Gass. Book. Pd £7 »U 53 a v* 4 ^^ ^ c^ A STATION HUMBLED AND EXALTED. A DISCOURSE OX THE DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN, WITH ITS PROVIDENTIAL LESSONS, DELIVERED IN THE FAGG'S MANOR PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ON THIS DAY OF NATIONAL HUJIlLIATlOiY, June I<*t, 1865. BY THE PASTOR, REV. JUSTUS T. UMSTEAD. Published by the Request of the Congregation. WEST CHESTER: REPUBLICAN & DEMOCRAT OFFICE. 1865. 4 A DISCOURSE ON THE DEATH The scene lias ended, the cortege dispersed, the dirge has been chanted, the consecrated spot in Springfield retains the mar- tyred President ; the state moves on in its new historic develop- ment, another wields the reins of government. But to-day we meet to give national emphasis to a nation's grief, and affection, to embalm in its heart and memory the public bereavement it has sustained, to write as on a tablet more enduring than that of brass or stone, its abhorence of a national crime perpetrated in the fiendish passion of relentless fanaticism ; to mourn over the honored dead, and in the mean time to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, who in the gracious ordeiings of this most mysterious providence has afflicted us ; that He may in his manifold goodness exalt us to a higher moral and political gradation than ever yet attained among the nations of the earth — to commit to him the cares of the whole land, to him who has ever cared for us from our earliest planting on these shores of the new world, until we became, through the throes of our struggling liberty, a people great and strong, and who has sig- nally borne us along as on eagle's wings, and amid the surging and bloody waves of a civil war without a parallel in the world's history ; wrought deliverance for us, and granted us a long wished and prayed for peace in the maintenance of our common Federal Union, constitution and government. The great moral and political hero in the new made history of the Republic is Abraham Lincoln. Since the organization of the government never has such high honor been conferred on a public man, such eulogies pronounced, such veneration mani- fested, such mourning exhibited, and vented in bitter lamentation and tears. And never has such vituperation been heaped upon a public character — depicted, and caricatured at home and abroad as a hideous monster in manners and morals ; as unfitted by in- tellect, statesmanship and genius for the high position he was exalted unto, and especially at such a time as the popular voice called him to occupy the chair of state. There may have been much of political prejudice and animosity in this, and ignorance as to the real character, abilities, and motives of the man ; but in all this representation of him, there was not, I am convinced, one particle of reason or ground for it. A man's true character, excellencies, virtues, deeds, are never rightly known until he is dead ; never appreciated and under- stood until then. This is the case especially with public men. — Luther was the most abused man of his time. All the world, after the lapse of years, has acknowledged his greatness of character, his breadth of intellect, his mighty moral resolve in effecting, under God, the unffettered freedom of thought and con- science. OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 5 Too few days have passed away since the assassinated Presi- dent stood in the vigor of manhood at the helm of state, to per- mit any proper attempt at an analysis of his charcter, or expo- sition of his career as a statesman, as the executive head of the nation, and as its military chieftian. This will be the work of future historians and patriots. "Those who come after us," says the great American historian and patriot, " will decide how much of the wonderful results of his public career is due to his own good common sense, his shrewd sagacity, readiness of wit, quick penetration of the public mind, his rare combination of fixedness and pliancy, his steady tendency of purpose; how much to the American people, who, as he walked with them side by side, inspired him with their own wisdom and energy; and how much to the overruling laws of the moral world, by which the selfishness of evil is made to defeat itself." However much men may differ in their peculiar views of polit- ical policies, and measures in the affairs of state, all must ac- knowledge the moral greatness and heroism of the man, as asso- ciated with simplicity of manner and ^onerousness of heart. — > The first time I saw him was on a steamboat in the Mississippi river, during the senatorial campaign between himself and Stephen A. Douglas, and which established his political reputa- tion, and brought him forward so publicly before the American people. The little Giant was on the same boat, with his friends and admirers around him. Quietly and alone Mr. Lincoln paced the cabin and then retired to his state-room. The naturalness, the plainness, the unobtrusive dignity of the man impressed me, and I little thought, at the time, he was to occupy so prominent a place in the nation's history. His naturalness of character, his simple hearted kindness of nature he maintained all through life, from the days of his youth till the end of his career. He was the same man on the flat-boat of the Ohio, in the forests of Indiana, at the village bar of the prairie state, and in the Presi- dential chair. Among the dignitaries of court, amid the flash and splendor of the metropolis ; as seen in the