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Piineral Observances in honor of
Abraham Lincoln,
Nev/ London, 1865,

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IN MEMORIAM.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

NEW LONDON, CONNECTICUT,

IN HONOK OF

ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
Sixteenth President of tho United States,
Wednesday, April 19, 1865,

INCLUDING THE PUBLIC ADDHESSES OP

REV. G. B. WILLCOX,

HEV. THOMAS P. FIELD, D. D

NEW LONDON:
0, PRINCE, No. 4 MAIN STREET,
STARB & FAENHAM, PKINTBRS.
1865,

PEOCLAMATION BY THE MAYOR.

The Nation amidst rejoicings for the great and signal victories of its armies,
has been called to mourn the death of its Chief Magistrate — Abraham Lin
coln, a great and good man, a wise and merciful President, has fallen by the
hands of a Traitor and assassin. The Nation weeps with a bitter and heart
felt sorrow.
Wednesday, April 19th, having been appointed for the funeral of the late
President, Abraham Lincoln, in accordance with the vote of Court of Com
mon Council, of this city, I do direct that the City Flag with drapery of
mourning, be displayed at half mast during said day ; that the church bells be
tolled from fl to 12 o'clock (noon); and our citizens are requested to close
their places of business upon the tolling of the bells, and assemble at their
respective places of worship in accordance with the recommendation of the
Secretary of State at Washington.
The members of the Court of Common Council and other city officers and
officers of the Government of the United States, are requested to unite in a
procession at 2 o'clock P. M., and to appear with suitable badges of mourning.
HIRAM WILLET, Mayor.
Dated at the city of New London, April 18th, 1865.

THE DAY OF MOURNINa.

The 19th day of April, 1865, will long be remembered by
the citizens of New London, as the day of mourning. At an
early hour, the half hour guns commenced firing from Fort
Trumbull, and the revenue cutter James Campbell. Thou
sands of flags were raised at half-mast or otherwise displayed,
draped with the symbols of mourning. Before noon all the
public buildings, nearly every store, and two thirds of the
private residences were trimmed with black. All the mourn
ing goods in the stores were disposed of, and thousands of
black garments were tastefully arranged in windows.
At eleven o'clock the bells commenced tolling. Appropriate
religious services were held in the Episcopal churqh at noon.
At the same hour there was a united service of various de
nominations in the 2d Congregational church. The psalm
commencing with " Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place
through all generations," was chanted by the choir. Eev. Mr.
Wightman read a portion of the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthi
ans. Prayer was offered up by Eev. Mr. Lawrence. The
choir sung the hymn " How blest the righteous when he dies."
An address was delivered by Kev. Mr, Willcox, after ' which
the hymn commencing " Servant of God, well done," was sung
by the choir, and the Benediction was pronounced by Eev.
Mr. Wightman. The procession was formed on State street,
with the right resting at the Court House, and moved at two
o'clock, under the direction of the following officers, who were
selected Tuesday evening :
Col, F. B. LOOMIS, Chief Marshal.
Assistant Marshals.
Dr. W. W. Sheffield, F. W. Fitch, Col. H. E. Bond,
Capt. W, H. Bentley, John L, Bacon, F. L, Allen,

OEDER OF PEOCESSIOK
First Division,
Chief Marshal and Aids,
Police Force.
Third Artillery Band, U. S. A
Detachment of United States Troops,
Masons.
Good Templars,
Fenian Brotherhood,
Committee of Arrangements,
Selectmen, Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Councilmen.
The Eev, Clergy.
Officers of Army, Navy, and Eevenue,
Civil Officers of U. S. Government.
Bartlett Cadets.

Pall Bearers,

Pall Bearers,

Funeral Car
drawn by
Six White Horses.

Pall Bearers,

Pall Bearers,

Second Division,
Assistant Marshal and Aids.
14th Infantry Band, U. S. A.
Detachment from Eevenue Service.
Fire Companies in the order of their numbers.
Employees of Eailroads and Manufactories,
Citizens and Strangers on foot.
Cavalcade of Horsemen.
Citizens in Carriages.

Committee of Arrangements.
F. B, Loomis, Henry Potter, F. L. Allen
Geo, T. Marshall, Alfred Coit, W. H, Bentley,
Geo, Williams, Chas. Middleton, Wm. B. Lewis,
Leonard Hempstead, E. F. Tate.

