ences better fit him for hearkening to the high and fearful behests of immutable and incorruptible Justice.

We have felt the high joys of gratitude to God for the success he has bestowed on our arms.

We have plunged from these heights into an almost abyss of sorrow. Our head dissolves in tears, and our eyes have become fountains of anguish.

Our indignation at the horrible rebellion, and its more horrible resort to the pistol, the dagger, the torch, and the poison of the assassin, flames up into an unquenchable fire. And the very cause of our burning indignation suggests and prompts and urges on to the sure and efficient remedy, the simple administration of justice.

All these powerful emotions subside, at least, into a subdued humility. It is the Lord: let him do as seemeth to him good. But acquiescence in the divine Will by no means implies approbation of the agency by which it is accomplished. Joseph's brethren meant their cruelty for evil to him; but God meant all for good, that he might save Egypt itself, and Israel too, from most fearful calamity. So we humbly submit, in the confident expectation that the nation's felicity and glory will spring up, a luminous and grand Shechinah, over the grave of Abraham Lincoln. And, with this buoyant hope in our hearts, let us remark,

Ist. We are not fighting for our own hearthstones, for our own wives and our children. If this were all, however praiseworthy some may feel it to be, it is narrow, selfish, mean, and bespeaks a soul devoid of the higher and nobler sentiments of a broad philanthropy.

2d. Nor are we fighting for the broad acres of old Pennsylvania, baptized with the blood of a heroic ancestry, shed in support

of the immortal Declaration issued from yonder Hall, in obedience to a nation's will, on the 4th of July, 1776. Freedom here, indeed, and republican government, we claim and herald for all the people of this broad land. But even this were a conception too diminutive for the mustering of such forces, the authorizing of such vast treasuries. Oh, no! The Lord deliver us from these thoughts, suited only to the man of the little soul! for

3d. We are fighting for freedom and republican government over all this nation, over all this northern continent and the world. Here is progressing the gigantic experiment upon human nature, for the solution of the stupendous problem of man's capability of self-government. If our experiment fails; if this nation cannot govern itself; if it is to be divided, dissolved, and plunged into the gulf, the Charybdis of interminable anarchy, or shivered to atoms against the Scylla of military despotism, then is the hope of freedom and republicanism for the world for ever ingulfed. The affirmative of this problem, God is writing out, may we not say, has written out, in the blood of three or four hundred thousand men. Can any man believe that these vast armies, and these hundred battles, in comparison with which Agincourt and Blenheim and Austerlitz and Wagram and. Waterloo and Sebastopol and Solferino are but the skirmishings of pickets on the outposts, can it be believed that all this is merely to determine whether or not a few thousand slave-owners shall drive their human stock, and locate them, upon new lands on our Western borders? Is it for such a purpose as this, God has marshalled these terrible hosts of earnest and courageous men, to fling them upon each other in such awful and undistinguishable courage? Surely not. Surely he is completing the grand demonstration in the eyes of all the nations, that they may read and learn from the blood and fire of a hundred battle-fields, that freemen can put down rebellion and govern themselves.

Yes, my friends, amid this awful scene the true Christian philosopher recognizes the Lord of Hosts as levying and drilling and training the armies; as building the navies, as educating the generals and the admirals, the soldiers and the seamen, for the last and greatest battles of freedom. Despotism, from her iron throne, the world over, looks on in amazement, and trembles in the paralysis of approaching death, at the might that slumbers in a peasant's arm. Probably,- - we say it with an eye upon the prophecies of Holy Scripture, - probably within five years from this time will be fought, on the field of Megiddo, the most fearful, terrific, and decisive of all the bloody battles for freedom and for God. And I cannot believe that the Lord of Hosts will order the general charge on that great and terrible day, until his own American contingent shall have formed its line on the left bank of that ancient river, the river of Kishon. I cannot exclude from my mind the pleasing, dreadful thought, that the Stars and the Stripes will float in grandeur and in glory amid the dust and smoke of that terrific contest. The fond fancy-it may be no more still clings to my soul, that American blood will share largely in the glorious work of consecrating to religion, to freedom, and to God, the great plain of Jezreel.

Thus

But then, obviously, for this we must bring God upon the battle-field. We must honor him, or he will not honor us. did Deborah and Barak on this same field, and he gave them the victory, whilst they ascribe their triumph to him.

Not inconsistently with what I have said of our national sins and army corruptions, I now remark, that there never was a time when more prayer was offered up, more religious effort put forth, more of a liberal, giving, charitable spirit displayed in the churches of our land, than during this war. Whilst, it is true, we have some of the very worst men of the land in our army and navy, it is equally true, we have some of the best also. Our

praying generals and admirals, soldiers and seamen, have wrestled mightily with God, and have prevailed. Books, tracts, religious newspapers have been read more than ever was done in any army under the sun. And these have been blessed, as means for the conversion of thousands. Assuredly hundreds of these army conversions will enter the service of the Captain of our salvation, in aggressive wars against the powers of darkness. Moreover, it is an encouraging fact, that the popular voice of thanksgiving ascended to God from parts and places new and strange. Who ever before heard the Christian doxology,

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow,”

thundering out from ten thousand voices in Wall Street, in Chestnut Street, and other places?

Yes, this is the right spirit. the army, the navy, the

Let us bring God into every thing, sea, and the land; the White House, the halls of Congress, the Courts of Justice, and the election polls. God has placed the sovereignty in the people, and therefore the sovereign cannot ever be assassinated.

Let every freeman walk with God. Let him learn submission to Jesus, by whom kings reign and princes decree justice. With the Son of God as its king, the nation must ever be safe, must ever triumph. Amen.

Philadelphia Inquirer, June 2, 1865.

MEMORIAL SERMON:

DELIVERED IN THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, COLUMBUS, OHIO,
THURSDAY, JUNE 1, 1865;

BY REV. W. R. MARSHALL,

PASTOR OF THE CHURCH.

ROM. ix. 17: "Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth!"

THE

HE great Dr. John M. Mason began an oration on the death of George Washington, in language as follows, — " The offices of this day belong less to eloquence than to grief. An assembled nation, lamenting a father in their departed chief; absorbing every inferior consideration in the sentiments of their common loss; mingling their recollections and their anticipations, their wishes, their regrets, their sympathies and their tears, — is a spectacle not more tender than awful, and excites emotions too mighty for utterance. I should have no right to complain, Americans, if, instead of indulging me with your attention, you should command me to retire, and leave you to weep in the silence of woe. I should deserve the reprimand were I to appear before you with the pretentions of eulogy. No! Eulogy has mistaken her province and her powers, when she assumes for her theme the glory of Washington. His deeds and his virtues are his high eulogium, his deeds most familiar to your memories, his vir