him well was to love with an almost infinite affection. And to have known him much or little is to mourn his loss as if he were indeed our father, and to curse the day that ever treason raised its bloody hand against a life so fair.

And yet the tears which fall upon the dusky cheeks of the enfranchised slave are better worth beholding than any tears which stain your cheeks, or flow from fountains far away across the sea. They shall be more to him in heaven than those which strong men shed against their will; more to him than even the gentlest tears of womanhood. But they shall not fall and sting as other tears which must be shed sooner or later. For such will fall like hissing coals upon the cheeks that have not blushed when the false tongue beneath shot out its base and wicked.slanders, which went like poisoned arrows into a great, tender soul,and yet a soul that was so sweet, that it could quench their poison. And when they, who made these arrows out of hate, and dipped them in the essence of obscenity, shall know at whom they shot them, and how perfect his forgiveness was, theirs shall be grief and misery indeed. There can be no sorrow like this sorrow. Other than this, there is no sorrow like the black man's own, at once so rich and full and tender.

With what awful suddenness did this blow descend, even upon us who thought that we had passed beyond the stage where men can be surprised! With what tenfold horror, then, it must be fraught for those whose only life, as yet, is that of sense and feeling! On the morning of Saturday, the 15th April, I stood in Zion Church, in Charleston, a larger church than Mr. Beecher's, and from two to three thousand of these emancipated ones were there assembled. And when the name of Lincoln was uttered in that presence, it was greeted with such exhibitions of reverence and love as I never saw before. The cheers that went up from that multitude went up from the heart. I wish, my friends, that

you could have been there. They prayed; they sung; they danced for very joy. They hugged their dusky children to their bosoms in the very ecstasy of pleasure and content. Their whole frames trembled with emotion. And I said to myself, "Oh that Lincoln might know of this!" And he did know of it. "Oh that he were here!" I said; and he was there. For, on that very morning, his soul had put away the chains of fleshly limitation; and the uncouth form was lying stiff and cold, where slavery had stricken it. The genius of rebellion had done its worst upon the nation's gentlest, bravest, best.

And now I keep on thinking how it would have been, if this tale of godless murder had been told there in that cursed and battered city to that waiting multitude. Surely it would have frozen their poor hearts. It would have burdened them with a sense of unutterable horror and despair. For they cannot rise to any thing impersonal. They deal with individuals. Even their God is one. They recognize no providential order, only its instruments and its effects. They are free, and "Massa Lincoln " made them so. He was their Christ and their deliverer. And their old enemies have crucified him. God help them when they hear of this! God grant it may not goad them to a swift and terrible revenge! They have borne and forborne so long, may the kind Heavens decree that they be still, as ever, merciful to them that have no mercy! But, oh! how swift and strong and terrible will be the flood of their emotion! How fierce will be their agony! how cold and hard their disappointment! And again I say, God help them! And do you work with him.

I believe that this is the only providential way in which you can be reconciled to this supreme affliction. If you stand silently apart, and brood upon this act of the assassin, and the dear life it has destroyed, what shall keep your tired brain from distraction, your poor weak heart from fierce rebellion? You must forget

yourself, and all the circumstances of this most foul and most unnatural murder. Compare the black man's sorrow with your own: go and behold the tears of the oppressed. You must live for them as did that martyred one whose memory you revere. If need be, you must die for them as he did. You must go to these poor wanderers, and wipe away the tears that shut them out as with a blinding mist from all things heavenly. And it may come to pass, that you shall know that this good man died for you also. The consciousness of carrying out his lofty purposes shall take up its abode in you. And this shall be your recompense. Your loss shall be as gain to you, and your sad heart shall be comforted, if to this end you look about you, and "behold the tears of such as were oppressed."

But come and ponder lovingly with me the life and character of this dear friend of God's eternal justice. There is something very worshipful about him, when you consider merely his concrete appearance, that which he manifested to the world. His steady progress upward, through a thousand hindrances and bars and terrible privations, to the highest point of influence and esteem. One might talk for hours about the obstacles which he encountered and as often overcame. It was his task, as it is every man's, to hew from out a mass of shapeless stuff a name, a character, an influence. But how many find their marble ready and their tools at hand! It was not so with him. He was obliged to quarry his material, and to fashion his tools. But, working diligently, he came at length to shape colossal forms, whose merit shall insure him universal admiration. And this, I say, was very worshipful. Yet it might not have been so. For other men have raised themselves, by slow degrees, from deeper valleys to more lofty heights. of civil power and glory. And yet they are not admirable in any way. And why? And why? Because their end was self. Because they bent God's opportunities into a refuge for their own conceit.

When they might have built these into his altars, they built them into thrones, that they might sit upon them. And they marked the stages of their journey upward with false beacons and with lying monuments. Has not the progress of Napoleon III. been a progressive masquerade? Has he not been a liar and a cheat from its beginning until now? Our Chief Magistrate not only raised himself to noble eminence, but he did this with the appliances of simple justice. Try him by the standard of success, and he does not fall a whit below it. You cannot find in history a more successful life. And yet it was so through no trick or subterfuge. He walked over every inch of the ground. He forded every stream that crossed his way. He rode in no man's carriage. He burdened no man's shoulders. And then, for crown and culmination, no sooner did he find himself on any height of honor, than from that height he hurried back to seek for any who, perchance, had been less fortunate, and point for them the way. No sooner did he win a gift, through prayer and struggle, than he fain would share it with some brother soldier in the ranks of mortal weakness and temptation. So much for his outward life, -a great success, and as such consecrated to great purposes. For this reason, come upon it where you will, it is significant. At every point of his circumference, there were springs connecting with the central power and beauty of his soul. The least act had the flavor of the greatest; and it was as natural for him to strike off four million fetters at a blow, as for him to leave his Cabinet to talk with any soldier's wife, and answer her petition. And his words were deeds also. He never wrote a letter or a message, and he never made a speech, which did not contain something that was fine and memorable. Some of his sentences are like children's prayers, and some of them are as sturdy as the blows he dealt in when he swung his axe upon the border. Some of them soothe like ointment; but anon they pierce like a two

edged sword. But he was very chary of them. And hence, no doubt, the world will cherish them the more. For upon every thing he said or did he stamped his inmost self, as with the signet of a king. And the motto of that signet was the name of God. The form and substance of this man were so related, that to speak of one necessitated mention of the other. True, it were easy to abstract success from every thing beside. But the moment that I spoke of his success as being beautiful, I had to tell you why it was so, and speak of his sincerity. I had to say that he was honest in the methods of his greatness, and that its end was not himself, but human love and helpfulness. I think that he would have preferred to work in a more humble sphere. He hated din and bustle. He had no taste for pomp and circumstance, and he dearly loved the quiet of his home. But he found himself to be a providential man; and thereupon he put his hand in that of the unseen fate and providence, and let it lead him as it would. And it led him into toil more hard, into anxiety more terrible, than any other man has wrought or suffered in these latter days. But he did not grumble; he did not complain. He made no doubt that God knew what was best for him. His honesty and his benevolence were equal to the largest application. They widened with the greater need and opportunity, - the one into justice, the other into universal sympathy.

But, anon, it came to pass that this deep-eyed and tenderhearted man, who had been schooled on wooded slopes and prairie solitudes; whose teachers had been want and deprivation; still somewhat rough and crude and angular,-became a potent, energizing force. He compelled respect from such as would not grant it willingly. One by one the voices of detraction ceased. Lord Lyons goes away regretting that the President is not more utterly respected and admired. Wise men across the sea deliberately write his name high up with Hampden's, Cromwell's,