among Hawaiian missionaries, and others, who had rescued the unfortunate man.

It is an interesting fact, that the very last public address which Mr. Lincoln ever made, March 17, was in reference to colored soldiers being employed by the rebels. He remarked, that he hoped they would try the experiment. In all his efforts in behalf of the colored people of America, he has endeavored to manage the subject with an enlightened regard to the highest Christian duty to his country and to God. Having shown that Mr. Lincoln was actuated, as a public officer, by Christian principle, I am fully confident that he was truly an experimental Christian, one whose Christianity did not begin and end in a mere formal acknowledgment of divine Providence. The following incident is reported by the Rev. Mr. Adams, a Presbyterian minister of Philadelphia. He was on a visit to Washington, and had made an appointment to call upon the President at the White House, at five o'clock in the morning. Says Mr. Adams, "Morning came, and I hastened my toilet, and found myself at a quarter to five in the waitingroom of the President. I asked the usher if I could see Mr. Lincoln. He said I could not. But I have an engagement to meet him this morning.'-'At what hour?'-'At five o'clock.' "Well, sir, he will see you at five.' I then walked to and fro for a few minutes, and, hearing a voice, as if in grave conversation, I asked the servant, Who is talking in the next room?' 'It is the President, sir.'-'Is anybody with him?'-'No, sir, he is reading the Bible.'-'Is that his habit so early in the morning?''Yes, sir, he spends every morning from four o'clock to five in reading the Scriptures, and praying."" How beautiful an illustration this is of the injunction of our Saviour, "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and pray to thy Father which is in secret"! How beautiful an instance of one who followed our Saviour's devotional habit, who, "in the

morning, rising up a great while before day," went out and prayed!

"Prayer, ardent, opens heaven, lets down a stream

Of glory on the consecrated hour

Of man, in audience with the Deity."

The following incident, however, sets forth Mr. Lincoln's views upon the question of vital godliness, in the very strongest light. Several months before his ever-to-be-lamented death, a gentleman called upon him on business. After the business was closed, and they were about to part, the gentleman said to the President, "On leaving home, a friend requested me to ask Mr. Lincoln whether he loved Jesus." The gentleman makes the following report: "The President buried his face in his handkerchief, turned away, and wept. He then turned and said, 'When I left home to take the Chair of State, I requested my countrymen to pray for me. I was not then a Christian. When my son died, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg, and looked upon the graves of our dead heroes, who had fallen in defence of their country, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ. I do love Jesus." This simple and touching confession needs no comment. It opens to the world the heart and religious experience of the good man. The people felt that he was honest in all his dealings with them, and so he was equally honest with himself and God. These few simple utterances, welling up from the depths of his heart, and accompanied with tears, will ever be cherished by Christians of every name and sect as the most precious sayings of his life. They touch the tenderest chord in the Christian's heart. Christians of every name will ever regard him as a brother beloved, but departed; and, when thinking of him as departed, the language of the burial service will not be inappropriate: "It hath pleased Almighty God, in his wise provi

dence, to take out of this world the soul of our deceased brother:"

Think not, my hearers, that I have brought forward these facts and incidents in the life of our lamented President, because I think it requires an argument in the style of special pleading to prove his adherence to the principles of Christianity, and the doctrines of the New Testament. No: his Christian, as well as his public and political, character is known and read of all men. With him, there was no reserve or concealment, His character was perfectly transparent. His faults, as well as his virtues, were equally apparent; —

"And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side."

He went to the theatre on that fatal night, the telegraph informs us, because he wished to please his friends, and not disappoint the people, who were expecting the presence of General Grant.

"His life was gentle and the elements

So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up,
And say to all the world, This was a man."

In turning our thoughts from a contemplation of his character to our bleeding country, the question forces itself upon every thoughtful mind, What will be the effect of Abraham Lincoln's assassination upon the nation? Our latest dates afford us, as yet, no facts by which we can satisfactorily answer this question. Time must determine. Our minds must for the present find consolation in dwelling upon the great truth, that God lives and reigns; and that he is able and "will make the wrath of man to praise Him." We may also recall to mind some of those pages of history, wherein somewhat similar events are recorded. When Brutus and his fellow-assassins smote down Cæsar in the Senate at Rome, they supposed, that, with Cæsar's death, Cæsar's

influence would no longer be felt. They were disappointed. Cæsar disappeared; but, exclaims Cicero, "All the acts of Cæsar's life, his writings, his words, his promises, his thoughts, are more powerful after his death than if he were still alive." So, I trust, and doubt not, it will be with the life, writings, words, promises, thoughts, of Abraham Lincoln. His blood has stamped an impress upon these, which will immeasurably increase their value throughout all coming time.

When the hired assassin, Balthazar Gerard, brought to an untimely end the eventful life of William the Silent, Prince of Orange, on the 10th of July, 1584, Philip II., and all the enemies of civil and religious liberty, imagined, that, with the death of the Prince of Orange, would end his usefulness. But, oh, how disappointed were these men! In the beautiful language of Motley, "The prince was entombed amid the tears of a whole nation. Never was a more extensive, unaffected, and legitimate sorrow felt at the death of any human being. As long as he lived, he was the guiding-star of a whole brave nation; and when he died, the little children cried in the streets." The Commonwealth, which William had liberated for ever from Spanish tyranny, continued to exist, as a great and flourishing Republic, during more than two centuries, under the successive stadtholderates of his sons and descendants. So, I doubt not, a similar result will follow the assassination of the illustrious man, whose most unexpected death we now lament. He died the martyr to liberty. He was assassinated by the hand of Booth; but it was negro-chattel slavery which nerved that arm, and prompted that basest of crimes in the annals of nations. This was the crowning act of the slaveholders' rebellion. Sumter was fired upon on the 12th of April, 1861. Booth shot President Lincoln on the 14th of April, 1865. The same bad animus that first struck down the flag in '61, fired the assassin's bosom, when he smote

down the President,-Commander-in-chief of all the military and naval forces of the Republic. No powers of metaphysical analysis can separate the two. Perhaps it was needed that this crime. of crimes should be perpetrated to arouse the minds of the American people to the awful enormity of the crime of slavery and treason. The deed has been accomplished; and, henceforth and for ever, in the minds of all loyal Americans, and lovers of liberty throughout the world, a stigma has been fastened upon the crime of slavery and treason, which can never be wiped away. However much we may pity the unfortunate dupes of the leaders of that rebellion, the deeds of the instigators and leaders can never be palliated; for their crimes all culminated in Booth's assassination of Abraham Lincoln. How the perpetrator of that crime shall be punished, remains to be seen; but woe be unto those who arouse the wrath of a nation of thirty millions of people! Solomon compares the wrath of a king to "the roaring of a lion," and to "messengers of death;" but to what shall be compared the people's wrath? Mr. Lincoln could not execute that wrath. He found it, from the overflowing kindness of his nature, almost impossible to punish the guilty. Perhaps there was no trait of his character to which his enemies took more exception, and over which his friends more deeply mourned. It sometimes seriously embarrassed the regular administration of justice. The officers of the army and the Government said it was useless to arrest offenders and traitors, for Mr. Lincoln would pardon them. At the last meeting of the Cabinet, held only the day before his death, Mr. Lincoln expressed his determination to deal in the most liberal manner with the rebellious States. As it has been well remarked, "The great, capacious, manly heart of Abraham Lincoln was generous enough to have embraced all within the forgiveness of its loving nature; and, in their madness, they have killed him." The best friend of the rebels was assassi

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