YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 05423 5024

Butler ,C.M.
Funeral address on the death of
Abraham Lincoln
Philadelphia, 1865

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Gift of
STUART W. JACKSON
Yale 1898

FUNERAL ADDRESS

DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN,

DEjttVERED IN

THE CHURCH OF THE COVENANT, '

April 19, 1865,

w

Rev. C. M. BUTLER, D.D.

PUBLISHED BY REQUEST.

PHILADELPHIA :
HENRY B. ASHHEAD, BOOK AND JOB PRINTER,
Nos. 1102 and 1104 Sanson Stbeet
1865!
—  -~*§»gi^

"^^a

FUNERAL ADDRESS

DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN,

DELIVERED IN

THE CHURCH OF THE COVENANT,

April 19, 1865,

Rev. C. M. BUTLER, D.D.

PUBLISHED BY REQUEST.

PHILADELPHIA:
HENRY B. ASHMEAD, BOOK AND JOB PRINTER,
Nos. 1102 and 1104 Sansok Street.
'l865.

Rev. and Bear Doctor:
We were so inuoli interested, gratified, and, wo hope, benefited, by your
touohing and eloquent address this morning, and felt that it so perfeotly reflooted
the feelings and sentiments of our own hearts, that, desirous in common with many
others of preserving it in a permanent form, we venture to ask a oopy of your notes
for publication. With great respect and esteem,
Truly yours, W. T. Sabine,
Andrew Wheeler,
John Tangdy,
John P. Rhoaps.
James A. Kirkpatrick,
Paul G. Oliver,
Robert Reed,
Samuel Sines,
Charles G-. Sower.
Philadelphia, April 19, 1S65.

West Philadelphia, April 24, 1S65.
Bear Brethren: I have written out as perfectly as my memory would enable me, the
hastily prepared address, delivered from a few meagre notes, which you received so
kindly, and have requested for publication. Consoious as I am that it is your pro
found interest in the subjeot whioh has led to your high estimate of my most
imperfeot presentation of it, I yet too completely sharo the universal desire of tho
people to render honor to the memory of our dear departed President, to fool at
liberty to withhold tho addross from publication.
Very rospeotfully, yours, C. 51. Butler.
Rev. W. T. Sabine, Andrew Wheeler, Ao., <Sco.

TO THE MEMORY

REV. DUDLEY A. TYNG,
ONE OF THE FIRST TO SEE, AND THE BRAVEST TO DENOUNCE THE SYSTEM AND
THE SPIRIT OF SLAVEHOLDING, WHICH HAS PLUNGED OUR COUNTRY INTO
THE HORRORS OF REBELLION AND WAR, AND ASSASSINATED
OUR BELOVED
PRESIDENT LINCOLN,
THIS ADDRESS IS INSCRIBED.

ADDRESS.

We attend to-day an exceedingly solemn and affect
ing funeral service. I say that we attend the service —
because, although the remains of our late lamented
President are not here, we nevertheless take a real and
substantial part in the high and sacred ceremonial ap
pointed for his obsequies. The marvellous agency of
the telegraph has annihilated distances, and brought the
most remote States, as it were, around his bier. And
to-day there is no distinction between friends and
mourners. We are all mourners. There is scarcely a
house in all our broad land which is not draped in the
symbols of sorrow, or a heart that is not heavy with its
reality. We are all children, gathered in passionate and
sobbing grief around the prostrate form of our murdered,
beloved, and honored father. To-day tens of thousands
of ministers of God speak to millions of the assembled
people. Their voice is one, their theme one, their lam
entations and their affectionate eulogies the same. They
all unite in the same faith, the same prayer, the same

vow. Their faith is unshaken that God has not for
saken, though he has chastened us, in our hour of
triumph. Their prayer is that, chastened and corrected,
but not given over unto death, God's " loving correction
may make us great." Their vow is to cleave with new
purpose of heart to the God who in wrath remembers
mercy, and who fits us for high duties only by subject
ing us to the discipline of mighty sorrows.
It is a new thing, this actual participation of a whole
nation in the funeral obsequies of its fallen chief.
When the lamented Henry Clay was buried, a large
portion of the country was conscious, at the moment,
that the mournful ceremonies were in progress ; but not
then, as now, was the whole nation officially invited and
expected to take a part in the funeral obsequies, by
gathering in their houses of worship and joining in the
offices for the burial of the dead. But, indeed, every
thing connected with this tragedy is new. Such a re
bellion as that which has brought this revolting atrocity
in its train is new in the history of the world. There
have been revolutions against oppressive governments,
or in behalf of rights withheld; there have been conspir
acies and revolts like that of Cataline, by bad men for
the indulgence of atrocious passions, and the overthrow
of states ; but, like Cataline's, they have been limited in
their field, and speedily suppressed. But never before
did a revolt from a beneficent government occur for the
purpose of obtaining freedom to make and keep men

