Qass 
 
 Book. 
 
 
• Tit 
 
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 -M 
 
 SERMON 
 
 Occasioned by tlie Assassination oi' 
 
 PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 
 
 Delivered A.pril 16, 1865. 
 
 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 
 
 PATERSON, N 
 
 W. H. HORNBLOWER, Pastor 
 
 PATERSON, N. J. : 
 PRINTED BY CHISWELL & WUBT8, 
 
 •'PRESS" OFFICE, COR. BROADWAY A MAIN STREET. 
 1865. 
 
 
SERMON 
 
 Occasioned by the Assassination of 
 
 n <ci 
 
 <jNT 
 
 Delivered A.pril 16, 1865. 
 
 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 PATEESON, 1ST. JT, 
 
 W. H. HORNBLOWER, Pastor 
 
 liV 
 
 PATERSON, N. J. : 
 PUIXTED'DY CHISWELL & WURTS. 
 
 "PRESS" OFFICE, CuR. BROADWAY & MAIN STREET. 
 
 1865. 
 

 Monday Morning, April 17, 1865. 
 
 pEV. W. II. IIORNBLOWER, D. D., 
 
 Drar Sir : — The teachers of our Sabbath School, who listened to your 
 sermon of yesterday morning with great satisfaction, as expressing the senti- 
 ments which pervade every loyal heart, subsequently held a meeting and ap- 
 pointed the undersigned a committee to reques-t the sermon for publication. 
 
 FRANCISCO VAX DTK. Chairman. 
 Robert Dalling, John W. Cortleyoc, 
 
 S303ATB3 TOTTLE, JOHN S. B.VRKALOW. 
 
 Paterson, N. J., April 17, 1865. 
 Messrs. Francisco Van Dyk Robert Dalling, Socrates Tcttle, John \V. Cort- 
 leyou and John S. Barkalow : 
 
 My dear friends : — The sermon indited in haste on Saturday, the day 
 of Mr. Lincoln's death, can hardly be worth preservation on the score of its 
 own merits. It may, however, hereafter have some historical interest as evinc- 
 ing the poignant sorrow and terrible indignation which that event produced 
 in every part of our land. For this reason, and in deference to your partial 
 judgment, and also because in these times ever}- man should improve every 
 opportunity to enforce the principles which should control the people of the 
 United Stat*?, I yield to the wishes of the Teachers of our Sabbath School, 
 which you have expressed. 
 
 Affectionately, yours, 
 
 \VM. II. IIORNBLOWER. 
 
SERMON. 
 
 " The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places : how are the mighty 
 fallen." 2 Samuel 1 : 19. 
 
 These recent crimes, that fill our land with mourning, are 
 terrible evidences of what some affect to doubt — the exis- 
 tence of the Devil and his active and malign influence on 
 human affairs. Human nature, bad as it is, would be incap- 
 able of such deeds, but for the instigations of Hell. These 
 crimes are more than inhuman; they are diabolical, they 
 are fiendish ; and the very terms we use to describe them re- 
 quire us to believe in demoniacal and Satanic influences ex- 
 erted over wicked men. 
 
 Do not imagine that I allow myself to be carried away 
 by the transports of passion and indulge in that exaggeration 
 of language in which the intenser emotions of our nature 
 seek to lose and engulph themselves. No, I never spoke 
 with more deliberation and a stronger conviction of my own 
 judgment. If any are disposed to retort in the language of 
 Festus, "Thou art beside thyself; the excitement of these 
 horrible times have made thee mad " : I will answer in the 
 words of Paul, " I am not mad, most self-complacent hearer, 
 but speak forth the words of truth and soberness." 
 