cabinet, as coun- selling with friends, surrounded with flatters and base preten- ders, greedy politicians, unwise advisers and hungry place-men ; assailed by enemies, and contending with political opposers at home, and intriguing cabinets abroad ; in working and planning to carry the country safely through her mighty struggle he ap- peared the same quiet, simple hearted, plain man, no less good than great. The times through which we have passed are never, I trust, to occur again. They seldom happen but once in the history of a nation ; and if we do not sympathize in any degree with them, we cannot appreciate the motives, the impulses, the purposes, t> A DISCOURSE ON THE DEATH the acts of the individual whom Providence places as the lead- ing spirit at the head of affairs. So with respect to our late Chief Magistrate. We must understand the great scenes in the moral and political drama of our country's history, and in which he appeared as the principal actor. No man, since the days of Washington, has been placed in such a position as he was. The risk he had to assume was more difficult than that which devolved upon him, and he so considered it ; hence we hear him from the first to the last invoking the prayers of the people in his behalf. No matter whether the great rebellion could have been pre- vented or not had a different policy been pursued. This is not the question. It came, and the whole country was involved in a most dreadful and sanguinary civil war. It had to be met, and Providence raised up one from humble birth, and rugged western life and habit to manage it, and bring the powers of the gov- ernment to a successful termination of the strife. And if suc- cess is the mark and evidence of a man's greatness, then he was great in the world's esteem. As the conflict is ended, except in a few minor points, we may, even at this distance, take in some respects a calmer and less prejudiced view of his acts, and see how in them all he strove to do right, and manifested an honest singleness of purpose. If he had been less firm of principle than he was, he would have vacillated, and yielded to intimidation, or blandishment ; more invincible in his individual will, he could not have acted as wisely as he did, and have accommodated himself to the ever shifting scenes around him, and have adapted himself to the vicissitudes and exigencies of the times. We must accept the stern logic of facts, and it seems to me, after the great events have occurred, the difficulties and dangers which surrounded him, and the im- minent perils which environed the ship of state, he could not have acted otherwise, and been true to his sworn oath, and country. I believe that he always endeavored to do right in the fear of God, and with a sincere devotion to his country. As an in- stance of this, I would refer to the Emancipation Proclamation. In the progress of the war, when he deemed it necessary as a war measure, and for striking a deadly blow at the power and root of the rebellion ; in speaking to a friend concerning it, he said : " I did not think the people had been educated up to it, yet I thought it right to issue it, and I trusted in God and did it." Comparatively few at the time approved of his course; many hearts trembled with fear. Subsequent events, however, evinced the wisdom and efficiency of it. And when we look at the act, and the expression, / thought it right to issue it, and I OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 7 trusted in God and did it, there is something heroically grand in the sentiment, and will of the man. Amid all the vicissitudes and varied fortunes which attended our arms, he never wavered, but calmly trusted in the God of battles, and our God and our father's God for deliverance and ultimate success. This was the moving impulse of his soul, and the key-note of all his firm- ness, perseverance and expectancy in the progress of events. — When the rebel army invaded our goodly Commonwealth, and strangely panic stricken, all confidence seemed for a time to be gone as to our ability to drive back the daring, bristling foe, it is reported that he met the trial Avith his accustomed heroism, fortitude and trust in God. " I rolled on God," said he, "the burden of my country, and I rose from my knees lightened of my load, feeling a peace that passeth understanding, feeling that 1 could leave myself, my country, and my all in the hands of God." There is something Cromwellian in this trust of his in God, though as different in temper, amiability and tenderness as is possible, was he from that remarkable man. The words of Car- dinal Wolsey as spoken with respect to this stern round-head, and iron handed Protector, seem to have sounded in his ears, and as a kind of intimation and preparative of his fate — "Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aims't at be ' thy country's, Thy God's, and truth's ! Then, if thou fallest, Cromwell,' Thou fallest a blessed martyr." How in keeping this sentiment with that which he uttered, and which seems as a kind of presentment as to his tragic end, as he stood under the folds of the American flag which he raised four years ago on Independence Hall, with reference to the declaration of our revolutionary fathers, " If the country could not be saved without giving up that principle, he was about to say that he would rather be assassinated on the spot than to surrender it." Heroic words, and for which he fell. — For the weal or the woe of four millions of black men, and their