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 THE PREACHER. 
 
 [For the Ambassador. 
 
 THE MARTYR PRESIDENT: 
 
 A Discourse Preached on the Anniversary 
 of the Death of Abraham Lincoln) in the 
 Church of the Redeemer, Cincinnati, 0. 
 
 BY REV. A. D. MAYO. 
 
 " He beiug dead yet speaketh." — Heb. xi. 4 
 The President of the United States, by 
 proclamation, ordered the departments of 
 the National Government at Washington 
 to be closed yesterday, in solemn observ- 
 ance of the Martyrdom of Abraham Lin- 
 coln. To-day, the American people will 
 spontaneously commemorate his death 
 by public ceremonies, by services in thou- 
 sands of Christian churches, and by the 
 almost adoring gratitude of millions of 
 afflicted hearts. 
 
 This is not a day for statesmen or 
 ministers of religion to open afresh the 
 wounds of the past, to inflame partisan 
 animosities, or to heap execration on the 
 fallen foes of the country. Dreadfully 
 have our enemies sinned against God and 
 mankind, aud only future ages can reveal 
 the full enormity of the folly and despot- 
 
ism that drove them into such a war. It 
 opened by firing upon the only flag on 
 earth that symbolized the coming free- 
 dom of all men. It revolved through 
 four ghastly years, of such horrors as 
 Americans will blush to read in future 
 days. It closed with the assassination of 
 the best man who in modern times has 
 been called to rule any people. But oh, 
 how terribly has that crime been punish- 
 ed 1 Could any man now pass all over 
 the territory which five years ago burst 
 out into the insanity of rebellion, and 
 hold in his mind what he saw of death, 
 and sickness, and starvation ; of poverty, 
 of the annihilation of families, of the com- 
 plete overthrow of governments and in- 
 stitutions, of the prostration of religion, 
 of the utter ruin of society down to its 
 foundation-stones, which are all thrown 
 up as by an earthquake, he would stand 
 aghast, and forget vengeance and hatred 
 in amazement at what the Almighty had 
 done. Never was such an outrage upon 
 * human society contemplated, as when the 
 fifteen Slave States of this Union attempt- 
 ed, five years ago, to rear a slave empire 
 on the ruins of the American Republic ; 
 and never was a people so utterly crushed 
 in so short a time. Were they left to 
 themselves to-day, they would drift 
 through anarchy to civil perdition ; and 
 only because we have hold of them, and 
 God has hold of us, have they any hope 
 of a new civilization. Surely their pun- 
 ishment is enough for them ; enough for 
 the warning of mankind through long 
 ages to come. It is demonstrated that 
 what they tried to do can never succeed 
 in a world governed by a God of justice 
 and love. To-day, then, let their crimes 
 and sufferings be forgotten and forgiven, 
 as far as a sacred regard for liberty and 
 
order will permit ; and let us turn to the 
 more pleasing task of contemplating the 
 character and example of him who, being 
 dead, yet speaketh, with a voice more 
 potent than that of any monarch now 
 upon the earth. 
 
 There are two classes of great public 
 men who rise to speedy fame, and remain 
 as fixed-stars in the reverence of mankind. 
 The first class are, the great military 
 chieftains, who deliver their country from 
 imminent peril, like Cincinnatus and Sci- 
 pio, Marlborough and Frederick, Wel- 
 lington and Grant. But their fame, 
 though permanent and genuine, is like 
 that of noted discoverers, inventors, or 
 material benefactors of the race. It is 
 honor for a special work of physical de- 
 liverance, and has little to do with the 
 personal character of the object. The 
 most popular man in America now is the 
 Lieutenant-General, and yet no public 
 man is so little known, as far as concerns 
 his opinions, personal character, and his 
 qualifications for anything save splendid 
 military success. Wellington was always 
 rather an iron statue to his countrymen 
 than a man. Frederick and Marlborough 
 had eccentricities and faults enough to 
 kill a hundred men less eminent for great 
 military services. Every American hon- 
 ors Winfield Scott, but no American is 
 edified when he makes a speech or writes 
 a book. This sort of fame is genuine, 
 but it is not of that kind which rests on 
 personal reverence and love for the no- 
 blest qualities of manhood, tried in all 
 possible emergencies of human responsi- 
 bility. 
 