 In simple earnest, I do not see how it is possible to ex- 
 plain the conduct of the South and its abettors in this cruel 
 war, without attributing much of it to the suggestions of 
 the Devil. Their policy has been so suicidal, so opposed to 
 any ordinary degree of human sagacity, so adverse to the 
 individual interests of those personally engaged in it and to 
 the well-being of mankind at large, that we arc compelled 
 to look for some explanation of it beyond the ordinary 
 realms of human motive and action. In all that they have 
 done and are doing, we are constantly reminded of him,) who 
 
tempted our first parents to sin themselves out of Paradise 
 and provoked Judas Iscariot to hang himself in Aceldama. 
 Let us briefly review the history of events and observe 
 how madly the South has rushed on in a career of self-des- 
 truction. 
 
 Up to the time of the Presidential nominations in 1860, 
 a large majority of the people in these Northern States were 
 in sympathy with the South. Southern statesmen exercis- 
 ed a controlling influence in Congress and their political 
 sentiments found favor with the masses out of Congress. 
 The proof of this is contained in the acts of Congress itself, 
 and in the results of the Presidential elections. It is, there- 
 fore, fair to presume, that the South could in 1860, if they 
 had wished it, have elected their own candidate for Presi- 
 dent whoever he had been. Had they proposed Jefferson 
 Davis himself, on any terms the North could possibly have 
 accepted, northern votes would have placed him in the 
 chair of our Chief Magistrate. Certainly, Jefferson Davis, 
 who had been conspicuously before the public and Avas 
 known to be a man of great ability and was regarded with 
 much esteem and confidence, would have triumphed in a 
 popular election over Abraham Lincoln, who was then a 
 stranger to the great mass of the American people and was 
 awkwardly introduced to them as a Western politician, "a 
 village lawyer," and erst an honest rail-splitter ! * 
 
 The substitution of such a man for Wm. H. Seward 
 seemed absurd : and nothing could have secured his election 
 but the fatal policy adopted by the South. The South 
 compelled us to elect Mr. Lincoln by a popular vote ; and 
 then meanly and mendaciously pretended to find in that 
 election a cause of complaint against the North. This it 
 was that first embittered multitudes of voters at the North, 
 who had unwillingly cast their ballots fur the republican 
 
 * Abraham Lincoln was already recognized in the North West as the peer in 
 the political world of Stephen A. Douglas : and Douglas himself, lam inform- 
 ed, after the nomination of Lincoln for the Presidency, with a magmaninity 
 hurdly to> bo expected in a rival candidate, acknowledged the great ability of 
 Mr: Lincoln and his entiiv fitness for the office to which he was nominated. 
 
nominee, against southern politicians whose insulting lan- 
 guage could only provoke resentment and implacable ha- 
 tred. 
 
 Each successive step taken by the South affords new evi- 
 dence that they were incited and beguiled to their own ruin 
 by satanic agencies. Had they asked for a convention of 
 States, a constitutional remedy for any real or supposed evils, 
 or even for a peaceable separation, there is reason to believe 
 that they might have obtained all they desired. Even after 
 they had added injury to insult, had violently wrenched 
 themselves from our Federal Union, seized our common 
 property, and roused a spirit of indignation through- 
 out the whole land, there was still a disposition among our 
 people to 'leave them alone' to their own wayward devices. 
 Even then, they could, I think, have secured the assistance 
 of a large and influential party at the North in the consum- 
 mation of their designs. They could have avoided the only 
 course that was certain to end in self-destruction. 
 
 What shall we call the infatuation that made them choose 
 that one course, to lire on our flag, — (we at the North could 
 not believe it at first : when they fired at the Star of the 
 West, we thought it a mistake, an act of passion soon to 
 be repented of; it was not till their batteries opened on Fort 
 Sumter, that we comprehended their real purpose,) — what 
 infatuation was it that induced them to proclaim war at the 
 cannon's mouth and rouse the whole North, as one man to 
 resist, to conquer, to annihilate, if need be, the enemy of 
 our Republican Government ? What shall Ave call the in- 
 fatuation that led them to proclaim slavery and its perpetu- 
 ation the corner stone of the political fabric they sought to 
 build with untempered mortar ; and thus estrange from 
 them all the civilized nations of the earth, and invite 
 against themselves those weapons of ridicule and derision 
 that are often more effective in human affairs than the as- 
 saults of armed men? What shall we call the infatuation 
 that induced them to shock all sentiments of humanity by 
 such barbarities as were perpetrated at Fort Pillow ; and in 
 the prison-pens of Andersonville and Salisbury and Rich- 
 
