GOD cannot die. Beyond the reach of the fatal dart of disease, or the withering touch of creeping age, or the breath of the pestilence, or the missiles of battle, or the arm of the cowardly assassin, He lives and reigns; and His throne, girt with justice and judgment, mercy and truth, is forever and ever, and the thoughts of His heart are unto all generations. This is our only consolation to-day.

It would be in vain for me to attempt to speak to you at this time on any other subject than the one which fills every mind and heart; and yet I have nothing to offer but the confused and bewildered thoughts of a mind which is still too much under the influence of the excitement and horror of the recent shock, to be able to act clearly and collectedly.

The tidings were too terrible to be comprehended or credited at once: the President foully assassinated in the very presence of the people, with deliberate forethought; the Secretary of State stabbed while lying on a sick bed, and his attendants killed and wounded. Other

important officers of government, the Secretary of War, the Lieutenant-General of the United States Army, ― escaped only, without doubt, in consequence of unexpected detention from the President's side. Such was

It

the dreadful story. It was ticked off at first, at midnight, to a few blanched faces, and was rejected. It came again with stronger authority. It stared out in grim and terrible lines from the morning papers, making the brain of the reader to reel, and the heart to grow sick It was told in husky and frightened tones by one to another, and with voices choked with tears. leaped from face to face, pale and livid, as we never saw the faces of the people before. It began to fringe the flags, and darken the streets which were but recently so gay. It began to create gloom, and a hush and loneliness in business haunts, which, but a few days since, were filled with crowds and processions and cheers and music. It began to wail from steeple to steeple. It broke at last from the cannon's mouth in solemn thunder. And, at length, we begin to realize to-day, that our beloved President is no more.

It is a terrible national calamity, such as has not fallen upon us since we became a nation. It is an atrocious crime such as is almost unparalleled in history. It is universally regarded as such by the people. Never have they been so moved. No tidings of victory or defeat, not even the intelligence of the first assault upon the flag at Sumter has so stirred the depths of popular feeling. The country is swept to-day by a storm of silent but intense and very dangerous passion.

The feelings which these heavy tidings have univer

sally excited, are— -I mention them in the order in which they naturally arise-horror, grief, rage, anxiety. The country is convulsed with these emotions.

The first emotion experienced by every one upon learning of this terrible event was one of unmitigated horror, and it is a feeling from which we have not yet recovered. There were various things fitted to intensify it. We had not yet recovered from the ecstasies of delight occasioned by victories unprecedented in modern warfare, and which gave promise of speedy peace. The horrible tidings found us on the heights of exultation, and the fall in our feelings, and the shock, were proportionally tremendous. It was of all things the least expected. At an earlier stage in our national troubles, grave apprehensions were entertained of attempts upon the President's life. But for four years the enemy had forborne to resort to assassination; and, among the people of the loyal States, the President had been steadily gaining in the confidence and esteem and love of all. It was hardly imagined that he could have a personal enemy. The crime seemed horrible, because perpetrated upon a person of such high position, the head of a powerful nation, the equal of a king, or rather the superior; for kings rule by birthright, Presidents by the people's choice. It seemed horrible, because it was committed upon a man, of such unoffending goodness. It seemed horrible, because it was committed from such a motive. Assassination is a new weapon in politics in this country. It seemed horrible, because it was a part of a conspiracy against a number of the heads of government, and was executed, so far as it was executed, with

such brutal and blood-thirsty ferocity.

It seemed horrible from the circumstances of its commission. With that confidence in his fellow-citizens which has distinguished every President, and led him to dispense with a body-guard, a confidence which President Lincoln had especial right to feel, he had gone with a part of his family, unattended, to the theatre; not that he cared to go, but that he did not care to disappoint the people. He had been received with unusual demonstrations of enthusiasm and affection. Seated in a rocking-chair by the side of his wife, and with a multitude of his people around him, and regarding him as a father, he rested from the cares of office. Suddenly a man, a man! availing himself of the President's confidence, approached him stealthily from behind, and, without a word of warning, with a coward's hand and eye, fired at his head; then, rushing to the front, dropped upon the stage, brandished a knife, and uttered a tragic exclamation in his last role, disappeared behind the scenes, threaded the familiar passages, emerged into the open air, and escaped. Escaped? Ah, no! he should have committed his crime among some people less unitedly devoted to their Chief Magistrate; he should have done it in the empire of some other God. He will not escape. He may take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the sea; he may make his bed in hell; but he will not escape.

The first feeling of uncontrollable horror is succeeded by one of profound grief. It is not merely sorrow that such a crime should have to darken the annals of American history. It is not merely disappointment in being,