slaves ; and never before did so vile a scheme cover such
a wide area with desolation, and hurry such multitudes
into graves, and keep itself alive in evil power for a pe
riod so long. It is a new thing in these latter days to
have at the head of a nation a man of such unique and
simple greatness; and new certainly is that unparalleled
and profound sorrow which has benumbed us into indif
ference for victories, and changed the rapturous hope of
anticipated peace into the inconsolable anguish in which,
for the moment, peace or war, victory or defeat, seem
equal, because he, our father, is not with us to sustain
us in the one and rejoice with us in the other. And
new no less are the stupendous events and contrasts
which have been crowded in the first two weeks of April.
Within that period the triple lines that guarded Peters-
burgh and Richmond have been stormed, General Lee
with the remnant of his army has surrendered, Mobile
has fallen, Raleigh has been occupied, and Jefferson
Davis has become a fugitive, who will either escape in
company with eternal infamy, or be laid hold of by in
exorable justice. Within that period the old tattered
flag of Fort Sumter, reverently preserved for such an
occasion, Avas raised over the ruins of the fortification
from which treason struck it down, on the fourth anni
versary of the fatal day that saw it lowered; and the
same devout soldier who surrendered it with patriotic
agony lifted it to its old place, with a gratitude that was
too sacred to be exultation, amid the choaking cheers of

8

assembled thousands and the thunder of the victorious
fleets and armies. And then, on that very night, when
our beloved President had reached the point which he
had been patiently laboring and hoping to attain for four
long cruel years — at the precise crisis of his profoundest
satisfaction and his brightest promise, he was instantly
struck dead by the hand of an assassin ! Surely these
are solemn events — startling contrasts. Surely the
crime of murdering such a man, so merciful and mag
nanimous, at such a time and amid such events, and
with such a place of honor and veneration in the nation's
heart, is new and unparalleled in its guilt. Surely God
is moving among us with majesty and power, and speak
ing to us in trumpet tones. Let us bow in filial awe
beneath his chastenings, and listen reverently to his
teachings. And now it becomes us to endeavor to interpret this
awful providence, to comprehend the causes and the
character of the profound emotion which fills our hearts,
and to study the solemn lessons which God intends that
we should learn.

We are so startled and stricken by the event, in part,
because we had a strong persuasion that our President
came to the kingdom "for such a time as this;" and was
designated by God as the chosen instrument to take us
safely through the perils and perplexities in which we

are involved. And now he is taken away from us!
Hence we feel bewildered, as well as bereaved. It had
come to be a settled conviction of the people of this
country that Abraham Lincoln had been trained and led
and elected to accomplish the work of our national re
generation. When we look back to the period of his
election, we see that the time was then ripe for revolu
tion. We had been for half a century sowing the wind,
and then was heard the first hoarse breathing of the
awakening whirlwind. The slaveholding South had
been led, through interest, to stifle its convictions ofthe
sin of slavery. It had learned successively to tolerate,
vindicate, and applaud this institution ; until at length
it claimed for it a divine sanction, and denounced as in
fidel all who believed that it was evil. Under its influ
ence, character in the slave States had become arrogant,
dictatorial, self-willed, unrestrained, and, when thwarted,
cruel. It is now evident that the irrepressible moral
conflict between the principles of free and slaveholding
communities was about to be transferred from the arena
of discussion and of politics to the- battle-field. Our
Government was to be tried to the uttermost. We were
to be sorely tried and chastened, but not given over
unto death. In that crisis we looked to Mr. Lincoln to
weather the storm, and felt that God had placed him at
the helm. If when the storm raged highest, and we
seemed about to be engulphed or driven and crushed
upon the rocks, we doubted for a moment his ability and