 But there is another, smaller, class of 
 men, like William of Orange, Washing- 
 ton, and Lincoln, whose death is but the 
 signal for the almost unanimous rever- 
 
ence of the civilized world. While they 
 live, like others, they divide men into 
 fierce parties ; are assailed by bitter foes 
 and disappointed friends ; are pronounced 
 iucompetent, incumbrances on the good 
 cause they serve. They oftener than oth- 
 erwise fall martyrs to truth and freedom. 
 But when they really pass away, the 
 world seems to recognize at once the 
 sort of men they were, and henceforth no 
 man can safely utter words of disparage- 
 ment. Read, in the speeches and writ- 
 ings, and early history of the Republic, 
 the bitterness of jealousy and hatred 
 against Washington, during the twenty 
 years when he , was the Father ol the 
 People. Much that was then said may 
 have been partially true ; but what man 
 with any regard for his own reputation 
 would reiterate those charges now? There 
 were things as offensive and insultiug 
 said and written against Abraham Lin- 
 coln, in the household of his friends, up 
 to the day of his death, as were ever 
 hurled against the worst President of the 
 Republic ; but would the most malignant 
 rebel utter aloud such aspersions to-day, 
 without a feeling of meanness and re- 
 morse ? The race must have ideals — men 
 that can be held up as models to the 
 young in all generations. No man is ac- 
 tually good enough to deserve this per- 
 fect approval of humanity. But human- 
 ity is not strong enough to go on the 
 road to progress without the help of men 
 who shall form a chain from the average 
 mass up through society, to the Saviour, 
 and to God. The common instinct of 
 the civilized world fastens on the eminent 
 few, as such ideals and guides; and that 
 verdict is never annulled: and no critic 
 or censor is so universally and justly des- 
 
pised as he who .attempts to destroy this 
 historical estimate by parading the hu- 
 man frailties of its venerable object. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln is probably to-day 
 more honored, admired and loved all over 
 the world, among all orders of men, than 
 any character in human history. The 
 reputation of William of Orange and 
 Cromwell is limited by walls of religious 
 prejudice and race. Washington chal- 
 lenges the veneration of the historian, the 
 statesman, the leading progressive classes 
 in all lands. But Lincoln is the friend 
 of man. The emperors and statesmen of 
 the world honor the man who has saved 
 a continent from anarchy. The loyal 
 people of the loyal United States confess 
 that only such a man could have held 
 them together, and at once learned and 
 interpreted their best ideas. The friends 
 of the Union admire the skill with which 
 he earned the nation through a great 
 war, with no State lost and the national 
 honor unstained — yet, leaving its con- 
 quered enemies no cause to complain and 
 no excuse for further resistance. The 
 negro race, that bids fair to become in 
 process of time a numerous and import- 
 ant element in human affairs, will always 
 hold him second to the Saviour of the 
 world ; and all over the world the masses 
 of the laboring, progressive and aspiring 
 people, who long for more liberty and 
 light, will cherish his memory as no other 
 man was ever loved. A reporter of the 
 New York press lately spent a night in 
 visiting the lowest haunts of lust and vi- 
 olence in that city, and saw in every hovel 
 he entered a picture of the Martyred 
 President. Even in death, he conquered 
 the class that furnished his assassins ; and 
 now, from high to low, he reigns first in 
 the affections of a grateful world. 
 
Tins reverence is not accidental or 
 transient, or founded on ignorance of the 
 real character of the man. No ruler in 
 history was so well known to so many 
 people during his life. He lived before 
 the world, and in his breast was no dark 
 concealment of motive or policy. Man- 
 kind is the only final critic and judge ; 
 and when the verdict comes up from ev- 
 ery order of men so unmistakably as in 
 the case of Abraham Lincoln, there is no 
 danger of a reversal of judgment. That 
 great fame of his rests on imperishable 
 foundations. He was the most valuable 
 kind of a man for the ruler of a nation in 
 a crisis in human affairs, and he was one 
 of the best men of his kind the world 
 ever saw. 
 
 The deep foundations of his manhood 
 were laid in a profound and unaffected 
 piety, and a reverence for man as the di- 
 vine child of God. He was no theolo- 
 gian ; no sectarian partisan ; not accus- 
 tomed to .sound the praises of great reli- 
 gious sects, which are supposed to com- 
 mand influence and votes. And many 
 who saw only his common-sense, shrewd, 
 or humorous estimate of men, accused 
 him of levity in sacred things, and indif- 
 ference to human freedom. But never 
 did man more humbly and patiently wait 
 on God than he. Never was there a ruler 
 of men who so truly loved and revered 
 the least, or so easily forgave the worst 
 of men. 
 
 It is so common in public station to 
 find men who have no faith in anything 
 higher than force and statecraft; devour- 
 ed by unholy ambition ; contemners of 
 the rights of man and defiant of God's 
 higher law, that all men turned instinct- 
 ively to one who was as religious, and as 
 ready to be guided by Providence, as a 
 little child. Hasty spirits ridiculed and 
 
abused him because he declined to rash 
 upon great changes in advance of the 
 convictions of the people. But he knew 
 that in such things as the relations of 
 human society God is slowly educating 
 the men of every generation from point 
 to point ; and to push on, regardless of 
 this natural growth of sentiment, is only 
 to tempt civil and social destruction. He 
 felt, from the day he was elected to the 
 great office he adorned, that his lot was 
 cast in one of the great eras of history. 
 He wished, first of all, to be the humble 
 agent of God's purpose in the uplifting 
 of man. He feared to get in the way of 
 the majestic laws of national destiny. So 
 his movements were as slow as the steps 
 of Providence ; and when he put down 
 his foot, men felt that now indeed the 
 hour of the freedom of man had come. 
 
