at such an hour as we 
 think not the Son of man cometh. We 
 can learn another lesson from the famil- 
 iar and favorite lines which were ever 
 in the thoughts of the great and good 
 man whom we can neither too much 
 mourn nor too much eulogize. They 
 
12 
 
 show ng that he was humble and mind- 
 ful of death. 
 
 Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? 
 Like a swift fleeting meteor, a fast sailing 
 
 cloud, 
 A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, 
 He passeth from life to his rest in the grave. 
 
 'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a 
 
 breath, 
 From the blossom of health to the paleness of 
 
 death, 
 From the gilded saloon to the bier and the 
 
 shroud — 
 Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud ! 
 
 Abraham Lincoln needs no monu- 
 ment. His works praise him. When 
 the Hebrews forget Moses then his name 
 
 will cease to be known and honored. 
 All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for 
 Josiah like unto whom was there no king 
 before him, neither after him arose 
 there any like him. All true men in 
 all the world are mourners in the fune- 
 ral of our great Reformer. There can 
 never again in our country arise one 
 like him. The work he did is done for 
 all time. 
 
 M His monument shall be his name 
 alone." No man can write his epitaph. 
 
 "Could we solidify the tears 
 Shed for our Martyr-President, 
 
 Those precious jewels wore enough 
 Piled up, to build his monument."