moncl itself, and in the guerilla warfare of border states, and 
 in the conscription and persecution to death of their own 
 friends and neighbors and fellow citizens, and in hiring 
 stealthy incendiaries to fire and give up to rapine and des- 
 truction our Northern cities? What shall we call these acts 
 of infatuation, I ask, if we do not attribute them to the se- 
 ductive and provocative power of the Devil ? Has not 
 their whole course from the beginning been strangely and 
 admirably adapted to defeat their own aims, to quench 
 and repel human sympathy, to foment hatred and to invite 
 vindictive justice ? If we are to judge even the Devil 
 by his works, then we must conclude that the South- 
 ern people have been possessed by the evil spirit that de- 
 ludes his victims to their own destruction. 
 
 There was needed but one more evidence of their hellish 
 spite, malignity and folly. To public slaughter must be added 
 the infamy of private assassination ! It will be feebly said 
 in attempted extenuation, that the South is not to be held 
 responsible for this, the crime of individual men, either 
 fanatics or demons. Bat an enraged nation will not listen 
 to this flimsy apology. They will insist that the animus, 
 the devilish spirit of this rebellion, is evinced in this crown- 
 ing act of horror and wickedness. It is a deed 
 
 " to make Heaven weep, all earth amazed ; 
 
 For nothing canst thou to damnation arid 
 Greater than that." 
 
 It has stifled in these Northern States the last feeling of 
 pity towards the guilty agents of treason and rebellion. It 
 has deprived the Southern States of the benefit they might 
 have derived from the magnanimity of a generous, forgiv- 
 ing and confiding people. It has kindled an implacable 
 resentment that will continue to burn till every object of 
 hostility is consumed. It has awakened that stern sentiment 
 of justice that can only be appeased with the lives of those 
 who have incited this war and are personally rcsjionsible for 
 all its consequences even to these shameful crimes of assas- 
 sination and attempted assassination. As long us Jefferson 
 Davis lives, this nation will feel that the death of Abraham 
 Lincoln is unavenged. Die he must. Not by the hand of the 
 
assassin. God forbid. But by the Sword of retributive jus- 
 tice : by arraignment, trial and conviction. Calm, terrible, 
 inexorable justice must be done. Not only does the natu- 
 ral sense of offended justice, irrepressible in the human 
 heart, demand this : but the cultivated and Divine princi- 
 ples of revealed religion, that require us to defend and pro- 
 tect "virtue and punish, deter from, and exterminate vice, de- 
 mand it. In the name of Him who came to destroy the 
 Devil and his works, we must deprive forever of their power 
 to injure mankind those who have yielded themselves ser- 
 vants to do the bidding of the Devil. Society is not safe 
 while such men live. 
 
 If these words and sentiments are unbecoming the minis- 
 ter of the gospel of peace, I shall be the first to regret and 
 recall them. I can only say that now they seem to me not 
 only entirely consistent with the office I represent, but ren- 
 dered obligatory by the functions of that office itself. It is 
 not private vengeance I would slake : but it is public justice 
 I would execute ; that justice on which the stability of em- 
 pires and the rights of men, the order and welfare of society 
 must rest for support ; and without which is misrule, anar- 
 chy and social wretchedness. 
 
 But if aught is said intemperately, in hot passion, — the 
 cause of provocation is great. Who can be perfectly self 
 possessed in such agony of grief as we suffer to-day. We 
 mourn to-day the loss of one whom we regarded with more 
 than the veneration that is due to the office of President of 
 the United States. We not only honoured him as President, 
 we had learned to love him as the Father of his people. 
 