 How simple, and yet how reverent and 
 strong, was his conduct on the Proclama- 
 tion of Emancipation. He heard all that 
 all kinds of men had to say, with a pa- 
 tient mind. He bore the taunts of those 
 friends of liberty whose zeal outran their 
 knowledge. He forgot the threats of 
 vengeance that stole up to him from the 
 dark places of despotism. He fortified 
 himself in all the legal aspects of the great 
 cause. He repressed his generals who 
 proclaimed the New Republic at the head 
 of armies. Slowly did he see the hand 
 nearing the hour on the dial-plate of the 
 nation's history. At length, the North 
 was invaded, and, as he said to Mr. 
 Chase, he resolved, one night, lying in 
 his bed, meditating on the state of the 
 country, that if it should please God to 
 drive the army of Lee out of Pennsylva- 
 nia, he would proclaim freedom to the 
 slaves. Lee was driven from Pennsylva- 
 nia, and Mr. Lincoln said, " I wish he had 
 
been driven further ; but I have got to 
 do it, and I will issue the proclamation." 
 Only a mind like his could thus, at the 
 end of its own power and wisdom, take 
 the hand of God Almighty, and submit 
 to be led like a little child into the act 
 that would he a heritage of everlasting 
 fame. 
 
 Thus founded on a genuine religious 
 faith, which was a perpetual guide and 
 support to his troubled career, he built 
 up on such foundations one of the rarest 
 executive characters among men. He 
 combined, as no man of our country has, 
 the complete consecration to the idea of 
 hixman progress with the wisest circum- 
 spection in dealing with masses of men 
 and deeply- rooted insitutions of society. 
 The country was thronged with sincere 
 lovers of liberty and humanity, who knew 
 little of the actual state of American af- 
 fairs, and who, so that a good end were 
 sought, were reckless about the steps to 
 success. There were even men who be- 
 lieved so devotedly in order, peace and 
 outward concord, that they would permit 
 none to be sacrificed to save these. Be- 
 tween these fierce parties in the state, he 
 walked in constant martyrdom. He was 
 so sympathetic, that he felt through his 
 soul all that was thought and said of him, 
 and died daily in the slaughter and sor- 
 rows of his countrymen. But he loved 
 liberty so much better than its heedless 
 advocates, that nothing could persuade 
 him to put it in peril by rash attempts to 
 establish it beyond the power of the peo- 
 ple to sustain it. He loved order, and 
 law and peace so much better than the 
 peace and order and law faction, that he 
 determined to lay the foundations of per- 
 petual union in the freedom of all men in 
 America. While wielding greater power 
 
than any tyrant on earth, the commander 
 of a million soldiers, he so blended rigor 
 and moderation that when the war was 
 done his mighty armies melted away, and 
 peace and law came back as quietly as 
 the sun rises after a stormy night. 
 
 It is the hardest thing to convince men, 
 in the moment of their passion and hot 
 haste, that this is the true executive man- 
 hood which succeeds. But when the suc- 
 cess comes, all men applaud and worship 
 the great leader and organizer of liberty ; 
 though they so quickly turn again into 
 their old ways of narrowness. But this 
 sort of men hold society together. Eve- 
 ry neighborhood would explode into a 
 Babel once a month, were it notfor a few 
 wise men and women who love liberty 
 and order, and know how to teach the 
 two to move in accordant steps. Every 
 nation that does anything for man is guid- 
 ed by such men, who teach the ignorant, 
 selfish, violent masses to respect human- 
 ity a little more, and consent to some 
 slight advance for human good. Ameri- 
 ca might as easily have been hurled into 
 the pit of military despotism or chronic 
 anarchy during the last five years, as 
 France, or Germany, or Italy has been, 
 again and again. There were generals 
 enough to play the dictator ; politicians 
 enough to head as many factions as the 
 days of the year. But, though there nev- 
 er was such a revolution on earth, society 
 was undisturbed in every loyal village in 
 the land ; and though the earth swarmed 
 with armed hosts, and a girdle of war- 
 ships answered each other's signals round 
 three thousand miles of ocean and river- 
 coast, no general or admiral for one in- 
 stant wrenched the sword from the hands 
 of that kindly and paternal Commander- 
 in-Chief He guided us over the awful 
 
perils of the disruption of slave society | 
 so gradually and natuially, that we hard- 
 ly recognize to-day that we are on the 
 other side of a deluge that threatened to 
 engulf a continent, and pour its devastat- 
 ing flood through all the world. 
 