children he became the agent of their liberation, and thereby the weight of a two-hundred-year bondage has been lifted from their shoulders, and they have in the progress of civilization, "an equal chance " afforded them to rise on the scale of our common humanity, and failing to apprehend and appreciate the boon must lag behind. I have said that he announced his Emancipation Proclama- tion as a war measure. This is true in one sense, and not alto- gether so in another. He did it in his love of country to strike at the vital point of the rebellion ; but he did it also from 8 A DISCOURSE ON THE DEATH another motive, and for another purpose. He was always deeply impressed with the great moral and political evil of slavery, and regarded it as an anomoly in our free institutions. He saw there were two forms of society, two systems of direct an- tagonism in our government, and which could not forever con- tinue side by side ; and believed with Thomas Jefferson that, " nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate, than that these people (negro slaves) are to be free." He was, there- fore fully convinced that slavery would be finally expunged from the union, and that without its destroyal. He thus be- lieved, and therefore he acted on principle. He was desirous of a homogeneous union, and accordingly labored for it. He also was moved in the exercise of this principle by the sentiment of humanity as well as patriotism. He never wavered in the assu- rance ot the faith which he entertained as to its extinction, and that in some way it would be accomplished; and this firm conviction and implicit faith caused him to hold on to the union with unwavering tenacity, and to the whole country as the lim- its of the union, and not to succumb to the feeling of some of the more ultra and vehement anti-slavery men, that the revolt- ing slave states might be permitted to establish their secession and government. As he acted on principle in this matter, and took hold on the war measure as an instrument to save the country, and to carry out a long cherished principle, he was able to act in a magnani- mous manner towards a subjugated foe. The cause or occasion of the rebellion removed, he sought like a true patriot to con- vert enemies in war into friends in peace. His generous nature also would not allow him to triumph over a fallen foe. His ten- der sensibilities gave a beauty and a coloring to his love for the vanquished, for the down trodden and oppressed races of men, and he had a heart full of human kindness, associated with an abiding love for the truth ; a heart devoted to the rights of humanity, and in sympathy with his fellow-men ; and here in this land he firmly believed was centered in the great national conflict the hopes of liberty, and the world wide rights of man. Therefore he lived and acted as he difcd. At this point of our country's history, an element of our late President's greatness appears in full view, and his physical edu- cation no less than his genius fitted him for enduring the hercu- lean labors assigned him. I speak more particularly with ref- erence to mark of mind and hand in the transformation of an unorganized militia into the greatest band of hardy and invin- cible veterans the world ever saw ; the organization of a navy which has executed wonders, and extorted from foreigners and the whole naval board of the old world their admiration and OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. praise. By his genius he has established our reputation as a great military power ; and now we are in a condition to make all Europe tremble before our glittering unsheathed sword, and bow with respect to our blood-stained, triumphant banner ; and to enforce the great and long cherished American doctrine that, no European government shall be allowed to meddle with the af- fairs of this continent ; and to drive from our shores every foreign usurper, though sustained by the purse and sword of crowr. ed despots and emperors of mighty realms ; to assert and maintain the rights of man the world over, and to strike a Listing blow at despotism, and fell thrones of grandeur and oppression to the ground. Having thus conducted the country safely through the most bloody and gigantic civil war found in the annals of history to a successful issue, and an honorable peace, and in which the country's greatness and power have been developed, and estab- lished, with a deep sense of the sacred trust committed to him; exhibiting sublime moral courage, and resolute devotion to duty, and in which he obtained for himself a fame more durable than that emblazoned on escutcheons of honor and on monuments, and cenotaphs of marble, and columns of brass ; he fell by the hand of the foul destroyer in the midst of his glory. The two first weeks of the month of April will never be for- gotten, with their stupendous and thrilling events. They pass before us still like an historic panorama. Yes, they are his- toric events, " graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for- ever." Within that memorable fortnight the bristling triple jines which guarded Petersburg and Richmond were stormed, and the citadel of the rebellion opened its gates to receive our conquering armies ; and on its capitol heights was raised the national flag with its waving stripes and glittering stars. Gen- eral Lee, the hope of the confederacy, with the remnant of his army, the pride and flower of the military power of the South, surrendered ; Mobile fell ; Raleigh