 I have hinted at the reluctance with which many of us 
 voted in 1860 for the comparatively obscure man, whose 
 personal appearance and peculiarities were not likely on his 
 first introduction to this anxious nation, to create a favorable 
 impression. But it was far different when Abraham Lincoln 
 was nominated for re-election in 1864. He came before us 
 then as our own free choice, the man whom the people de- 
 lighted to honour, the man in whom we felt a confidence 
 that no other man in the Union could inspire. 
 
I have not the ability, nor the material, to portray the 
 character or recount the life of Abraham Lincoln. This will 
 be done. And when it is done, the world will assign to 
 Abraham Lincoln no inferior place among the greatest and 
 the best of men. 
 
 lie was great and he was good. 
 
 It was not necessary to wait for his death in order to as- 
 certain this. Already the world had begun to recognize his 
 extraordinary qualities. In Europe as well as in America 
 his name was already linked with that of George "Washing- 
 ton ; and with growing surprise men were beginning to dis- 
 cern in this man, who was greeted on his first advent upon 
 the theatre of international politics with ill suppressed de- 
 rision, those illustrious endowments that have rendered the 
 name of Washington immortal. Even English prejudice 
 had melted and was yielding to the irresistible eloquence of 
 his statesmanship and his more than regal superiority to all 
 that is little, selfish or wrong. I will satisfy myself with a sin- 
 gle testimony by quoting an extract from an English jour- 
 nal jmblished in March last. 
 
 " We all remember the animated eulogium on General 
 Washington, which Lord Macaulay passed parenthetically in 
 his essay on Hampden. ' It was when to the sullen tyranny 
 of Laud and Charles had succeeded the fierce conflict ot sects 
 and factions ambitious of ascendency or burning for revenge, 
 it was when the vices and ignorance which the old tyranny 
 had engendered, threatened the new freedom with destruc- 
 tion, that England missed the sobriety, the self-command, 
 the perfect soundness of judgment, the perfect rectitude of 
 intention to which the history of revolutions furnishes no 
 parallel, or furnishes a parallel in Washington alone.' If 
 that high eulogium Avas fully earned, as it was. by the first 
 great President of the United States, we doubt if it has not 
 been as well earned by the Illinois peasant-proprietor and 
 'village lawyer,' whom, by some divine inspiration or provi- 
 dence, the Republican caucus of 1860 substituted for Mr. 
 SeWard as their nominee for the President's chair. :: ' ' :: ' * 
 Without the advantages of Washington's education or train- 
 
9 
 
 ing, Mr. Lincoln was called from a humble station at the 
 opening of a mighty civil war, to form a government ont of 
 a party in which the habits and traditions of official life did 
 not exist. Finding himself the object of Southern abuse, 
 so fierce and so foul that in any man less passionless it would 
 long ago have stirred up an implacable animosity, mocked 
 at for his official awkwardness, and denounced for his stead- 
 fast' policy by all the democratic section of the loyal States, 
 tried by years of failure before that policy achieved a single 
 great success, further tried by a series of successes so rapid 
 and brilliant that they would have puffed up a smaller mind 
 and overset its balance, embarrassed by the boastfuluess of 
 his people and of his subordinates no less than by his own 
 inexperience in his relations with foreign States, beset by fa- 
 natics of principle on one side who would pay no attention to 
 his obligations as a constitutional ruler, and by fanatics of 
 caste on the other, who were not only deaf to tho claims of 
 justice, but would hear of no policy large enough for a rev- 
 olutionary emergency, Mr. Lincoln has persevered through 
 all without ever giving way to anger, or despondency, or ex- 
 ultation, or popular arrogance, or sectarian fanaticism, or 
 caste prejudice, visibly growing in force of character, in 
 self-possession, and in magnanimity, till in his last short 
 message to Congress on the fourth of March we can detect 
 no longer the rude and illiterate mould of a village lawyer's 
 thought, but find it replaced by a grasp of principle, a dig- 
 nity of manner, and a solemnity of purpose which would 
 have been unworthy neither of Hampden nor of Cromwell, 
 while his gentleness and generosity of feeling towards his 
 foes are almost greater than we should exj)ect from either of 
 them." {The London Spectator) 
 