The Procession countermarched through State street and then
proceeded through the principal streets of the city in the fol
lowing order, viz : — Bank, Truman, Coit, Huntington, Broad,
William, Granite, Hempstead, Federal, Main, returning to State
street. When the procession moved through State street the second
time, it was composed as follows : Mounted marshals, policemen
aud constables, Sd U. S, Artillery Band, playing a dirge, Ma
sons on foot and in carriages, a detachment of Good Templars,
bearing a beautiful U. S, flag draped in mourning, citizens
bearing a splendid silk banner, decorated with portraits of
Lincoln and Hamlin, which was presented by the Norwich
Wide Awakes to the New London Wide Awakes, in 1860,
clergymen, city officers in carriages, mounted marshals, band
of 14th U, S. Infantry, a detachment from the navy, Niagara
Engine Co, No. 1, Protector No. 2, Belief No. 3, Nameaug
Engine Co., Eeliance No, 5, mounted citieens, funeral car with
pall bearers, Bartlett Cadets with musicians. The engines were
most tastefully decorated and drawn by horses.
The funeral car was constructed as follows : A frame work six
feet high and about fifteen feet long, trimmed with black and
white cambric, having a rounding top, an urn on the top centre,
and two shields on each side and one on the rear, was appropri
ately mounted and made a fine appearance. It was made by
Messrs. Staynor & Hammond, and drawn by six white horses.
Each horse had on a black velvet blanket trimmed with white
lace. At about 4 P. M. the procession halted in front of the City
Hall, and after introductory remarks by the Hon. Augustus
Brandegee, prayer was offered by Eev, Dr, Grant, and. an ad
dress was delivered by Eev, Dr, Field, The services were
closed with the Benediction by Eev. Dr. Hallam.

ADDEESS BY REV. G. B. WILLCOX.

We assemble to-day not so much to listen to any
words in the sanctuary, as to hear the occasion itself
speaking in all the grand and mournful pathos of its
silence. We have^ come to a funeraL The remains of
him whom we have gathered to honor are just about to
be borne forth robed for the sepulcher. And yet no bier
stands here before us. No cold face asleep in death lies
awaiting our sad fei-ewells. Far away is the silent and
majestic dead, whom we mourn vdth one consent to-day ;
who though distant is enshrined in the hearts of us all.
In hastily throvidng together, during the few hours of
preparation allowed me, some thoughts appropriate to
the moment, I have been almost instinctively led to the
scene of sacred story which rises at once to the view of
any thoughtful mourner — the scene on the mount where
Moses closed his long career. You find it recorded in
the opening verses of the 34th chapter of Deuteronomy.
" And Moses went up from the plains of Moab, unto
the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over

10
against Jericho ; and the Lord showed him all the land
of Gilead unto Dan, and all Naphtali, and the land of
Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah unto
the utmost sea ; and the south and the plain of the val
ley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, unto Zoar, And
the Lord said unto him, 'This is the land which I
sware unto Abraham, and unto Isaac, and unto Jacob,
saying, I will give it unto thy seed. I have caused
thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go
over thither.' So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died
there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the
Lord," Here came the aged prophet to the close of his event
ful life. And at how many points of contact his history
seems to blend in resemblance with that of our beloved
and lamented Chief !
The Jewish leader had conducted his countrymen
through a course of fortunes more amazing and mo
mentous than any people had experienced before. His
life had covered events that stand out in history as mon
umental ; events that opened a new act in the drama of
the ages. A nation which indeed had existed before,
but existed only in the womb of Egyptian bondage,
had been born into a freer and larger life. Sinai had
emerged from the insignificance of a desolate crag of the
desert, to stand forever as the type of Divine law, thun
dering its wrath against transgression. A new economy
of God had been instituted, and the progress of the
world set forward in the grandest epoch that had yet

11
arrived. All this within the single life and experience
of this one man of God, And have our modern ages
seen a more eventful career than his whose remains Ave
weep over to-day ¦? A nation that if fairly ' born before,
was yet in the swaddling cloths of an old relic of bar
barism, is casting off its bonds for a growth to a nobler
manhood, A purer type of Christianity than the world
has laiown before, is here we hope henceforth to find
not only " a name" but " a local habitation," Many a
christian person had blessed the world with his beautiful
life. A christian people, as we dare believe, is now to
be molded under the plastic hand of God, All this ac
complished or begun within the closing years of the life
we have met to honor.
But the Jewish prophet had attended his countrymen
through a great moral transformation. Starting impeni
tent toward God, like Saul of Tarsus, on their journey,
like him they had come to the end of it humbled and
reverent. They had learned in those years of bitter
suffering, the lessons needed as a fit preparation for en
tering on their inheritance. But what lessons have we
too learned, as a people, under the leadership of our
Moses ! We entered into the howling wilderness of
confusion and war, a nation of oppressors. We oppress
ed the poor in the South with slavery. We oppressed
them in the North with a heathenish prejudice of caste
against a skin not colored like our own. God meant
that we should not emerge from our desert till this
iniquity had been well disposed of. The Je>vs had a