was occupied ; the tattered ensign was raised over the ruins of the fortification of Sumter, from which treason had struck it down ; all east of the Missis- sippi was about to come under the conquering, but kind and graceful shadow of the national banner, and the overspreading wings of the American eagle. All this, and when in the midst of almost intoxicating joy, the thunder tones of our victorious fleets and amies ; on that very night when our honored Presi- dent had reached the culminating point of all his hopes, and for which he had been toiling during four long and cruel years ; at the very moment of his profoundest satisfaction and in the real- ization of his brightest promise, a pistol shot is heard, and he is 10 A DISCOURSE ON THB DEATH stricken down dead by the hand of an assassin. Startling events ! and solem and thrilling, as they are startling, in contrast. To thus murder the nation's head at such a time as this ; and when former opponents, and political antagonists where admir- ing his success, and magnanimity — when foreign courts were obliged to succumb to American greatness and valor, and to cease extending their unscrupulous aid and sympathy towards the ene- mies of our country — when the starry banner of our ancient covenant was fixed, we hope, for ever on the round tower of the capitol, is a crime so new and unparalled in history, that its guilt is the crimson dye of blood drawn from the national heart. We can, therefore, understand the violent shock sustained by every true American, in every city, village, hamlet, and rual cot- tage of the land ; the profound emotion which filled and moved the hearts of the people, and changed the rapturous hope of an- ticipated peace into the most inconsolable auguish. The scene has ended, the deed has been done, a nation mourns* our beloved President rests in peace. His name and deeds wiU ever live in history as marking a new epoch, a new civilization on the American continent. It becomes us, therefore, to en- deavor to interpret the awful providence, and to study the lessons which God intends we should learn. A passing view can merely, at this time, be taken, and only^some of them. It behooves us — 1. To bow in filial awe before the chastening hand of God. We must rise above the agency of wicked and desperate men, and recognize the will and sovereignty of the infinitely wise, and just ruler of the universe. " By him kings reign and princes decree justice." " He ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and doeth according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou?" — " He removeth king and setteth up kings," according to the good pleasure of his will. As the sovereign Lord of all, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom from gen- eration to generation, he knows what is best for nations as com- ing under his moral governmemt, and arranges with his unseen hand, behind the curtain of his providence, every thing in their history. No man ascends a throne or chair of state without his ordering ; and no man, however great and renoAvned, or ignoble and base, falls in any manner without his purposing. This is absolutely necessary, for without this supreme control in all the events and circumstances of his providence as connected with the development of his designs among the nations, he could not, and would not be the Judge of all the earth who doeth right ; the most High who ruleth over all. CF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 11 In this event, as well as in every other which comes within the range of his providence, He has an end to accomplish, which doubtless will yet be seen to be right and good. And in it He would teach us that he can accomplish his purposes, and carry out his ends by any means and men as his instruments, let who will stand or fall ; and He says, " cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils." I work, who will let or hinder. The Greatest and best of men are but instruments in his hand. They do not make the times in which they live and act. The times make them, or rather God raises them up to take part in, or to be leaders in the carrying out of his designs ; and He fits and qualifies them for their position in the human aspect of af- fairs. When He sees proper to remove one actor from the stage of human events, he raises up another until his will is accom- plished — "His eternal thought moves on, His undisturbed affairs." When He took away Moses as the captain and law-giver of his chosen people, he gave them Joshua as their conductor into the promised land. And so He will in our case, though our great chieftain has fallen, provide for us another savior who will lead us over the rubican of danger into the canaan of our hopes. — He says, " trust in me," "tie still, and know that I am God," and in response we can say, " The Lord of hosts is with us ; the God of Jacob is our refuge." 