 And this strong man whom a nation leaned upon, this just 
 man whom no vile epithet hatred could invent, no miscon- 
 struction or calumniation malignity could utter, no injuri- 
 ous doubt or inuendo suspicion could suggest, provoked to 
 retaliate in one unkind word or one angry thing, or swerved 
 him for an instant from what was right and noble, and in 
 his judgment for the best, — this man is gone ! This great 
 
10 
 
 and good man is dead ! Just when he was rising in the es- 
 timation of the whole world to the sphere of the brightest 
 luminary in the political heavens, his light has been in an 
 instant extinguished, and we are buried in a midnight dark- 
 ness, made more fearful by the wails and lamentations of 
 our afflicted nation. May God have mercy upon us. May 
 God send us help even out of the Sanctuary, for vain is our 
 trust in man, whose breath is in his nostrils. 
 
 While we mourn for Abraham Lincoln as children for a fa- 
 ther, we naturally turn to religion for its consolations, and 
 endeavor to cheer ourselves with the hope that he has passed 
 from these scenes of sinful strife into that Heavenly rest that 
 remaineth for the people of God. This hope, so far as we 
 cherish it, is founded chiefly on those evidences of a strongly 
 religious character which abound in all his popular ad- 
 dresses, and in many of the official documents written by 
 his pen ; especially his messages to Congress and his proc- 
 lamations to the people. We know, indeed, that many 
 things have been related of his private life, which would 
 seem to show that he was a sincere and devout Christian. 
 But we are not yet prepared either to accept or deny such 
 hear-say testimony. There is one particular in which he 
 caused Christian people some painful solicitude. We can- 
 not forget, that, while he was calling upon the people to 
 humble themselves before God, he was by his eminent 
 example encouraging those theatrical performances which 
 good men in all ages and countries have regarded as cor- 
 rupting to jmblic morals, and incentives to irreligion, ex- 
 travagance and vice. We are not at liberty, therefore, to 
 overlook the significant fact, that it was in a theatre, and by 
 the hand of an actor, that our President lost his life. It is 
 fair to say, that the education of the stage, where the villain 
 is too often the hero of the play, produced its legitimate 
 effect if it made this actor an assassin, and caused him to 
 proclaim his guilt in the traditional dramatic style, as he 
 sought safety in flight from the very boards on which he 
 had played the mimic wretch he had now in reality himself 
 become. It does seem as if this event were designed in 
 
11 
 
 God's providence to awaken anew our fears and suspicions 
 of the dangerous influence of the stage on the moral sen- 
 timents and habits of the people. It certainly should 
 arouse all Christians to set their faces against it and to 
 guard the children and youth of the church against its per- 
 nicious casuistry and vicious tendency. 
 
 We wish that it had been in some other place than a the- 
 atre, with other surroundings than those where the gay and 
 the dissolute are attracted, that our President had received 
 the summons to meet his God. Yet we are not disposed to 
 judge him harshly. We do not know how far his duties to 
 the public rendered his attendance upon such scenes imper- 
 ative in his own ojjinion. We do know, that he went, on 
 that particular occasion, reluctantly and under some sort of 
 conviction that he ought to gratify those who had been led 
 by the public prints to expect his presence. We should re- 
 member also that the opinions and habits of many good 
 people, unfortunately, would sanction if not justify the 
 President in giving his countenance to this class of public 
 amusements. We do not believe that in doing so, he viola- 
 ted any sense of what was right and proper in his own con- 
 science. He did not entertain those views of the theatre 
 which many of us do ; else he never would have been there, 
 for he was a man true to himself, whom nothing could 
 swerve from what he deemed to be right. We cannot, there- 
 fore, regard his conduct in the matter referred to, however 
 we disapprove of it, as incompatible with a truly Christian 
 character. 
 