12
forty days' journey before them. The Lord turned it
into a journey of forty years. We babbled about a three
months war, and what have we seen instead ! Our hon
ored Secretary of State predicted a struggle of ninety
days. And now, when four long years have hardly suf
ficed, and we, like the Jews, must leave our loved leader
in his grave, as we enter the Canaan before us, the Sec.
retary has found the war forcing its grim face and its
murderous hand into his own quiet chamber. And this
because we modern Jews were slow to learn God's lesson.
But even into our dull, indocile souls, the Great Teacher
has wrought the lesson at last. The Chief Magistrate
with whom we started still wedded to our sin, has died
on the summit of Pisgah, to leave us measurably cleans
ed of our shame and curse.
Yes, died on the summit of Pisgah. And here have
we another of these sad, touching parallels between
these two most remarkable lives. The old prophet shar
ed the eagerness of his countrymen to enter the promised
land. He, too, like them, was hoping to dwell in peace
after his wanderings, under his own vine, in the land that
flowed with milk and honey. But this could not be.
The Lord leads him up the steep shoulders of Mount
Nebo, till he stands pinnacled on its hoary head, just
under the trailing curtains of the clouds. And there in
thoughtful silence he is suffered to look on the splendid
panorama of Canaan, stretching in fertile beauty far
away in the South to the desert, in the West to the blue
roUmg Mediterranean, and off to the stately mountains

13
of the North. But farther he must not go. Sadly but
submissively he tums him away from the grand and gor
geous vision, seeking the place where the finger of the
Lord has pointed him to lie down and die.
Our honored President was spared the pain of disap
pointed hope. The leaden messenger of death eclipsed
with a sudden unconsciousness his strong and buoyant
spirit. But the fact remains as a sad theme for our
thought, that, after his years of burdensome care and
throbbing anxiety ; after having, under God, brought his
coimtrymen just to the verge of the realization of his
and their fondest hopes ; while he stood with eager eye
and raised arm, pointing us forward to the glorious fu
ture, he fell bleeding and dying, leaving us to pass by to
the promised possession. O, it is well that we wefip to
day ; for a more touching, mournful tragedy has hardly
taken our planet for its theater, since the earth shudder
ed and the sun veiled his face at Calvary ! Thanks be to
God that, if that true and noble heart was not spared to
beat with ours in the joy of returning peace and a coun
try saved, he has passed before us to a better country,
that is a heavenly !
The Nation has been invited to-day, by the appropri
ate officer, to attend this funeral. They would have
attended it without an invitation. They could not have
found heart for either cares or diversion, while the solemn
dirge was sounding of such beloved dead,
A nation at a funeral ! It is even so ; and God from
on high is looking down on the scene which Himself had

14
ordained for a great and worthy end. The dead march
in the streets of the Capital is heard in every cottage
across the land. It silences the loom and the hammer;
it stills the rising shout over new victories just announc
ed ; and in the awful hush we wait while this endeared,
revered sleeper is borne to the tomb. As if some vast
cloud-shade, broad as the continent, had fallen upon us,
the land is black to-day with the symbols of mourning.
We are not a sentimental people. We are not, like some
foreign nations, quick to show with outward demonstra
tions all the changing phases of our feeling. But an
occasion has come to us impressive enough to move even
the habitual calm and reserve of New England life. We
are responding on a grander scale, with a deeper sincerity
perhaps, than has ever been known in history, to one
absorbing sorrow. The story is told in Scottish tradi
tion of a laird who projected a gigantic Eolian harp.
Stretching his chords from the summit of one neighbor
ing hill to another, he listened at evening while the low,
faint wail of the winds playing through them subdued
the whole region to sadness. A grander harp is swept,
my friends, with sadder strains to-day. As the electric
wires quiver with the mournful announcement to the na
tion that the funeral pageant at Washington has taken
its line of march, one broad deep murmur of lament for
the dead, rising and falling with solemn cadence, is borne
onward from mountain range to range across the bosom
of the Continent !
For many reasons he whom we meet to honor was