10
skill, or feared that God had given us up to destruction,
that apprehension did not long continue. We were soon
settled in the conviction that he was our Heaven desig
nated preserver; and that some of the qualities and
peculiarities which had created our misgivings, were
precisely those which fitted him for this fearful crisis.
We saw that he was at the same time firm to principle
and pliant to circumstance — like a ship which is held by
its anchor, but yields gracefully to the sway of tides.
If he had been less firm tq principle, he would have
yielded to the enormous pressure of intimidation and
cajolement which friends and foes brought to bear upon
him. If he had been of more rigid personal will as to
modes and policies, then he could not so wisely have
adapted himself to the rapidly changing exigencies of
the times, and the corresponding 'moods of the public
mind. The nation was to be brought to its present con
victions by the stern logic of events. These convictions
constituted his starting-point. And yet he was ready to
step back, and stand with the people at the point which
they had gained, in the full conviction that they would
soon advance with him to his position. It was this re
ligious faith that our President had been given to us and
fitted for us, in order to save us at this time of peril,
that caused us to be so startled when he was suddenly
removed. It is difficult for us to comprehend, as we no
doubt shall, that his peculiar work was done, his mission
ended, iis reward ready.

11
II.
And we feel this death profoundly, because we affec
tionately regarded Mr. Lincoln as pre-eminently our
President — our chosen and our real representative.
Louis XIV called himself the state. The two Napo
leons have claimed that they were the people repre
sented, — the incarnation of the nation. What Louis
claimed on a theory of divine, and the Napoleons on a
theory of human right, Mr. Lincoln was for us, in our
theory, and in our feeling. He was more than our
official, he was our actual representative. He was the
concentration of our principles., purposes, and feelings —
many consentient wills and hearts compacted into one.
And this is what he supremely wished and aimed to be.
He regarded it as his highest honor and duty to repre
sent the conscience and patriotism and will of this great
nation. He had full faith in the theory of our Govern
ment as a self-government by elected magistrates, which
was no less from God, because it was through and for
the people. Hence he felt that he was sent, not to de
feat, but to further the people's settled will. Hence all
our enthusiasm and generosity and magnanimity and
patriotism were bidden to go to Washington, and to
speak and act through him. Hence, as the incarnation
of all that was best, without that which was poorest and
lowest in us, we loved him as a second and better self—
the possible self which we wished to be. When there
fore he was struck down, stunned and speechless, we

12
too were stunned. We were at first cast into a silent
and stupid apathy of grief, to be succeeded, when we
were roused from it, by a passion of keen and indignant
sorrow. Then it was revealed to us how much we had
loved and confided in him. We had come to feel that
we were sure he was doing wise and right things, even
when we could not see them to be so; because it had
proved to have been so, many times before. We felt
that if we knew all the complications of his position we
should see that he was acting wisely — just as we would
act, and as we would have him act, in such a crisis.
Therefore, when he was so' suddenly removed, it seemed
as if there could be no one to take us into his heart and
counsels as he had done, and understand and feel with
us as had understood and felt. He was our Moses who
had only just taken us over the blood-red sea of rebellion,
and had but begun to sing with us the song of triumph,
when he was taken away; and we had expected that he
would lead us across the desert into the promised land.
But indeed there is no wide desert to pass over. We
are on the borders of that land. On the very day of his
death our great leader had looked upon it from his
Pisgah of observation, and had rejoiced at the goodly
heritage upon which his people were about to enter.
Oh faithless, impatient, sorrowing hearts, Be still, be still.
and know that God is God ; God not only in his justice
but in his rounded attributes of wisdom, righteousness,
and truth, which are all but ministers of his love.

13
III.
Our grief is profound, not only because of the startling
nature of this blow; not only because our President
seemed providentially designated and supremely quali
fied for his high office, but because we had come to feel
for him a warm personal regard, and to take great pride
and satisfaction in his peculiar character and gifts. He
was so utterly void of pretension, so simple and plain in
speech and manners, that it took us some time to learn
that he was no less great than good. We had come to
understand him well and to rejoice in him. He was dis
tinctively a product of our institutions. Most of our
eminent statesmen upon the seaboard have been more or
less modified by the influences of foreign culture and as
sociation. Not so Mr. Lincoln. He had taken into his
great nature all the influences, and ideas, and feelings of
the West, from all its classes ; and stood forth the rep
resentative of its vigor, its humor, its energy, it3 confi
dence and its success. He was one of the most genuine
and truthful of men. He made no professions and had
no affectations ; and was to a marvel, for a man who had
risen from so humble a position, free from egotism. He
had not even that subtlest of all egotism which besets
especially plain men who have risen high; that which
hides itself under the profession of being void of it. He
was simply himself, and acted out himself, and said no
thing about himself.
He had a big and busy brain. His mind was not in-