2. To regard this dreadful calamity, which God has permitted to come upon us, as for our trial and chastisement; and that we may be led to humble and sincere penitence for all our individual and national sins. What nation in so short a period had been made so great in population, resources, wealth and territory, and had God so nigh unto them in all that they called upon him for ? The little colonies of our borders skirting the blue sea, in less than a century had grown into great and powerful common- wealths : and in their outstretching enterprise and development had laid their giant hands on the hoary locks of the old Pacific; and it seemed to be no vain boasting, but the decree of " mani- fest destiny," that the whole boundless continent was ours, and that neighboring and effete States were in a short time to fall naturally under our dominion, and to be annexed to our Republic. But how great our sins, in view of such transcendent mercies ; how wide spread every form of vice and wickedness ; even com- mensurate with our boundless domain ; how diffusive the corrup- tion of the body-politic ! We were sowing the wind, but to reap the whirlwind, and it came with relentless fury sweeping over the land in the terrible judgment and scourge of civil war. God 12 A DISCOURSE ON THE DEATH was angry with us ; the sea was troubled ; the earth reeled to and fro like a drunken man ; the heavens were darkened, and the fiery flashing of Jehovah's wrath were seen and felt. He called for a sword against us, and turned and whettened every man's sword against his brother, and plead against us with blood, that He might magnify and sanctify himself, and be known in the eyes of many nations, and that all might know that He was the Lord, and we acknowledge his name. Thus, until he had scourged us, and purified and tried us as worthy of his protecting care and prospering hand ; and then as the darkling shadows were fleeing away, the bright sunshine of his favor gleaming upon us, as if we might be forgetful, and unrepentant still, sudden as the thunder bolt peals in the summer sky, his voice is heard in awful terror never to be forgotten, and our national executive, and human deliver falls, that we might be humbled under the mighty hand of God, and tried in the seven fold heated furnace of his chastisement, in order, I confidently hope, to be exalted in due time, and to arise in a national regen- eration to a newer and sublimer moral and political life. May we then, as a people, listen reverently to this lesson, heed and improve the awful teachings of providence, that righteousness may be our exaltation, and sin no longer our reproach, that amid this chastisement and trial we may prove ourselves to be that people whose God is the Lord. 3. To look from the hand of the assassin to the hand of God, and to cast all our cares upon him who careth for us, and with unwavering faith put our confidence and trust in him. Though chastening us, He has not forgotten us. 0, may his " loving correction make us great," lead us to cleave to him with new purpose of heart, who in wrath remembers mercy, and who fits and qualifies us for high and responsible duties only by subjec- ting us to the paternal discipline of sore trials and weighty sor- rows. Momentous questions in the political and social problems of our country have now to be solved, and Ave are called upon to commit their timely and beneficent solution to that God who has wrought deliverance for us thus far, and who can light up the horizon of all our difficulties with the radiance of the meridian sun, and illumine the political sky with more than its former splendor, create for us new heavens to bend over us with a more glorious, and resplendent brilliancy than the old, and evoke from the moral and political chaos of the past, and the tremen- dous throes of agony and blood through which we have labored a new earth radiant with more than pristine beauty, and wherein dwelleth righteousness. OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 13 4. To humbly and devoutly acknowledge God in his protec- ting care over us, that in his seemingly calamitous providence, He has willed that this nation shall live. It is written in the decrees of heaven, as well as by the finger of God on the mighty rivers and mountains, and the whole face of the land, and deeply graven in the hearts of the people, that this is one country, and to be forever under the same Constitution, and general system of laws ; that this grand American idea cannot be ignored, nor •obliterated from the geography, the instincts, and the affections of the people, and that no civil war, no conspiracies, no seditious plots can overthrow this Government. Stirred to the inmost life of the nation, lashed into weeping sorrow and rage at the time when our chieftain fell, how soon the sublime impulse of memory for the dead, and the duty which we owe to the cause of popnlar government throughout the world calmed our passion, and we would not allow the sudden, and awful crime which had taken the life of the President of the United States, to disarrange or disturb the regular and smooth course of public affairs. In its bereaved grandeur, the Uepulic moved on. Praped in the habiliments of an unprecedented mourning, this great country sustained itself with a sublime com- posure, and magnanimity. Arising from the sack-cloth, and ashes of unexampled grief she sprang forth in the beauty, and strength, and hope of youth, and has most signally proven to the world, as one well says, the quiet energy, and the durability of institutions growing out of the reason and the affections of the people. It was daring madness to assassinate the President — madness not of the agent or instrument of the deed merely, but of all those who encouraged, and assisted him in the accomplishment of the plan ; for what could be its result, but the certain dis- covery and death of the instrument and his accomplices; and what but infinite disadvantage to the cause of which the terrible plot was the exponent. And how marked the Providence in the quick finding of the assassin, his sudden death, as