15
dearer than public men are wont to be to the masses
of his countrymen. He was a man of the people ; a
man, so to speak, of all the people. He represented all.
There were elements entering into his make which an
swered to an immense range and variety of American
character. He was, in many features, the truest type of
the native born republican that has ever yet risen among
us to so high a position. He carried the flavor of the
soil in his qualities. You may see in any geological
cabinet a fragment of rock in which different strata, such
as reach away for leagues beneath the hills and valleys,
happen to have met, and lie layer upon layer. It is the
deep and wide-spread crust of the planet shown up in
miniature. Such a miniature was Abraham Lincoln of
American society. The different grades or tiers of our
society were all represented in liim. He had belonged,
to them all. Beginning his life among the humblest of
the poor, he worked his way, as it is the glory of our
institutions that only an American can work his way, to
the loftiest position on this or any other continent. And
on his way upward, he carried with him the respect
and affection of the men of every grade of intelligence
through which he passed. Every body knows that the
plainest of the people delighted to do him honor. Eyery
body knows that he could nieet them cordially in their
own homely way. But not quite every one is aware
that he could bear himself, when occasion required, with
the dignified courtesy of any gentleman of the Senate
or the Cabinet. We have the testimony for this, if we

16
need it, of no less an authority than Edward Everett.
The miserable scandal about the alleged boorishness of
the President never estranged from him the respect of
any man whose opinion was worth his notice. Had his
manner been open to all the charges falsely brought
against it, the goodness of his heart might have well
been admitted to make all amends. A benignity like his
would have lighted up the roughest exterior with a rare
spiritual beauty. If you have learned that a certain
stone is the Kohinoor diamond, you are little concern
ed whether or not the last polish has been given its sur
face !
There was niuch caviling at one period at the Presi
dent, because he moved on with his measures no faster
in advance of the people. But who now wUl not ac
knowledge his wisdom in that ? He chose to be an index
of public sentiment, without attempting to lead it,- It is
easy to force up the thermometer by holding it over a
fire. But that wUl not change the weather, or hasten
the spring by an hour.
Mr. Lincoln preferred to be lifted from point to point,
not by his own buoyant zeal, but by the rising swell of
the national feeling, bearing him up on its own broad
bosom. Take him first on the 4th of March, 1861, say
ing in his inaugural, " I understand a proposed amend
ment to the Constitution has passed Congress, to the
effect that the Federal Govemment shall never interfere
with the domestic institutions of the States, including
that of persons held to service. * * * * Holding

17
such a provision now to be implied Constitutional law,
I have no objection to its being made express and irrevo
cable," Think of that ! Offering to bind this young
nation to stagger forever under that hideous curse !
Ready to pledge that the slave should interminably
waU in his black despair I But look four years later, to
find this same man urging on Congress a very different
amendment to the Constitution ; an amendment to
abolish American Slavery at once and forever ! Why
now the amazing change to exactly the opposite point
of the compass 1 Is he fickle 1 No man less so. But
he has changed with the American people, being one of
the people. Always hating slavery, but bound by sup
posed Constitutional trammels, he rej pices with the na
tion in finding the trammels cut by the sword of the
rebellion. The tide on the Ganges comes in with a
surging crest, that bears the boatman high on its foam
ing summit far inland along the channel. And the
boatman's safety is in not forcing his little craft forward
over the crest, lest, instead of hastening his progress,
he be only overwhelmed in the seething waters. The
President moved with the tide, since he could not move
faster without rashness and peril.
But the tendemess of his heart toward the poor and
the bitterly wronged was no secret. The slaves were
everywhere his admirers ; everywhere, by the quick in
stinct of misery seeking for sympathy, turned toward
his name as a symbol of hope. In chUdish ignorance
seeing in him a deliverer, they touchingly blended the

18
name of " Massa Linkum" with that of the Eedeemer
of the world. No eulogy could carry a deeper meaning
than that ! And now, as it was yesterday announced,
the poorest negroes in Washington are trying to show
their love for his memory by hanging their wretched
homes in black. They wander about, picking up the
little clippings of muslin and crape thrown aside by
their wealthier neighbors ; and, sewing them into irregu
lar strings, put them up tearfully over their doorways
and windows. O my friends, what is the honor of pa
geants and monuments compared with this ! It is the
deep, pathetic voice of human nature herself, coming up
from her inmost soul to announce her recognition of a
thoroughly good man. These simple children of sor
row and want— the dead President will have no pane
gyric to-day in all this broad land, that wUl equal the
dumb eloquence of thek tears ! And those outbreaks
of violence among the rough, common people of the
great cities, just now, threatening every traitor who dares
rail at the President's memory — these are not mere
explosions of lawlessness. They show the bitter grief
of rude natures, inwardly sobbing with a vehemence
too intense to be trifled with. Call them, if you will, a
poor fashion of honoring the dead. They are at least
sincere. And a sincere grief, however disfigured, is an
honor to any man borne to his grave.
The gentleness of the heart of Mr. Lincoln betrayed
itself in the strangest of all places for such an exhibi
tion — in the public documents issued in his adminis.

