never united before. The Republic is not gone, thank God, but stands out in grander proportions, is established upon a firmer foundation than ever before. In the four days that have passed since the shot that laid Abraham Lincoln low, the work of fifty years in the consolidation of the Republic has been done. The morning of the same day that saw one President die, saw another quietly inaugurated and as quietly performing his functions. Another lesson we have learned is this: that in our government no one man is essential. The IIarpers have just published a book by Louis Napoleon Bonaparte on the Life of Julius Cæsar. Its object is to teach the world that it must be governed by its great men; that they make epochs and not merely mark them. How suddenly that book has been refuted, and what a blow has been given to this gospel of Napoleon, by the assassination of Lincoln and its issues. Here is one greater than Cæsar, struck down as Cæsar was, and yet the pillars of the Republic are unshaken. What a pitiful anachronism does the Imperial plea for Cæsarism appear, in presence of the dead Lincoln, and the mourning, yet living and triumphant Republic! Let us now gather one or two practical lessons for ourselves and our children. Hatred of assassination is one of these lessons, if, indeed, we needed to learn it. The work that Brutus did to Cæsar was just as bad a work as that of Booth to Lincoln. It was centuries before humanity recovered from the poisoned wound it received from the stroke of the dagger that pierced the breast of Cæsar. Teach your children, moreover, not only to hate assassination, but treason as well; for treason breeds assassins, as it breeds all other forms of crime and wrong. You cannot be too severe upon it in your thoughts or in your talk; you are severe upon the rob ber and the assassin; shall you be lenient toward the treason which has begotten both robbery and assassination? Remember, too, that as treason is the parent of assassination, so slavery has been the parent of treason. Is it necessary for me to exhort you to teach your children to hate slavery too? In this one thing I ask you to join with me this day. Let us bow ourselves before Almighty God, and vow that so far as in us lies, none of us will ever agree to any pacification of this land, until slavery be utterly extirpated. never. One more lesson, and not the least. If anything I have said, or anything that you read or hear in these sad days, breeds within you a single revengeful feeling, even towards the leaders of this rebellion, then think of Abraham Lincoln, and pray God to make you merciful. Think of the prayer of Christ, which the President said, after his Saviour, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." Let there be no place for revenge in our souls; justice we may and must demand, but revenge, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." I counsel you also to discountenance all disorder, all attempts by private persons to avenge the public wrong, or even to punish sympathizers with treason. The region of slavery was the natural home of such things as these; let us have none of them. And soon, when the last shackles shall have fallen, and throughout our land, from sea to sea, there shall be no master and no slave, the blessed Peace shall come, for which we have looked, and prayed, and fought so long, when the Republic shall be established upon the eternal foundations of Freedom and Justice, to stand, we trust, by the blessing of God, down to the last syllable of recorded Time. JESUS A WIFE. "THE RESURRECTION." ALBERT S. HUNT, D.D., IN BROOKLYN. AT THE FUNERAL OF MRS. MARY C. FOSS, WIFE OF BISHOP FOSS, BROOKLYN. A Jesus said unto her, I am the Resurrection and the Life." -JOHN xi: 25. FRIEND has been removed. Eight days before God received her to himself she took her little child by the hand, and walking in a meditative and thankful mood to a graveyard, upon one of the hillsides of her native town, seated herself in waiting for a funeral procession, which was to accompany, from the village a few miles distant, the remains of a young patriot, who had given his life to Christ and his country. 66 It is a joy forever," to look upon the landscape which was spread before her, on that bright Sabbath afternoon. She waited long for the funeral train, but the hour of her waiting was not lost. Aside from the numberless associations of her carly life, which could have been awakened only to do her good, the praises which then and there ascended to God, must have moved her soul like a grand choral service. The prophecy was verified "The mountains shall bring peace." But the bearers of the dead are at hand. They enter the gateway. Slowly, silently, and with that peculiar thoughtfulness which makes a funeral in the country so unlike a funeral in the city, the sad train moves toward the grave. The silence is broken by the voice of the minister of Christ. "I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." The soul of our sister was thrilled as it had never been thrilled before, by the peerless glory of this central doctrine of the Gospel. Tears started in her eyes. Then He, whose way it is to "still the enemy by ordaining strength out of the mouth of babes," put it into the heart of her child of two summers to pluck a flower, and with cheering words, place it in her mother's hand, as the answer to those tears. We discover something in the lessons of the hour in the graveyard, culminating as they do in such touching symbolism, which illustrates better than studied devices, Paul's sublime argument concerning the resurrection of the dead. And these words of Jesus, "I am the Resurrection and the Life!" This is the central word of one of the most simple, lucid, and affecting narratives of the Gospel. It implies that the dead shall be raised at the last day, and more, it declares that the power of this final resurrection, even then encompassed the sorrowing Martha, and her sleeping brother. He is the Resurrection and the Life -"the Resurrection" because he is "the Life." Herein rested her hope, and his glory. Let us name some familiar ideas concerning Jesus, upon the consideration of which we may enter with the hope of reaching a position from which our faith may readily lay hold upon him as "the Resurrection." They are these His Wisdom; His Tenderness, and His Power. I. Very many are the evidences we have of the Wisdom of Jesus. He so selects and arranges his proofs, that the heart of humanity opens healthfully under their light and warmth. He does not blind and bewilder us with the glory of the miracle in Bethany, because we have been prepared for it, by less dazzling displays of his power over death. The "ruler's daughter" opens the way for the coming of the "widow's son," and it was needful that both should go before the loved one of Bethany. But more than this, the raising of Lazarus did not furnish full proof of His avowal, "I am the Resurrection and the Life." This miracle, also, was preparatory, and thus humanity was not withered, but cheered by the brilliant testimony which afterward. came from the tomb in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea. Thus, beginning with a meditation upon his Wisdom, we are led in a few steps to his grave, and feel how truly he is "the Way" to himself as "the Resurrection." II. Let us seck another path. Here is the Tenderness of Jesus. It is always manifesting itself. But here in the narrative concerning the sickness and death of Lazarus, are words which give a shock to our faith in his tenderness. The sisters send a message to Jesus. "He whom thou lovest is sick." No more is said. This surely would be enough. It would be a waste of words to add, "Come and see him." They were confident that he would come at once, as the friend and the healer. And do you not hope with them? Would you not have expected that the narrative from this point would read something in this way-Now Jesus loved Martha, and Mary, and Lazarus, and therefore he hastened to Bethany? But it tells us that he loved them, and therefore he tarried for two days where he was. What can explain this apparent inconsistency? The |