 Few public men ever afforded in their words and official 
 acts such abundant evidence of a constant sense of respon- 
 sibility to God and dependence on God ; and we have rea- 
 son, in this fact alone, to indulge the hope that he was a 
 child of God, to regard as credible and likely to be true all 
 that is related of his habits of devout meditation on God's 
 word and of secret prayer, to trust that the supplications of 
 the Christian people of this land in his behalf were not in 
 vain, and to cherish with joyful confidence the faith, inspired 
 by the resurrection of our Redeemer which we this day eel- 
 
 
12 
 
 ebrate, that he was accepted in God's belovefd Son, is now 
 at rest in Jesus, and shall rise again at the great and last 
 day unto everlasting life and unutterable glory. 
 
 But let us return to the consideration of the calamity 
 that has befallen us as a nation ; the greatest calamity, in 
 human judgment, that could have happened to us. And 
 what a commentary is it on the words our President uttered 
 in his last message ! ' Both North and South, he said, were 
 equally confident in the justice of their cause, and appealed 
 to God to justify that confidence. He has not justified 
 either of them wholly.' " The prayers of both could not 
 be answered ; that of neither has been answered fully. 
 The Almighty has his own purposes." 
 
 " The Almighty has His own purposes !" Yes. His own 
 purposes to accomplish by this most mysterious of all 
 events, the death of the man who proclaimed this pregnant 
 truth to the world. Those purposes are hid and undiscov- 
 erable, till God's own Providence brings them to light : and 
 slowly and surely are they revealing themselves. 
 
 It is manifestly one purpose of the Almighty to humble 
 this peoj)le. 
 
 He is calling us to mourning and penitential grief. He 
 has a controversy with us and will not be reconciled till we 
 forsake our sins : till we cleanse our Capitol from drunk- 
 enness, debauchery and voluptuousness : till we restore the 
 holy Sabbath day to its sanctity : till we crush the voracity 
 that devours the public treasure and inflames men with av- 
 arice and covetousness, to the extinction of honor and pro- 
 bity, and maddens them to gamble in every possible way in 
 which money can be made or can be lost : till we restrain 
 the love of pleasure that fills our cities with theatres, their 
 private houses with the noise of midnight revelries, and 
 their public thoroughfares with the resorts of painted vice 
 and sensuality : till we seek God with genuine repentance, 
 and united and fervent prayers and supplications, and receive 
 the outpourings of His Holy Spirit in converting and sancti- 
 fying power on all our churches throughout the length and 
 breadth of our land : till we thus turn again to the Lord, 
 
13 
 
 we cannot expect to escape the repeated chastisements of 
 His rod and increasing manifestations of His displeasure 
 towards ns. 
 
 Again, it is manifestly the purpose of the Almighty to 
 remove our trust in man. 
 
 God has changed our Easter song to-day into a funereal 
 dirge. "How is the strong staff broken, and the beautiful 
 rod !" 
 
 Again, another purpose of the Almighty is revealing itself 
 with a distinctness that can no longer be obscured. 
 
 God means to root out from our land now and forever the 
 curse of slavery and to destroy the power of all its abettors 
 and supporters. Slavery has been differently esteemed the 
 cause or the occasion of the war. Whichever it is, it has 
 become identified with the success or failure of rebellion, 
 it has been the source of the acrimony and virulence with 
 which the war has been waged, it has made itself detestable 
 to the North and to the civilized world by the cruelties with 
 which it is associated and the dastardly and barbarous means 
 by which it has been defended. Its doom is now certain. 
 There can be no j:>eace in the land while slavery exists. I 
 have been slow, very slow, in coming to this conclusion. I 
 have not believed and do not now believe that the great 
 purposes of the Almighty in this Avar are fulfilled in any 
 benefit to the African race. I have, too, been repelled by 
 the Infidelity in God's Word and the distrust of His Provi- 
 dence that have hid themselves under the robes of aboli- 
 tionism and the specious pretences of philanthropy and 
 the rights of man. I had thought that slavery and all forms 
 of despotism were to be terminated by slower processes and 
 recede and vanish as the light and spirit of Christianity 
 advanced. But there is no longer room to doubt or to argue. 
 Abraham Lincoln, with his great catholic views founded in 
 the strongest common sense and his great generous, heart, 
 . ready to forgive and to bear and to forbear, dealt too tenderly 
 with the great evil that has poisoned the Southern heart 
 and inflamed it, till it has destroyed in its advocates too often 
 all sense of honor and justice and produced the miscreants 
 
