Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

waken us to our duty, and startle us into obedience. Make sure work with treason, exterminate rebellion from the land; give no rebel the right to vote, until his contrition is transparent; and if the great ringleaders fall into our hands, as a solemn act of selfprotection, and as a warning to all futurity, mete out to them the extreme penalty of the law. Brand treason for all coming time with the infamy of the gallows. We have no right to trifle with our great responsibilities: we are trustees for posterity, and must transmit to them unimpaired the noble heritage of freedom. "Heal not the wound of the daughter of my people slightly." The blood of our martyr calls us afresh, in no ambiguous language, to renewed self-consecration, courage, and fidelity. Mild and forgiving to repentant prodigals, we must be stern and uncompromising to conquered rebels. Leniency to traitors means death to loyal men. Alas for us, if we leave smouldering embers in our new temple of liberty!

These, then, are the lessons of the sad event which has filled. our hearts with gloom and apprehension,- greater faith in God, greater faithfulness to freedom. Bitter as is our loss, that hallowed blood will not have flowed in vain, if we truly heed its silent eloquence. The sombre drapery of woe, which here, in the house of God, feebly typifies a grief too deep for words, is but a pompous hypocrisy, if we follow not his example for whom we grieve. He may not always have been the first to comprehend the great duty of the hour; but, once comprehended, he was always the first to do it. Pure and tender of heart, wise and firm in action, devout and childlike in spirit, — O Abraham Lincoln, thou hast died for us, and our souls are heavy for thee this day! Take the love which fills our hearts, and the tears which fill our eyes, as our sole return for thy sacrifice of life. We take up the task which drops from thy dying hand; and may a double portion of thy spirit rest upon us!

Dover, N. H., Enquirer, April 27, 1865.

THE NATIONAL BEREAVEMENT:

A DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH,
TAUNTON, MASS., ON SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 16, 1865;

BY REV. CHARLES H. BRIGHAM,

PASTOR OF THE CHURCH.

LAM. ii. 1:

IT

"How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel!"

We

T is a sad and solemn time for our assembly to-day. should have remembered, with anthem and rapture, the new birth of the spirit on the day of the Saviour's rising. We should have kept the double festival of the resurrection of the great Deliverer and the resurrection of this Christian nation. But how suddenly all our joy is changed into woe! How terribly thick darkness has come upon our exhilaration! How God has called in this solemn day his terrors round about us! In what bewilderment of soul, as men stunned and prostrate, we wait for the next tidings! So short an interval, and yet so great a change! Where are we now? and what shall become of us?

Our day of Fasting in the past week was changed to a day of Thanksgiving: we could not mourn when such hope was opened, when there was such brightness of promise, when the agony was over, and the land seemed redeemed and saved. Even the ancient Fast-time of the Christian Church, the memorial

day of the Saviour's death, was made this year a holiday in the land, as it was chosen for the restoration of the nation's banner to the walls from which this banner had been lowered in shame four years ago. But now, on this high holiday of the Church and of the land, we keep our Fast. The whole loyal nation is in mourning. The bells which rang out at the opening of the last week, in every village and hamlet, from the farthest East to the farthest West, their festal peal, at the close of the week tolled their most mournful refrain for the beauty of the land, slain upon its high places. It is a funeral service that invites us, more melancholy than any that has ever called us together; and, with bowed heads, and hearts refusing to be comforted, we wait in our places of prayer, asking only help from the Lord, asking only that the Father above will show us the light of his countenance.

What to say now, - how from this chaos of emotions, this mingling of wrath and fear, of sadness and doubt, of trembling anxiety and stern determination, of incredulous surprise and mournful conviction, this sense of the omnipotence of the alldisposing God, who so strangely baffles our designs, and enforces the folly and vanity of our mortal hopes,-how from this chaos to draw so soon any wise or sober thought, who shall know? Is it possible, is it decent, to make a homily to-day out of this awful catastrophe? Shall we venture to insult this great grief by our cold moralizing, or to put it aside by any auguries of the future? Shall we forecast results, and arrange plans, and cry in frivolous haste, "The king is dead: long live the king!" as we turn from the ruler that was to the ruler that is? Or shall we forget all composure of soul, and summon up the spirit of rage, and cry, "Vengeance, destruction, and death!" for the deed of blood that has been done? Shall the pulpit become this day the instigator of violence, to rouse the bewildered souls of the people to fury? Not so shall it be here. But we will wait humbly

upon the Lord, and only ask that he will enable us to bear this burden.

A great crime has been committed in our land, - a bloodier deed than the nation ever knew, though the land has in these last years in more than metaphor been deluged with blood. It is a crime against the nation, and for it there will be a fearful recompense. God grant that the forebodings of those who see in this the beginning of a reign of terror may not be realized; that the new ruler may have firmness to check all outbreaks, and to enforce the laws even against popular fury! We need not suppress our horror at the crime. We need not disguise our sense of the great danger which it brings upon the land, even in this time when the triumph of our arms seems assured. It may inspirit the leaders of the rebellion, and breathe life into the dying embers. It may encourage the fallen traitors to lift their heads, and make one more struggle for their desperate cause. It may reverse the order so successfully brought in, and restore the iniquities which seemed to be ruined and dead. We may conjure up a hundred evils which shall come from this crime. Yet it is better to look upon the other side of the picture, and see what we have to depend upon, where we stand, even with this terror around us. Our brave armies are still in the field, strong, resolute, hopeful; not to be frightened by any deed of an assassin; ready to follow their leaders, as ready now as ever, against foul treason. We have generals in command, who have been proved competent, wise, faithful, loyal, and who will surely see to it that the Republic shall suffer no detriment. Of the new ruler, whatever may be his defects in habit and his lack in culture, no one can doubt the ability or the patriotism. Unless he shall surround himself with bad advisers, he cannot readily err; he cannot immediately alter the course of things. The nation has force enough, union enough, will enough, to protect itself against any new outbreaks of trea

son. The murder of the ruler comes too late to destroy the Government, too late to create anarchy and confusion, too late to restore the broken power of slavery, too late to give traitors success and credit. There is no rival Government that can be set up against this Government. The assassin has killed but one man: he has not slain the nation. If he had done his work in those years when the traitors were encamped close to the gates of the capital, or when their armies, flushed with victory, had invaded our Northern soil, or even when the rival ruler had his cabinet and his court, his army and navy, it might have brought disaster fearful to contemplate. But now it comes too late. It is a crime useless against the life of the nation, though it may be hideous in the passions it shall engender.

This crime will, nevertheless, teach us several things, which have been often enough urged upon us, but which many of our people are slow to learn. It will teach all classes the foolishness of attempting to conciliate traitors by dealing gently with their offences, and meeting them half-way when they have come into our power. Our murdered President, in opposition to the advice of many of his wisest friends, who knew these Southern traitors and their spirit, who had been their associates, was disposed to treat them kindly, to overlook their crimes, to grant them amnesty, to believe that they might be won back to honor and loyalty. In a few days, probably, his proclamation would have been published, granting such easy terms as would have amazed even

It is safe to say, that no document of that kind will soon be issued. It is safe to say, that, for the present at least, there will be no more compromise with traitors; that there will be no favor shown either to rebels in arms, or rebels who have been forced to lay down their arms. The traitors in our hands will be fitly dealt with by justice and the law, even if they find no quicker or sharper penalty. This act of violence, coming just at

« AnteriorContinuar »