14
deed elegantly cultured, nor did he possess a brilliant
imagination, nor, so far as we know, strong powers of
philosophical insight into abstruse themes. But his mind
was singularly sound, sagacious and shrewd. It was
also self-distrustful, slow and pains-taking. He came to
understand men and things, not by sudden insight, but
by careful and repeated meditations. He looked wide,
and he looked deep, and he looked all around, and he
looked inside and outside, and he looked many times be
fore he came to a conclusion. And then it was a conclu
sion. And although he was not imaginative, he was
gifted with a sort of witty and quaint fancifulness, which
clothed his thoughts in epigrammatic forms, which com
mended them to the popular apprehension, and fixed
them in the memory. And then the thorough honesty
of the man's nature, and his freedom from passions and
resentments, allowed his clear mind to work strait for
ward to just conclusions. Hence it was that the whole
nation had learned to feel confident that the President
Would not represent their first impulsive and hasty judg
ments, but their sober second thoughts.
But it was the character rather than the intellect of
Mr. Lincoln that made him so dear to the people. His
character was indeed beautiful and noble. So simple,
so honest, so just, so benevolent! I should say that he
was a man of full and tender benevolence, and with an
affectionateness and sensibility that were deep and true
without being sentimental or demonstrative. But he was

15
altogether peculiar in this — that the whole big volume
of his nature rolled on in one current of justice, gener
osity, jnercifulness and magnanimity. There did not
seem to be even any little eddies of resentment and ani
mosity. It was a deep, clear placid stream that filled,
but did not overflow its banks. If it had not the rush
of the torrent, neither did it have its turbidness; if it
was without its sparkle, so also it was without its shal
lowness. It is remarkable, very remarkable, that during
all the exciting years of his administration, there is no
record of a word of passion or resentment spoken or
written by him. There have been no deeds of personal
revenge. Severity was most alien from his kind forgiv
ing and genial nature. Not only in public, as an homage
to the proprieties of his exalted station, has he uttered
no sentiments unbecoming the placable Father of all his
people; but it is well known that in the intimacies of
social life he never gave way to those impulses of indig
nation which were felt for him by all patriotic and loyal
hearts. Never, since our Government was organized,
has such vile vituperation been heaped upon a public
man as upon Mr. Lincoln. Without one particle of reason
for such a representation he has been depicted, at home
and abroad, as a hideous monster in character, in morals
and in manners. And yet he has never noticed these
foul libels. He seems to have known from what spirit
they came, and to have expected them; and to have
estimated the force of the violent passions raised against

16 t
him and his governmrnt, with the unimpassioned calm
ness with which he would calculate mechanical powers-
And yet, no doubt, this persistant defamation muat have
wounded his affectionate and honorable nature. As it
did not embitter, it must have ennobled and exalted
him. When I recently saw him at the anniversary of the
Christian Commission in the Capitol, the central figure
of that vast assembly, as I looked down upon him from
the clerk's desk, I was struck with the change that had
taken place in his countenance since I had last seen him,
three years before. His face was furrowed as by many
cares, but had a strange look of patience, meekness and
fatherhood, mellowing his old look of honest and genial
energy. He entered into the 'exercises of that evening
with an absorbed earnestness which suffered no abate
ment to the end of the five hours during which they con
tinued. It was indeed towards the close of it that a
simple but impressive little ballad, called "Your Mission"
was repeated, as it was whispered to me, by his request.
There were stirring songs of patriotism that night, whose
choruses were like the clash of cymbals ; but that which
he wished to hear again was the simple and touching
little ballad, "Your Mission." There was something very
affecting to me in this circumstance. He seemed to sit
among his people as one of them, and to feel and to de
sire to have them feel that in this great crisis each should
know and fulfill his' work for his country and humanity,
whether that work were great or small. The object of

17
the ballad was to make the humblest feel that he had
some task to do; and that it was important because the
combined result of all that was to be done would be
glorious. At one verse of the ballad sung with exquis
itely simple pathos, I observed that his face worked with
deep emotion. This was the verse —
If you cannot in the conflict,
Prove yourself a soldier true,
If where fire and smoke are thickest,
There's no work for you to do ;
When the battle-field is silent,
You can go with silent tread ;
You can hear away the wounded,
You can cover up the dead.
These things, and things like these — sympathy with
the suffering, generosity to foes, a strong mind and a
full heart, a spirit not of fear, but of love, and of power,
and of a sound mind — these are the characteristics
which have so endeared him to the nation, and explain
its passionate outburst of universal sorrow !
IV.
It is one of the chief elements of our admiration and
reverence for Mr. Lincoln that he was the champion and
emancipator and the martyr to the emancipation, of four
millions of slaves. And yet he was the fartherest possi
ble from being a theoretical, hasty, impulsive reformer.
It is true that from his first entrance into public life he
was profoundly impressed with the evil and the sin of
2