 His patriotism was only his religion 
 and his wise conduct of affairs applied to 
 his country. He loved America because 
 he thought it was the promised land, 
 where mankind could achieve a higher 
 estate than ever before. He loved the 
 Union, because in it he saw the Provi- 
 dential method of securing the highest 
 good of man in the Republic. He loved 
 his country in the line of his love for God 
 and man, and tenth and civilization. He 
 loved it so fondly, that he spoke, and 
 thought, and acted almost impersonally ; 
 and' in his halting, thoughtful, sometimes 
 awkward, but always onward career, it 
 seemed as if the Great Republic itself 
 had entered into him, and made him its 
 representative. He aspired to no fame, 
 no notoriety, no leadership that separated 
 him for an instant from his sivffering 
 country. Only too grateful if he could 
 learn its destiny, and be borne upon the 
 topmost wave of its majestic advance, he 
 did not aim at the impossible creative 
 power which is the insanity of strong 
 but irreverent agitators of men. He was 
 no agitator, but an administrator of the 
 purposes of God respecting the people of 
 his native land. 
 
 He had that noble incapacity to hate, 
 even his enemies, which is the true indi- 
 cation of the grandest order of manhood. 
 When Jesus said, "Love your enemies," 
 I suppose he could hardly conceive how 
 anybody could hate or despise the worst 
 man. He could pity him ; could punish 
 him, for correction; could see God's re- 
 
tributions go over him ; but could neither I 
 despise nor hate. So I doubt if Lincoln 
 could have hated the worst sinner, or 
 permanently despised the greatest fool in 
 America. Many violent people talked of 
 that as his weakness ; as if it were not 
 the easiest thing for any bad-tempered 
 man to curse, or any supercilious man to 
 despise almost everybody. It was his 
 strength, the divine manhood in him, his 
 likeness to God, that made him so tender 
 to all the rebellious children of the Re- 
 public ; so ready to welcome them home, 
 whenever they would come back and 
 share our common lot. It was no lack 
 of courage, no amiable folly, that sealed 
 his lips and kept his heart soft — even 
 when the men he trusted were toiling to 
 upset him, and throw disparagement up- 
 on his motives and disgrace upon his 
 name. He knew that they would yet be 
 led up to high places to testify to his sin- 
 cerity and patriotism, and held his peace. 
 So, when the war was done, his enemies 
 were ready to submit to his clemency. 
 He died, leaving no printed or spoken 
 word that held contempt or malice for 
 any child of God. 
 
 It would be a pleasant task to delineate 
 yet other features of this rare though 
 simple manhood : his unpretending cour- 
 age, and dauntless fortitude, and tireless 
 industry, and unwearied patience and per- 
 sistence, that challenged time itself; we 
 might describe his homely yet almost 
 saintly ambition to deserve well of his 
 country, and do some good thing for his 
 fellow-beings ; and his intellectual power, 
 so like the half-conscious working of 
 Providence itself; so admirably adapted 
 to let in light on every side of that broad 
 and comprehensive manhood ; so original 
 and natural in its processes ; so clear in 
 
its results ; so on the level of men's real 
 thought, and apt to behold the real value 
 of human affairs ; so ready to see rising 
 merit, though his wondrous patience often 
 bore all things from men he hoped yet to 
 save for their country's weal. But we 
 can not say these things. For genera- 
 tions to come, our children, and they who 
 follow them, will dwell fondly on this 
 theme ; and never will the American peo- 
 ple be less grateful than to-day, that Hea- 
 ven gave such a man to the Union and 
 the world. 
 
 And, now, may his nobility shame us 
 out of our narrowness, our hot wrath, our 
 partisan fury, our impatience with Provi- 
 dence, our mischievous readiness to re- 
 kindle the flames of war, and make this 
 wound of one half of the nation a chronic 
 malady of the Republic. Let those who 
 have been defeated so utterly confess that 
 God was against them, and resolve to 
 help us once more rebuild the waste places 
 in a broader and statelier fabric of human 
 rights. Let those who chafe under the 
 slow growth of a Christian civilization 
 remember that God has His own times, 
 and only asks them to do their own work 
 and be content. Oh, it will be a shame- 
 ful thing if now, with all our prospects 
 for the grandest success ever vouchsafed 
 to any people, we put liberty and order 
 again in peril ! Forbid it, father of our 
 country, who toiled and died to bring us 
 where we are ! Forbid it, our Father 
 in heaven, who rulcst over the nations of 
 the earth, and guidest all human desti- 
 nies towards eternal love and peace !