19
tration. State papers, in general such stiff models of
frigid precision, became in his hands often warm appeals
from a benignant soul. He travaUed in spirit, he was
ready to weep, over the madness of the South. Hear
him in the first inaugural he addressed to the venemous
traitors who had even theu plotted against his life. "In
your hands my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not
in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Gov
emment vidll not assail you. You can have no conflict
without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no
oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government,
whUe I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, pro
tect and defend it, I am loth to close. We are not
enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though
passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds
of affection." If the rebel General Ewell, the other
day, on his way to confinement as a prisoner of war,
shed tears as is reported, when told ef the President's
death, exclaiming, " We have lost the best friend we
had !" he never said a truer thing in his life.
But every christian at least wiU turn gladly from these
proofs of a mere amiable nature, to enjoy the evidences
left by this noble man that his heart was right toward
God, Eeligion has been so infamously travestied and
burlesqued by the chief conspirator among the rebels,
that one almost dreads to ascribe it to any man foremost
in public life. To see this notorious ringleader of sedi
tion starving and freezing our loyal soldiers beneath his
own eye on Belle Isle and in Libby Prison ; and mean-

20
whUe canting in Fast Day Proclamations about his faith
in an overruling Providence — his religion is of all his
meannesses the meanest. Contrasted with this mis
erable counterfeit, the honest, humble piety of Mr. Lin
coln shone with the finer luster. His last words to his
townsmen at Springfield — how deep their simple-hearted
reverence for God ! " I know not how soon I shall see
you again. * * * * I feel that I cannot succeed
without the same Divine aid which sustained Washing
ton ; and on the same Almighty Being I place my reli
ance for support ; and I hope you, my friends, wUl all
pray that I may receive the Divine assistance, without
which I cannot succeed, but with which success is cer
tain." This, too, was at the lowest point of his religious
life, if not even before it had begun. From this point
it rose like a rising sun, with its mild, strong light in
creasing to the close of his noble life. There are some
men of so fine a quality that honors and distinctions
that inflate the pride of others, are to them only a
means of grace. The higher they rise in their station,
the lower they sink in their humility. And of these
men was he whom we mourn to-day. He was far more
oppressed by the responsibilities, than elated by the hon
or, of his position. He felt life to be good for nothing
but to work in for God's service and men's welfare. And
the Presidency was better than law practice at Spring
field, only because it would help to a more effective work.
No one can have watched the piety of Mr. Lincoln with
out feeling that it differed from that of most other pub-

21
lie men There is a religion of State, the religion that
figures in proclamations and inaugurals, with formal, de
corous recognition of God. But you will look in vain
among the chief men of the nation for one who has so
carried his devout temper, as did the President, into his
closet. He loved to come straight to the matter of per
sonal experience of Christ. When a Methodist preach
er, turning the conversation from national matters, in
quired as to the state of his soul, he welcomed the ques
tion with tears. We have had many great men who
were ready to acknowledge God as Grand Euler of na
tions, — not many who were wUling to say with this
simple-hearted statesman, " I do love Jesus." God grant
us such Presidents in long succession from age to age !
But now that he is gone, and gone by the cruel hand
of a rebel assassin, we have other duties as well as those
of bemoaning his loss. We have the duty of sternly
vindicating this nation against traitors who have mur
derously struck at its life. Our President, in the excess
of his kindness of heart, suffered these venomous crea
tures to breathe the air of his capital. And now the
viper that was warmed in his bosom, has shown its true
nature. It is only a sample of what will happen to the
nation, if the nation pursues the same course! These
leading conspirators are the fangs of the serpent. In
them is the venom. Extract the fangs and the body of
the rebellion that remains will be easily tamed. Banish
them, every man, with the penalty of death for retuming!
and the storm that heaves the continent would sink to a
summer's calm.

23
There are men who would debauch the moral sense of
the nation by talking of this as unchristian resentment.
What can they mean by such language ? Have we not
a Government 1 Are not govemments ordained of God
for the punishment of evil doers, no less than for the
praise of those who do well ? And when a Government
proposes to discharge this high duty, can no motive bet
ter than revenge be ascribed to if? Is this wretched
assassin. Booth, to be executed, if we flnd him, and must
the arch conspirators whose hands are red vdth the blood
of half a million of murders, be left unmolested 1 We
need the sentiment of justice toned up within us to some
higher pitch than this. For if Government is nothing
more than such morbid sentimentality concedes, it was
never worth these years of sanguinary war. And mercy
to the cancer is death to the patient. It will never be
anything else than cancer while it reraains in the body.
They would have us concUiate the Southern leaders
by kindness, drawing them out of their conspiracy by
affection. So the magnetic mountain, in the Eastern
story, drew the nails from the passing vessel, leaving the
ship to fall assunder and sink ! And when the story
comes true, not before, we too may succeed in this policy.
Many truths long familiar, are struck with a sudden
Ulumiaation, by the event we deplore. How inde
pendent is God showing himself to be of all instruments
and agents I We almost thought, some of us, that the
very life of the nation was involved in the life of the
man we so loved and revered. But as a great artist,