18
slavery, and with its absolute incompatibility with the
first principles of our Republican institutions. He began
his political career with the announcement that there
were two systems, two forms of society — the slave-hold
ing and the free — which could not continue to subsist
side by side. His one great political principle which
shaped all his subsequent opinions and policy, was the
essential equality in right of all men, and therefore the
duty of human governments to secure to them that right
by law. He knew that this was the prime principle of
our confederation; and he believed that the false gloss
upon, it which slavery had introduced would finally be
expunged. But this was always with him a principle,
and never a fanaticism. Hence he was patient, steady,
slow sometimes — too slow and undecided we thought —
in his dealings with it. He did not believe that this
evil fruit of slavery, grafted on the stock of liberty, was
to be removed by cutting down the tree. If he could
not discern how it was to be done, he was very sure it
was not to be done that way ; and had full faith that in
some way it would be accomplished. Hence, never for
a moment did he give in to the feeling of some of the
more vehement anti-slavery men, that the. slave States
might be permitted to establish their secession. That in
his opinion, would be, if not the cutting down of the tree,
at least he feared the throwing of all its generous
juices into the grafted branches, to nourish and multiply
the poisoned fruit. How strong his faith and feeling

19
upon this subject were, appears to us now, with new dis
tinctness, from the remarkable declaration which he made
when he stood under the folds of the flag which he raised
four years ago on Independence Hall. As he thus raised
it and stood beneath it and spoke, he said in substance
to all the world: "This is the banner under which I en
list, and this is what I understand to be meaning of the
service in which I am engaged." His observation was
to the effect that the Declaration of Independence gave
promise that in due time, " the weights should be lifted
from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have
an equal chance;" and to this he added, with a reference
to his own feelings, which was unusual, the solemn assev
eration "that if the country could not be saved without
giving up that principle, he was about to say that he
would rather be assassinated upon the spot than to sur
render it." The Lord be praised that the country has
been saved, not by the sacrifice, but by the maintenance
of that principle; and that he who uttered this noble
sentiment has been the instrument of providence in its
realization. And alas ! he has been assassinated, not
because of its failure, but because he was the agent of
its success. In time, "due" but earlier that he or any
one deemed possible, the awful weight of bondage has
been lifted from the shoulders of an outraged race; and
to us, in dying, he has left the duty of. seeing that they
"have an equal chance." These are plain words, but
they have mighty meanings, and involve lofty obliga
tions.

20
Seldom has any man been placed in a position to be
stow such a boon upon a race, a country, and the world.
For it was not only liberty to four millions of present
slaves, but no less to the multiplying millions of their
descendants, who would have succeeded to their bond
age. It was not only a liberation of the slaves, but of
their masters from the bondage of the evil engendered
by their mastership. It was the liberation of the coun
try from a political dominance and dictation, when the
alternative was resistance with war, or submission with
disgrace. And this magnificent service to his country
Mr. Lincoln did not hurry to render, that he might win
by it the enviable eclat which it could not fail to gain.
He was cautious and slow, lest he should defeat by haste
the result which he felt confident would be wrought out
by time. Few persons now think him to have been pre
cipitate. Many regard him as having hesitated too long.
Now that this act has passed into history, we feel that
God guided him alike in his hesitation and his decision.
If he had been egotistical, and eager, and impassioned,
and impressible, he might have brought on anarchy by
precipitation. If he had not been firm he might have
yielded to the intimidation which the remaining slave
power of the South exercised through its vassels at the
North, and delayed indefinitely, or too long. At the
right, ripe time, he issued his proclamation of eman
cipation. Unparalleled is the boon which to bond and
free, to North and South, he has thereby bestowed.

