Washington's. He controls a Cabinet, every man of which surpasses him in culture and experience. He thanks them for their advice; he is anxious for their opinions: but he never substitutes them for his own. Their discords do not trouble him; or, when they do, he drops the offending member as quietly as the tree drops down its ripest apple in the fall. He has ruled this people as it has not been ruled since Andrew Jackson's time, yet not in Andrew Jackson's arbitrary way. He ruled by force of character, and not by force of will. He did it quite unconsciously. thought that he was looking up to Mr. Seward. tainly an illusion, and Mr. Seward did not think so. his death, the traitors of the South honored him with and acknowledged that he was not to be despised. There is no doubt, but that he lived to be the vital head of civilization in America, and freedom in the world.

He But it was cer

And, before

their hatred,

Now, it is very plain that this fine potency did not come of honesty nor of benevolence. They were its rich and beautiful adorning. It was not in them to beget a child so strong. At best, they were the conditions of its growth. They were not the cause of it, and it is that which we are seeking. Honesty and benevolence will commend a man to God; but we are more exacting. We do not bow and kneel when these exist apart from other qualities. What were the sources, then, of this man's constantly increasing power? I do not find them hidden in the crannies of his brain. He did not prevail by dint of intellectual superiority. I know that he was sharp and keen. He was not apt to be illogical. He had a passion for destroying sophistries. But these were any thing but rare endowments; and as for fancy and imagination, he had none; and for insight he was not remarkable. His throne was never built on intellectual foundations. It rested on his faith and resolution. His resolute determination was only equalled by his perfect trust. These gave him that

magnetic force which we denominate character, and constituted him a power.

But the operation of his will was as quiet and as irresistible as that of any natural law. There was no fuss and demonstration. He made his soul a sacrifice for sin. He pledged himself to God to make an end of this rebellion. He never doubted that he should accomplish his desire. He never dreamed of being balked in his intention. He felt the weight of all this struggle upon his own heart; and, if he could have lifted it, he would not have done so. So that, when he had carried it four years, the nation entered into his thought, strange as it was, and allowed him, as a privilege, to bear it still. And not until the special task which he accepted, of crushing armed rebellion, had been fairly done, was heaven thrown wide open to receive him. Beyond that point his spirit seemed to halt. His theories of reconstruction did not satisfy himself. An awful prescience haunted him, that other hands would have to manage that. God only knows how many daggers have been blunted against the iron mail of his resolution. There is nothing which can hedge a man about like a strong purpose; and so he went everywhere, armed in this simple way, assured that naught could harm him, if he did not harm himself. This sturdy resolution was of itself enough to make him teem with power. But to this he added faith.

I mean by this, that he was always open to the infinite; that he was expectant, and ready to be constantly corrected and revised. He never settled down into the ruts of dogmatism, refusing to be stirred. It is very strange, if that other which I said of him was true, and this also. But so it happened. And it was a thing which happens scarcely once a century. It was the means of his salvation, this perfect faith in God, united with a will to carry out the dictates of his inspiration. For the Eternal Providence does not give its talents unto those who bury them. No

wonder, then, that he was always placid and serene. Resolved upon his work, and confident that God would give him strength according to his day, why should he not have been? But he knew the price of wisdom, and he lived accordingly. He was an optimist; but he knew well enough that it is God who worketh in us, both to will and do. He did not think that God's work would go on, if his own work, and yours and mine, stopped short, or even flagged. Therefore, he made the most of all the faculties and means at his command. The mental movement of the man was very slow; and yet it made good distances, what with the sense he had of constant oversight and certain ultimate reward. Before, the glorious future beckoned him. The Holy Spirit pricked him from behind.

It was this grand and lofty fatalism which preserved him, when the shafts of treasonable and partisan abuse fell thickest all about him. He accepted these things, with no end of care and pain and misconception, as necessary parts of his condition. There was the task; and there was God who set it. Every thing else was worse than vanity compared with these. But it is very plain, that he was not indifferent to the cruel blows that were levelled at him every day. Instead of this, he was as sensitive as any child. But he had made up his mind what to expect before he started; and, in the silence of his own heart, he had prepared himself for all contingencies:

"As if the man had set his face,

In many a solitary place,

Against the wind and open sky."

And when great men and small met him, at any time or place, they found him perfect in his poise and self-containment; they felt his power; they knew that there was plenty of it in reserve; and, though they did not stop to analyze, they were assured that

its beginning went clear down into the heart of nature, into the life of God. And they bowed themselves before him; and, going on their way, told all men everywhere how excellent he was. And so, in time, he came to be the power which I assert, - the living head of that great body which we call the Time.

But he was not only a centre of force: he was a centre of attraction. And, as yet, I have said nothing which accounts for this. I have said why men honored and respected him, not why they loved him as, perhaps, no other man was ever loved, save by a wife or mother. He might have been as faithful and determined, as honest and as just, as I have said he was, yet not have been beloved. For such qualities must be intellectually apprehended, seen; and it is a proverb, that love is blind. Yet can we turn to all the world, and say, "Behold, how we loved him!” It was because we felt his sympathy with us, and knew that, if we went to see him, even the humblest of us, he would take us by the hand as cordially as if we had a rightful claim upon his time or his affection; it was because of his naturalness and freedom; because he was so void of any thing like affectation or conceit. He was always himself; and it seemed never to occur to him, that he might be something different: although, as such, he was no carpet-knight, no drawing-room celebrity. He lived so deeply, that he lived unconsciously. And, in his way, he was as easy and as gracious as my lord. We loved him, too, because he was so kind; because he would listen while the common soldier told the story of his real or fancied wrongs, or while his wife or mother prayed for his furlough or discharge. And we remember him upon the field of Gettysburg, and at Captain Worden's bedside; and we never shall forget his agony, when Hooker was discomfited. And then we loved him for his sweet and happy disposition. Was ever any one burdened so heavily, and yet so genial and so pleasant under all cares? I doubt not

that he bridged with

laughter many a swelling stream.

I am

glad that it was so. This quality in him has often been condemned. But why? Was not his countenance weary and haggard enough to suit the most exacting fancy? Easier than not, he might have weeded out this quality of mirth. And then he might have gone sheer mad, just for the lack of it. But no: he had a work to do; and how was he straitened until it was accomplished? Thank Heaven that he could sometimes shift the burden just a little! He never laughed at misery. He never thought that slavery was a joke. And it was a providential blessing to us all, that there was this sunny exposure to redeem his life from being altogether dark and troublesome.

And now this man, in whom were mixed so many elements of strength and beauty; whose life was so successful, and so truly so; whose martyr-death so fitly sealed his providential work; whose faith and resolution made him such a force; whose genial warmth and kindly glow endeared him to us all, -is vanished from the earth for ever. His lifeless form still journeys slowly through the country which he loved; but the truthful lips are silent, and the kindly heart is still. And is he lost to us and to the world? Shall we miss, for ever miss, the noble qualities that made him what he was? No, no! If the sin-blackened and incrusted soul of him that robbed us of his mortal presence thought that it would be so, how vainly did he reckon! He is ours in death, more than he was in life! I know how pleasant and how sweet it would have been, if he could have remained with us until brooding peace and universal freedom had settled down to bless the weary land. You should have carried your children and your children's children from afar, to see the face of him who broke the bondman's fetter in the name of God. The joyful tears of such as were oppressed should have bedewed the threshold of his simple home. And now it cannot be. And yet it was expedient