23
bringing out some grand figure from the marble, lays by
one implement and takes up another, with his eye chiefly
fixed on the work before him, so the Almighty in mold
ing for all ages the lofty and pearless form of American
liberty. No instrument yet wielded by His hand, has
cut so many a blemish away, and brought to perfection
so many a feature, as the one now laid aside. But still
both the Lord and the nation survive, and the work is
going on.
How touching also is the lesson of life's uncertainty.
Many here present were impressively reminded by the
Pastor of the 1st Congregational Church, on last Fast
Day, of the virtues of the President. How little did
either my brother, or we who sat listening, imagine that
that very day was to rob the nation of such a treasure !
On what a thread our happy hopes were hanging ! A
snap of a pistol, that hardly is noticed aft flrst in the
room in which it occurs, startles the nation like a thun
der peal rolling from ocean to ocean ! Half a million
of brave men armed can do nothing to guard the life of
the man they delighted to honor. So death comes in,
with what calm, stern, resistless step when the time ap
pointed has arrived !
God is preparing the hearts of our countrymen for
some rich blessing in time to come. We had lost our
noble sons and brothers on the fleld of blood ; and the
anguish had chiefly smitten those especially related and
endeared to them. We have now a calamity that star
tles all with impartial shock. The Psalmist sings in

24
praise of the Great Husbandman, " Thou waterest the
earth ; Thou makest it soft with showers ; Thou bles-
sest the springing thereof," The same Lord has a field
under culture in the hearts of our countrymen. He is
making them soft with tearful sorrows. But these melt
ing dews prepare us for a spring-time of beauty, a har
vest of plenty and joy. And when the time of our
chastening at length shall have passed, ,and the new era
of peace shall have davmed with its splendid promise,
no national blessing shall be felt to have exceeded the
life — no national grief to have surpassed in the profit of
its chastening the death — of the man whom the Ameri
can people lament with one heart to-day.

ADDEESS BY EEV. T. P. FIELD, D. D.

Fellow Citizens :
I have been requested by the Mayor and the City
CouncU to say a few words to you at this time ; and
whUe I diffidently accept their invitation, I dare not
trust myself to any merely extemporaneous utterances
on so solemn an occasion. Indeed, no wordsj my friends,
can suitably express the feelings of deep grief that are
within us now, or embody our sentiments of veneration
and affection for the illustrious dead. The slow tolling
of the bells— 'the solemn sound of the minute gun —
the tender strains of music that fall pathetically upon
our ears — these badges . of mourning that hang in
heavy folds around our churches and our homes, and
darken our national flags — these all have a language
more expressive far than that of any human lips. To
day a tide of sorrow such has never been known before,
has rolled over the Continent from the Atlantic to the
Pacific coast. To-day aged parents have mourned as for
a stricken son, and sons and daughters as for a father,

26
and little chUdren have poured forth their teare and
lamentations, and thousands just out of the house of
bondage have bowed as if over the bier of their great
deliverer and friend.
There has been sorrow before in this nation on the
death of Presidents and great men. We remember how
the words " Harrison is dead" smote upon the hearts of
the people ; how the quick departure of Taylor from the
high office to which he had been elected stirred the sen
sibilities of our countrymen ; how when Webster died
it was felt that a tower of civic strength on which the
people leaned had fallen. But in neither of these cases,
nor in any other in our history, with the exception, it
may be, of the death of Washington, was there any
such grief in the hearts of the people as there has been
to-day. The time of the President's death, just as he
was seeing the grand results of his cares and toUs — the
awful manner of his death — the lofty hopes for the fu
ture that were centering in him- — the increasing confl
dence in his wisdom awakened by success — all these
things have deepened the sorrow of the nation and made
these funeral solemnities no empty pageantry, but the
real manifestation of heart-felt grief.
Friends and fellow citizens, a great man has been slain
in the high places of the nation. We have said so often
that he was a good man, that he was an honest man —
we have heard so many of his light and playful sayings
that appeared like little bubbles on the deep current of
his thoughts — that we have failed fully to see how great