21
Wilberforce was said to have ascended to Heaven, bear
ing with him the chains of eight hundred thousand eman
cipated slaves. Our wise, and honest, and fearless leader
has emancipated four millions, from the most accursed
and accursing system of slavery which the world ever
witnessed. Alexander, of Russia, has been the honored
instrument of liberating twenty-five millions of his sub
jects from serfdom; bu,t the serfdom of Russia is pale by
the side of the blood-red iniquity of Southern slavery.
Oh, how noble a work was this, and how well performed !
This slavery in our midst was an angry and spreading
cancer directly over the nation's heart, and a steady and
skilful hand was required to cut it out without destroy
ing the life of the body politic, into all of which it would
soon shoot its poisonous fibres. He has destroyed it,
and in destroying it, has fallen. He is a martyr to the
baffled and exasperated slave spirit. He heard and
obeyed the exhortation addressed to him by his country,
by a long enslaved and helpless race, by humanity, by
the ages past, and the coming ages.
Be just and fear not ;
Let all the ends thou aimest at be thy country's,
Thy God's, and truth's ;
Then if thou fallest, thou fallest a blessed martyr.
VI.
But that which gives depth and intensity to the popu
lar emotion, is a feeling of glowing and righteous indig
nation. Let no man be afraid either of the expression,

99

or of the thing which it expresses. It is no part of my
theology to strike Justice out of the character or govern
ment of God. It is no part of my political creed to ex
pel it from human governments as if it were the synonym
of vengeance, and the opposite of mercy. It is no part
of my practical religion to repress the throbbings of
righteous indignation. We must not befool ourselves
and emasculate our religious manhood by substituting a
feeble sentimentality and a sickly pitifulness for crime,
for that noble indignation against wrong which is but
another manifestation of supreme loyalty to right. "And
when he had looked round about on them with angei;
being grieved." Such is the record of the feeling of
Jesus on one occasion, at the cruelty and hypocrisy of
the Jews. I suppose it was essentially the same emo
tion as that which we experience at the sight of evil
doing. And again — if that terrific denunciation of Christ
against the Scribes and Pharisees, when the repeated
"Wo unto you Scribes and Pharisees" sounds like the
whirr of an oft-descending lash, is not the expression of
a righteous indignation — what is it? And again — when
he was unjustly and brutally smitten, and exclaimed :—
"If I have done evil, bear witness of the evil; but if not,
why smitest thou me?" Was he not righteously indig
nant? We shall indeed resemble evil spirits if we allow
righteous reprobation to pass into revenge; but we shall
not resemble God if we seek to keep it from running
into sin by its annihilation. And now I contend that it

23
would not be pious, but inhuman, if we did not regard
this awful crime with swelling indignation. It is not
often that such a crime is possible. It is not often that
one dagger or one bullet can pierce a whole nation's
heart. It is not indignation alone at the poor wretch
who struck the blow, that should be felt. He was in
deed a fit subject for this evil slave spirit to enter and
possess. He was one whose profession and habit it was
to utter great swelling words of sentiment which called
itself brave and noble, while living a base dissipated life,
and giving himself up to all vile and violent passions.
And he must be blind indeed who does not see that it is
to the baffled and enraged slave spirit that our President
has fallen a victim. Who can doubt it? The system
developes of necessity, arrogance, cruelty, and a lordly
will. When rebellion was inaugurated in behalf of this
system of oppression, these qualities were all intensified
and deepened. "Rebellion," says inspiration, "is as the
ski of witchcraft." Witchcraft is a revolt from, and an
attempted independence of Heaven — constituted powers.
And so is rebellion a revolt against the heaven-consti
tuted power of an established, righteous government.
Hence it takes with it as its inspiration and evil enthu
siasm, a fiendish hatred. When it fails in its object and
is driven back, it becomes murderous rage. "Out ofthe
heart" so occupied, proceed murders.
And now what is this poor creature who murdered
our beloved President ? What is he but first a victim

24

and then an instrument of this ovil spirit? What was
his soul but a house swept and garnished for this spirit?
There is good reason to bclicvo that, more than once,
persons high in office and position in this revolted gov
ernment have been occupied with schemes for the Pres
ident's assassination. It is beyond all question that his
murder was arranged and attempted when he first wont
to the Capital. And thus this attempted revolution,
which has abused the noble words liberty and inde
pendence, " to blazon evil deeds and consecrate a crime,"
began with an attempted, and goes out with an executed
assassination ! But whether or no this murder were de
vised or known or connived at by officials, it is assuredly
but the legitimate result of what has been constantly
taught and professed by all classes in the rebel confed
eracy. All their youth have been taught that it would
be a noble deed to remove this monster from the earth.
He would be a nobler than Brutus, and slay a worse than
Csesar, who should do this deed. This system has con
verted gentle women into furies, and high-toned gentle
men into brigands. Oh, it is a fearful thing to be hurried
into a passionate championship for the wrong ! Mothers
have magnified this spirit of murderous revenge, not
against wrong, but against right's resistance of wrong, at
the family board. They have talked murder. Politicians
have shrieked it from the hustings ; individuals have
advertised for it in tho newspapers ; statesmen have de
claimed it in the halls of legislation ; generals have pro-

