Abraham Lincoln | Page 6

to the tyranny of custom we cannot tell. In public life he was spotless in integrity and dependent upon Divine aid. He had made no public consecration to God in church covenant, but we may not enter the sanctuary of his inner life. He constantly read the holy oracles, and recognized their claim to be the inspired Scriptures.
He felt that religious responsibility when he set forth the Proclamation of Emancipation closing with the sublime sentence: "And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, on military necessity, I invoke the considerable judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God."
In one of the gloomy hours of the struggle he said to a delegation of clergymen: "My hope of success in this great and terrible struggle rests on that immutable foundation, the justice and goodness of God. And when events are very threatening, and prospects very dark, I still hope, in some way which men cannot see, all will be well in the end, because our cause is just and God is on our side."
If, as the executive officer of the nation he erred, it was in excessive tenderness in dealing with criminals. Unsuspecting and pure, he could not credit unmixed guilt in others, and with difficulty could he bring himself to suffer condign punishment to be inflicted. There were times when he was inflexible. In vain did wealth and position plead for Gardner, the slave-captain. As vainly did they for Beall and Johnson. If he was lenient it was the error of amiableness.
In reviewing the administration of Abraham Lincoln, we see in him another of those Providentially called and directed leaders who have been raised up in great crises. His name stands on the roll with those of Moses and Joshua, and William of Orange, and Washington. Not only did Providence raise him up, but it divinely vindicated his dealings with slavery. As emancipation was honored, did the pillar of flame light our hosts on to victory!
In the dawning morn of peace and Union has this leader been slain. When the nation thought it most needed him, has he been basely butchered! As the ship which had been rocking in the waves and bowing before the storm was reaching the harbor, a pirate, who sailed with the passengers, basely stole on deck and shot the pilot at the wheel!
The assassin has been held in abhorrence among all people and in all ages. Here was a foul plot to destroy at one swoop the President, the officers eligible to the succession, the Cabinet, the Lieutenant- General, and no doubt the loyal Governors of the States. That the scheme was successful only in part, God be praised. Never has an assassination produced so terrible a shock. For--
"He had borne his faculties so meek, had been So clear in his great office, that his virtues Do plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against The deep damnation of his taking off."
He fell, and the whole land mourns. Secession smote him in her impotent death-rage, but the State lives on! The reins which dropped from his nerveless hand another grasped, and the nation lives. No revolution comes. No war of rival dynasties! The constitutional successor is in the chief seat of power, and how much secession has taken by this new crime remains to be seen.
Fellow-citizens, there are some duties which press upon us in this hour.
1. We must anew commit ourselves to the work of suppressing rebellion and re-enthroning the majesty of the Union and Constitution. Mr. Lincoln lived until the nation's flag had waved in triumph over every important Southern city; until the proud Southern aristocracy had thrown itself at the feet of its slaves, and with frantic outcries implored salvation at their hands; had lived to walk through Richmond, and be hailed by its dusky freedmen as their deliverer; had lived until he received the report of the surrender of Lee's grand army, and then he was slain. We must complete the work. Onward, until it be wrought. We believe it will be soon, but were it a hundred years it must be accomplished!
2. We must complete the destruction of slavery. Added to its long catalogue of crimes, it has now slain the Lord's Anointed, the man whom he made strong! Now as THE ETERNAL liveth, it must die! By the agonies it has caused, by the uncoffined graves it has filled, by the tears it has wrung from pure women and little children, by our sons and brothers starved to death in its mined prisons, by our beloved Chief Magistrate murdered, by all these do we this day swear unto the LORD that slavery SHALL DIE and that he would save it shall politically die with it!
3. This day, as funeral rites are being said,