27
a man he was. Future generations will do, I believe,
more ample justice to his purely intellectual ability and
power than has ever been done yet.
See him in youth the child of poverty, born and nur
tured in a log cabin at the West, put to hardest toil as
soon as he had strength to labor, cut off from those
means of knowledge and intellectual discipline which
every New England boy possesses, with only about a
year's education in all his life in any school ; see him as
soon as he arrives to years of manhood reaching forth
after knowledge, borrowing the books which he could
not buy, esteem it the greatest treasure when he had
made one his own by three day's hard work ; then giving
himself to the study of the theory and practice of sur
veying land ; then turning his attention to the study of
law, and taking his place speedily among the foremost
lawyers of his State, and achieving fame as an advocate
at the bar ; then chosen to th-e Legislature of his own
State — then to the Congress of the United States, and
felt to be a man of sagacity, of clear and decided views of
political affairs, a man of influence and power ; and could
any one doubt up to that time, who knew of those be
ginnings and that progress, that a rare power of intel
lect was pressing him upward.
Then see him passing through his native State as a
candidate for the United States Senate, addressing pub
lic assemblies with a rival candidate, who was one of
the most ready, most accomplished, most cogent deba
ters that has ever spoken in the Senate chamber. Eead

28
his speeches there and see if they suffer in the compari
son with those of him whom his friends regarded as a
giant in intellect.
Then behold the people of these United States, when
a President was to be chosen, fastening their eyes upon
Abraham Lincoln, as if by instinct, as the representative
man in most trying times. See how necessary it was
that there should be large wisdom, comprehensive knowl
edge of affairs, a deep insight into what must be done,
a steady purpose to do it ; and does not what was ac
complished put the consecrating seal of greatness upon
the mind of him who was so wonderfully successful.
Let us admit that there are wanting in his intellectual
efforts, some of the graces of a man of reflned and fln-
ished culture ; so much the more clearly do we see, per
haps, the solid strength of the mind itself We see that
the structure is of granite, though we faU to see the clip
pings and adornings of the chisel. There are thoughts,
there are sentences, there are words in his messages and
brief speeches and his letters which the world will not
let die. There is an originality in his way of thinking,
and a terse vigor of expression that sent home what he
said to the hearts of the people. The most classical
orator of America — Edward Everett — spoke at the dedi
cation of the cemetery at Gettysburg. The President
followed in a few words of pathos and of power, which
will live and be repeated as long, at least, as the great
oration of the distinguished orator. Hear the conclud
ing words of the President spoken there :

29
" It is for us to be here dedicated to the great task
remaining before us ; that from the honored dead we
take increased devotion to that cause to which they gave
the last full measure of devotion ; that we here highly
resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain ; that
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of free
dom, and that government of the people, by the people,
and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
These were the words of a man who had great force
of thought, power of eloquence, and whose words will
arouse the hearts of his countrymen to purer patriotic
purposes in generation to come.
When I consider what were the beginnings of the
life of Abraham Lincoln — how limited his means of in
tellectual growth and culture — when I see how steadily
he advanced upward till he reached the highest pinacle
of earthly glory — when I see how well and successfully
he did his work in every successive stage of his advance
ment — when I consider what thought, what good judg
ment, what mature statesmanship were requisite to guide
the ship of State through the perilous storms and tem
pests of the last four years, I say that the man who has
been so successful was a great man, and the wise men
and statesmen of future ages will think him greater than
we have thought him to be.
But let men think of this as they may, hardly any
one questions now, or wUl question the purity of his
patriotism. Abraham Lincoln loved his country — his
whole country. He loved the prairies of the West and

30
the hUls of New England, He loved the rolling rivers
and the broad lakes of the land, and the plains warmed
by a Southern sun. He had no taint of sectionalism.
Born in a slave State, he had sympathies with the South;
dwelling in free States, he knew the value of society de
livered from the curse of slavery. He swore, as Presi
dent, to preserve, to protect and defend the Constitution,
and whatever he did as President, he did for that purpose.
He felt the wrong of slavery, yet he did not pretend it
was in any spirit of philanthrophy, or with any purpose
to abolish slavery that he carried on this war. It was
to protect the Constitution and preserve the national
life. When he thought that it was necessary, for this
end, to proclaim emancipation, then, and not till then,
he sent forth his proclamation. He was slow in com
ing to the conclusion of its necessity ; but when he felt
it to be necessary, he did not waver in his decision, and
he has never wavered. If that proclamation was with
drawn, he always said that some one must do it other
than himself He did not like slavery ; but not as an
anti-slavery man did he utter the decree that slavery
should cease, but as one bent on saving the whole nation
under the Constitution.
He hesitated to employ colored men in the army ; but
when he came to the conclusion that this, too, was ne
cessary for the defence and maintenance of the Constitu
tion and the laws, against those who had risen up for
their destruction, he called in this strong element, and
hurled the hosts of the oppressed against their oppres-