s

2o
claimed it at tho head of armies ; the public journals
have preached it with passionate iteration. As I have
elsewhere written, this assassination is but the conver
sion of the Richmond Sentinel from a literary to a lit
eral bowie-knife, and of the Examiner into a, revolver,
wielded, not by a theoretical, but an actual assassin. It
is the same spirit that buried our poor boys, after the
battle of Bull Ivun, with their faces downward, and con
verted their skulls into drinking-cups. It is the same
spirit which led to the systematic and slow starving of
our poor prisoners, in the midst of communities which
we have since learned were abounding with provisions.
and in prisons which wore in sight of churches, where
bishop and priest knelt with Jefferson Davis, and called
themselves miserable sinners, and then rose and lifted
no finger to alleviate this unspeakable atrocity. And
that whioh this spirit has so persistently preached has
at length been practiced. Our President has been mur
dered. And now, in full view of the origin and the re
morseless character and the awful wrongs wrought by
this spirit, shall I call upon you to deal gently and for
givingly. I do not say with, this assassin, but with the
spirit which has been his evil inspiration ? Shall I bid
you to repress your indignation at this spirit, and call
that repression Christian meekness and forbearance?
Xt> : In full recollection of the place in which I stand.
and of the sacred office which I bear, I say. solemnly
and calmlv. No ! It were treason to right : it were fra-

26
ternization with evil ; it were to declare yourself, unlike
your Master, not the eternal foe but the ally and apolo
gist of the Devil. Brethren, we must prepare ourselves
for stern duties. While merciful and magnanimous to
the misguided and the penitent, we must hew this Agag
of unrelenting murder in pieces before the Lord. Not —
God forbid ! — in a spirit of revenge, not in unholy zeal
for a holy cause, but in calm and indignant sorrow that
such a spirit should appear among us, and such a duty
devolve upon us, should this work be done. I call upon
you then, in this sacred place, and on this anniversary,
as I understand it to be, of the death of that young
Christian hero, your first pastor, who was the earliest to
see and the bravest to protest against and denounce the
iniquity of slavery, when it was walking dominant in
the high places of power — a moral martyr to this cause,
whom you so generously rescued and sustained — I call
upon you by his cherished memory, and I call upon you
by the memory of our venerated common father, snatched
from us in our hour of extremest need, to breathe here
and now, to Heaven, the solemn vow that you will not
rest from the right use of all your influence and power,
by word and deed, until the last clinging fibres of this
gigantic upas tree, which has so long shed its poison
upon the nation, shall be uprooted from the soil. For
Zion's sake we will not rest, and for Jerusalem's sake
we will not hold our peace, until the righteousness thereof
go forth as brightness and the salvation thereof as a lamp

27
that burneth; until before their blaze this accursed spirit
of oppression of a harmless and helpless race, and of mur
derous hatred of those who would protect them, shall flit
back to its native hell, to appear no more among us.
VI.
The one only consolation in this our great sorrow,
which we can take fully to our hearts to-day, is the un
speakable one of knowing that our beloved President
has been led during the fearful trials to which he has
been subjected to the personal and practical knowledge
of the Redeemer. We believe that he dates his de
cision, and his new experience as a Christian, from the
impressions make upon his mind and heart by visiting
the fearful field of Gettysburgh. And, although the
Christian sentiment of the land regrets that Mr. Lin
coln came to his death in a theatre ; yet we must make
no narrow canons for others' consciences. Hast thou
faith ? Have it to thyself before God. Happy is he
who condemneth not himself in that thing which he al-
loweth." His attendance at that time was evidently
from a good-natured desire to gratify the people, and
not from his own inclination. It is certain that he ex
hibited the fruits and acted upon the principles of a
Christian. Many who profess more, would do well if
they did as much. Many persons in high positions often
feel compelled, as a part of their official duty, to be
present at, many places for which they have no taste, no