the individual penalty of the crime ; the mysterious linkings of the chain which brought the accom- plices of the whole wide-reaching conspiracy to the tribunal of retributive justice. Another view of the matter is this, and in it there is a lesson to be impressed on the minds of the American people. How su- premely absurd a thing is assassination, as a remedy for a political grievance, real or fancied, in a country and government like ours. In fact it never achieves what it aims at; and such a despicable crime as this seldom looks ahead at consequences. History tells us of the assination of Caesar, of Henry the 4th, of France ; of 14 A DISCOURSE ON THE DEATH dUr of William, the silent, the celebrated stafc^-holder of Holland and Zealand; of Gustavus, of Sweeden, and many others; but in no instance was the end had in view attained by such Cain- like wretchedness. How blindly the banded conspirators miscal- culated as to such a foul deed helping the cause of rebellion, or weakening or disuniting the people of the North. It had, natur- ally, just the contrary effect. It aroused the whole country, and united the hearts and the hands of the people, and made them resolve, and swear on the altar of their country, and over the mangled body of their dead President, to maintain this Union, one and inseparable. Such a providence was needed to allay partizan biterness, and to attribute to a common citzenship the sentiment of patriotism — needed to reveal to the misguided of our countrymen the wickedness of their leaders, and the crime into which they were alluring them in attempting to destroy the national life, and in so doing to pull down over their own heads as well as ours, the fabiic of liberty, and with it the hopes of an oppressed and yearning humanity throughout the world. View the murder of our late President as you will, from any political stand-point, and especially at the time ; he fell as a martyr to the Union. His death was meant to dissever it be- yond repair. Thanks to a generous, though terrible Providence, it has been made the occasion of binding it more closely and firmly than ever. In the language of another — " The blow aimed at him, was aimed not at the native of Kentucky, not at the cit- izen of Illinois, but at the man, who, as President, in the execu- tive branch of the government, stood as the representative of every man in the United States. The object of the crime was the life of the whole people. From Maine to the south-west boundary on the Pacific, it makes us one. The country may have needed an imperishable grief to touch its inmost feeling. — The grave that receives the remains of Lincoln, receives the martyr to the Union ; 'the monument which will rise over his body, will bear witness to the Union ; his endearing memory will assist during countless ages, to bind the States together, and to incite to the love of our one undivided, individual country. Peace to the ashes of our departed friend, the friend of his country, and his race. Happy was his .life, for he was the re- storer of the Republic ; he was happy in his death, for the man- ner of his end will plead forever for the union of the States, and the freedom of man." 5. To teach us to abhor treason, insurrection, conspiracy in every form — to reveal to us the bane of the spirit which begat, fostered, and accomplished for a time the disruption of the country ; and that every thing connected with such a foul spirit OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 15 should be exorcised, and made in some suitable way odious in the sight of all men — to loathe, and hate treason and rebellion "with a perfect hatred, because they are sins against God, and crimes against the State. But while this is one of the plain teachings of this remark- able Providence, let not the cruel murder of our President seek to be avenged by an indiscriminate denunciation of all who have been in rebellion against the government. Let the law deal with the unscrupulous leaders, and agents of the grand conspiracy, which magnified itself into all the horrors of a civil war — deal with them according to the majesty, and rectitude of its demands — no less and no more. Towards the masses of the people, the rank and file of the army, let the same lenient and magnanimous spirit of our lamented President prevail. In this way we can best honor him, and hope for a speedier amity, heal- ing of the nation's wounds, and the reconstruction of the gov- ernment. The fact rises up in solemn majesty and grandeur be- fore us, that we must live together, and become again, for all the purposes of the Union, one people. The foe has fallen ; let us not, like the coward Falstaff, stab again the dead body of a Percy. The generous, and magnanimous treatment of Israel towards the Benjaminites is worthy of our imitation, and this when '' there was no king in Israel, and every man did that which was right in his own eyes." We have read of Israel's anguish in repeated defeats, and how at last through fastings, weepings, and prayer, God was with them, and gave them such victories over their brethren — how they smote them at Gibeah, pursued them from place to place, turned upon them again and again, and smote them with the edge of the sword, as well the men of every city, as the beast, and all that came to hand ; and set on fire all the cities that were found. All over, Benjamin vanquished, and almost destroyed, conquering Israel in all his people " came to the house of God, and abode there till even before