31
sors, because he was determined to preserve the nation's
life, and to use every lawful weapon of warfare for its
preservation. Some of us thought Mr, Lincoln was too
slow ; some of us thought he was too, fast in coming to
his conclusion to proclaim emancipation and to make
use of colored soldiers in the war, I am inclined to
think that we shall all come to the opinion, in the end,
that he was about right ; that amid the conflicting opin
ions of our country, and the necessity for public support,
the best time was chosen for the best results. At all
events, that he meant to do the best thing for the coun
try, we cannot doubt, I do not see, I do not believe
that he had one thought of self in the measures he
adopted. I do not believe that the consideration
whether he would be President again, as a consequence
of what he did, ever entered his mind. I do not believe
that the success of his party any farther than he thought
its success to be identified with the welfare of his coun
try, weighed a feather in the scale to determine his de
cision. There is nothing, it appears to me, in his words
or deeds, that would indicate anything like selfishness
or party spirit, but only a patriotism so pure as to make
him one of the noblest examples. Fortunate are we
that we have had such men ; fortunate that at the very
beginning of our nation's history we had one like Wash
ington, whom the world honors, and to whom all the
lovers of freedom look up ; fortunate that in this new
era in our country's history, we have had one like Lin
coln, whose character the foul breath of aspersion can

32
never soU, and in the very thought of which character
all words of detraction wUl soon be silenced forever.
Mr. Lincoln only proclaimed emancipation as a mUi
tary necessity, for the life of the nation, and to preserve
and defend the constitution. Yet he must be knovm in
the future mainly as the Great Emancipator. The pic
ture of Lincoln reading the Emancipation Proclamation
to his Cabinet will be the chief historical picture of his
administration. That administration cannot be thought
of without suggesting the subject of slavery. It was
this that turned traitorous guns toward Fort Sumter,
that humbled our flag over our fortification, that raised
armies against us and starved our men in the dark and
cruel prison-houses. It was this that had been long the
chief disturber of our affairs, that was stretching its
iron hand into the free states, and fettering the press, and
muzzling the pulpit, and making men tremble at the
very name of Liberty. The very atmosphere of our
free country was coming to be almost suffocating in its
influence through the poison of slavery. But how clear
is the air to-day — how pure, how bracing now ! What
a vast change have a few short years wrought! We
seem almost to stand on a new earth and have a new
heaven over us. The sunlight of freedom not only gUds
the hill tops of our land, but has gone dovra into the
darkest valleys; and the name of Lincoln wUl ever
shine with unexampled lustre as the instrument of this
most marvellous change.
My friends, in this last appallmg tragedy that robbed

33
us of the President, we see a symbol of this conflict
that has been going on so long. We see in Lincoln the
representative of freedom. It was mainly because he
was so that he was hunted by the destroyer. We see
in the murderous assassin a representative of the slave
spirit. Not that I can think that the leaders in the re
bellion would have counselled so dastardly a deed, but
it was the slave spirit that awakened the hate and nerved
the arm fbr the guilty work. In this we see what the
spirit of Slavery would gladly have done in our land.
It would have destroyed freedom if it could, and made
itself the one controlling power. But in taking the life
of the good man, the friend of freedom, it, thanks be to
God, did not destroy freedom itself Is not one of the
lessons of our holy religion — one of the lessons of the
cross — this, that though wicked men slay the friend of
truth and goodness, truth and goodness will not die, but
live a more vigorous life by virtue of that death 1 We
shall hear the name of Lincoln mentioned henceforth as
the martyr of Liberty. It will be sung in the songs of
freedom, and cause trembling in the palaces of the tyrant
and oppressor. Tn the meantime let nothing of the
malice and hate that was in the heart of- the destroyer
be in ours. We may properly have a keen sense of jus
tice — retributive justice to the evil doer. That is a vir
tue. That sense of justice needed, it may be, to be deep
ened among us. This awful calamity was needed, it may
be, to effect this object That severe punishment ought
to fall upon those who have brought such terrible evils

34
upon our land, who can doubt ¦? But let not the sense
of justice degenerate into malice or revenge. Let the
spirit of the good man who has gone from us be, in its
essential elements, our spirit still. Thankful are we
th^t there was forgiveness in his heart for his enemies
when he died. He may have been too lenient but he
never could have been weakly indulgent to the violators
of the laws of his country. Had he lived, necessity,
and his own love of justice would have made him strong
to execute the laws in the emergencies of the present
and the future. The closing words of his last Inaugural
Address are words as true and good now, as when they
were delivered at the Capitol, and with these we con
clude our remarks :
" With malice towards 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 wounds, to care for those who shall have
borne the battle, — and for their widows and orphans.
And with all this let us strive for a just and lasting
peace among ourselves and with all nations."

YALE