14 
 
 who have sought to reach what they could not gain in open 
 warfare by the vile hands of the secret incendiary and the 
 brutal assassin ! Abraham Lincoln has been removed be- 
 cause he would have spared those whom God has consigned 
 to destruction. Other counsels must now prevail. The last 
 act of forbearance towards the armed and resisting slave- 
 holder has been recorded. If he will not now submit to the 
 majesty of the law, he must be slain by the law. He must 
 not be spared to hire other incendiaries and assassins, to 
 breed new dissensions and beget new revolutions. We are 
 no longer to extend the hand and welcome him back to all 
 the rights and privileges of citizenship. He has forfeited our 
 confidence. He has proved that he cannot be trusted. Our 
 government can never be safe while he retains the slightest 
 power to assail it, or to plot against it. He must be put out 
 of the way of doing harm : and to this end, slavery must be 
 forever exterminated and all its obstinate and determined 
 abettors and supporters must be disarmed and rendered in- 
 capable forever of conspiring against the Government of 
 these States. 
 
 Such is the profound conviction that has taken possession 
 of the popular mind. It is another proof that the Devil 
 has beguiled the leaders of the rebellion to their own ruin. 
 
 If the murder of Saul, the Lord's anointed, (though Saul 
 died for the benefit of his country ; his death was a good 
 riddance to the land,) demanded instant expiation in the 
 death of the murderer ; — the murder of our honored Presi- 
 dent, through whose death was sought the dissolution of our 
 country, demands the deatli of all who conspired to bring 
 about this event. God who has declared "Vengeance 
 is mine ; I will repay," has put the sword into the hand of 
 the magistrate to execute His vengeance and He will hold 
 this sovereign people accountable if they do not insist that 
 the powers that be, who by their election represent the ma- 
 jesty of the law, shall be a terror to evil doers : not merely 
 to punish past offences, but to deter in the future from the 
 repetition of similar crimes. 
 
 Again, I insist, that no blood-thirsty spirit prompts these 
 
15 
 
 expressions : but the most solemn conviction that the safety 
 of our country and the welfare of mankind demand this in 
 the name of outraged justice. 
 
 Finally, there is reason to hope that we shall ere long see 
 another purpose of the Almighty ripening into fulfilment. 
 The nation, baptized in the blood of their President, will 
 rouse itself to self-assertion and to a final and terrible ter- 
 mination of this war. The blood of Abraham Lincoln drip- 
 ping down from the "high-places" of the land upon the 
 hearts of this people will cement them into one heart, into 
 one purpose. Last week there was cause for anxiety lest 
 divided counsels should continue to distract our people and 
 delay the final settlement of national affairs. Now there 
 will be but one mind, one determination, — resolute, unwav- 
 ering and invincible. With a strong hand all obstacles will 
 be swept away. A policy clear and decided will be adopted : 
 and the result will be a speedier and more permanent settle- 
 ment of our government on the great principles of liberty 
 which lie at its base. The night is rapidly passing away. 
 The day will soon break. We shall have peace and unity, 
 and shall attain national eminence and fulfill our mission to 
 all the earth. 
 
 If Abraham Lincoln has died a martyr for this, he has 
 won a more glorious crown than ever mortal hero wore. 
 For this he would have been willing to die. No volunteer 
 ever more cheerfully gave up his humble life on the field of 
 battle, than Abraham Lincoln would have yielded up his 
 great soul for his country's good. But long, long after peace 
 and prosperity have returned, our souls will be overshadowed 
 by the melancholy recollection of these days of suffering 
 and we will sing our lamentations in the words of the mourners 
 of Israel. "The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places : 
 how are the mighty fallen !" 
 
 
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