PSALMS LXXVII: 19.

THY WAY IS IN THE SEA, AND THY PATH IN THE GREAT WATERS, AND THY FOOTSTEPS ARE NOT KNOWN.

How mysterious are the ways of Providence! We have passed through such a week of wonders and contrasts, through such quick alternations of fierce extremes of emotion, out of long anxiety into sudden hope and joy, and anon, from highest jubilee to lowest mourning, that may God have mercy upon us we come into the sanctuary to-day with our minds so agitated, jaded, amazed, that we are unfit to offer anything except a profound acknowledgment of God's inscrutable designs, and an humble prayer for his most needed succor.

How mysterious are the ways of Providence! We felt this, and we said it here but under what opposite conditions! - only three days ago. We had assembled then, at the call of a human magistrate, to humiliate ourselves for our sins; but He who overruleth all had recently sent us such a joyful surprise as to turn our Fast into a Thanksgiving. And now, on this blessed Easter Sunday, which we were expecting to celebrate with double gladness, through the association of our joy

for our country's triumph with our rejoicings for our Redeemer's victory, He has permitted our land to be shrouded with such a tragic gloom as even the radiance of the resurrection cannot wholly dispel. Alas! that the same loving hands which were preparing to grace this sacred altar with those simple but fragrant tokens of our Christian gratitude, should have been called, at the last moment, to entwine around them those drooping emblems of our patriotic woe.*

How mysterious are the ways of Providence! The life which He had protected for four eventful years amidst a thousand dangers; the life which was dear, and every day becoming dearer to all who love our country; the life which, in human view, was most important to the nation's welfare; the life upon whose continuance, more than upon any other mortal pillar, we hung our hopes of a brighter era of justice and of peace; the life which the myriads who are coming out of bondage. have daily commended with prayers and thanksgivings to God; the life which foreign nations, both friendly and jealous, were beginning to respect and honor; the life which, in its peculiar way, was exerting an influence more powerful and extensive than that of any potentate of the old world; the life which legions of armed men stood ready to protect with their own, He has permitted a vile assassin's hand to destroy at one fell blow.

* Several ladies of the church had prepared a cross of "Mayflowers" for the front of the pulpit, and a large basket of rich flowers for the communion-table, in honor of Easter Sunday. On hearing of the President's death they draped the pulpit with flags of the United States, dressed with mourning.

We are told in his holy oracles, that, without Him, not a sparrow falleth to the ground, nor a hair of His servants' heads can be harmed. But He has not interposed

secret hand to shield that honored head from such an ignoble fate. We are told that He counts the tears of His children, and hears every sigh of the solitary sufferer. But He has not thwarted that murderous purpose which has flooded a nation with grief, and extorted a simultaneous wail of anguish from millions of wounded hearts.

Yes, His ways are indeed mysterious! But who of us would question His wisdom or His mercy? "As high as the heavens are above the earth, so are His thoughts higher than our thoughts." Only because they are so exalted are they incomprehensible to us. The darkness which shrouds His plans is caused by their unfathomable depth. We fail to see His goodness, because His love is infinite.

What know we yet of the purposes of His providence in permitting this horrid crime? Who can tell us what consequences God may have foreseen would have resulted from the disappointment of that infernal design? What consequences to the distinguished victim himself, and what to the nation and to humanity? You must discover that secret before you begin to question His wisdom. Who can tell us that greater evil would not have accrued from the arrest, than from the execution of that satanic deed? — greater evil to him whom we lament, to the people to whom he was so unselfishly devoted, and to the cause of those principles which, as he himself once said, were dearer to him than life, and which

ought to be dearer to us also than the life of any mortal, however honored and beloved. You must solve that problem, before you can begin to arraign His goodness. You must pry into the future, and foresee the results which will actually follow from this tragedy, the influence it is to have upon the course and welfare of the country, upon the settlement of the momentous questions that are opening before us, upon the feeling and action of the North and of the South, upon our domestic and foreign relations and policy, upon the great interests of justice, freedom, and Christian civilization, you must look forward and acquaint yourself with these things before you begin to murmur at what He has done, “who seeth the end from the beginning."

Yes, His ways are mysterious, dark, very dark, and awful, as we contemplate them amid these first pangs of bereavement. But not wholly dark even now. Already gleams of light flash upon us through the gloom. Already some tokens of loving kindness find their way to our hearts.

He who so reluctantly inaugurated the war of defence and retribution which treason had forced upon us; he who till the last moment cherished the delusive hope, offspring of his own generous nature, that his rebellious countrymen would relent; he who, through all the stages of the fierce conflict, in spite of the bitterness which it has engendered and the spirit of retaliation it has provoked, has invariably leaned to the side of forgiveness and mercy; he who, whatever errors he may be judged by any to have committed, has under God conducted the nation safely and honorably through its long path of