28
inclination, and which perhaps they may disapprove.
Let us not too harshly judge them. Let us remember
that the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but
righteousness and .peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.
We rejoice to know that Mr. Lincoln had become a man
of prayer, and had learned to resort in his perplexities
to God. His last immortal inaugural was so full of
Christian sentiment, that it has been called in ridicule
an extract from a sermon. In our assurance of his
Christian character, we find our highest consolation. If
as he disappears we cry out, in our bereavement and an
guish, "My father! my father!" we are consoled as we
are able to add, as we see him escorted to the skies,
"The chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!"
VII.
And now let us strive to gather up some of the lessons
which this dreadful tragedy bequeaths to us. As Mr.
Lincoln passes, he leaves behind some most impressive
teachings. It is said that after his assassination the only
motion which he made was a feeble lifting un of his right
Ox O
hand. That hand never lifted to strike or to oppress;
that hand unstained by bribes ; that hand that had the
habit of being so busy for us, that it moved unconsciously
when the brain that had guided it was benumbed; that
hand which wrote no sentence which dying he need wish
to blot; that hand which penned the immortal proclama
tion of emancipation, and whose last work was mercy 

29
if that hand could have again been lifted in obedience
to a conscious brain and heart, it would have enforced,
in its dying gesticulations, solemn and impressive teach
ings and exhortations. Let us receive them as if they
came from him.
1. He would have exhorted us to new and holy unan
imity in the work of national regeneration.
2. He would have urged us to imitate his own noble
forbearance and magnanimity in dealing with the misled
and misinformed masses, who through a mistaken fury
in avenging fancied wrongs, have brought upon them
selves real wrongs, and have already suffered more than
his kind nature would have prompted him to inflict.
3. And by his death itself another lesson is conveyed
to us which we fear he was too gentle ever to have im
parted ; but the justice of which, could he have forseen
his assassination, he would have been compelled to ad
mit. It is the lesson that, inasmuch as we now see and
know the hideous spirit in which this rebellion has been
conceived and carried on, we will always and everywhere
rebuke it and fight it ; that we will make no truce and
have no fellowship with it; that we will put a just stigma
upon it, and strip off its masks of honorableness and
worth; that we will pay no honor to those who have not
only inaugurated this wanton rebellion, but have carried
it on in a spirit alien from the civilization and Chris
tianity of the age. As for myself, I desire no personal
or church fellowship with those who have led and fo-

30
mented this rebellion, be they Priests or Laymen. Those
who have seen our poor soldiers starve and die in filth
and squalor, and have uttered no protests, and made no
efforts to remove this revolting inhumanity — I desire no
communion with them, until they shall have purged
themselves of complicity with these fearful crimes against
their brethren, or repented in dust and ashes of their
sins. If this shall be schism in the church, it will be
unity with God.
4. Our departed President would have exhorted us to
stand by and support, with our efforts and our prayers,
the successor to his honors and his cares, in whose pa
triotism, energy and ability he placed much confidence.
I was a frequent witness of his heroism and fidelity in
the session of Congress in 1860-61, when, faithful among
the faithless, he alone of all the Senators was uncompro
mising in his loyalty. Let us pray that he may have not
a spirit of fear, but of love, and of power, and of a sound
mind, and that he may have grace both to do justly and
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with his God.
5. And lastly, and as a more personal lesson, let us
learn, that character will ultimately make itself known,
and that if it be true and just it will dispel all slanders
and confute all falsehoods. Mr. Lincoln has never an
swered accusations, he has never complained of the in
numerable falsehoods and criminations to which he was
so long and unjustly subjected. They covered him as

31
the black morning fogs sometimes shroud the sun, but
they have disappeared before the clear shining of his
rounded character as it ascended to the meridian of its
fame and glory.
And now we give our beloved Father up to history.
We need not doubt where his place will be. It will not
be in the blood-red volume where Alexander, and Caesar
and Napoleon are inscribed. But it will be among the
great and good, the benefactors of the race. With the
beneficent Antonines, with William of. Orange, with
Washington, with Wilberforce, with Cavour, with Gara-
baldi — noble Garabaldi, who will now rejoice the more
that he has given the name of Lincoln to the grandchild
of his martyred wife — with these venerated and honored
names will his be gathered. Soon he will be taken from
us. While he yet lies in the Capitol, and while his
obsequies are in progress, he seems yet to be, in
some sense with us. But he is to be put away from us
in a distant grave. No, let me not say that! The great
heart ofthe country opens to receive him, and there shall
he be buried — buried there as they are buried who lie in
green and consecrated spots, where love comes to plant
and tend the flowers which speak of resurrection, and
where sadness is ennobled and cheered alike by memory
and hope — buried there as are the great and good in vast
cathedrals, resting amid the solemnities of lofty worship
and the grandeur of sacred and imperishable architecture,

32
with memorials which tell successive generations of their
virtues and their fame.
Then sorrow not brethren as those without rich present
consolation, as well as hope — for if Jesus died and rose
again, even so, them also that sleep in Jesus will God
bring with him.

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