endeavored to be right and to do right. His integrity was thorough, all-pervading, all-controlling, and incorruptible. It was the same in every place and relation, in the consideration and control of matters great or small, the same firm and steady principle of power and beauty, that shed a clear and crowning lustre upon all his other excellences of mind and heart, and recommended him to his fellow-citizens as the man, who, in a time of unexampled peril, when the very life of the nation was at stake, should be chosen to occupy in the country, and for the country, its highest post of power and responsibility. How wisely and well, how purely and faithfully, how firmly and steadily, how justly and successfully he did occupy that post, and meet its grave demands, in circumstances of surpassing trial and difficulty, is known to you all, - known to the country and the world; he comprehended from the first the perils to which treason had exposed the freest and best government on the earth, -the vast interests of liberty and humanity that were to be saved or lost forever in the urgent impending conflict. He rose to the dignity and momentousness of the occasion, saw his duty as the Chief Magistrate of a great and imperilled people, and he determined to do his duty, and his whole duty, seeking the guidance and leaning upon the arm of Him of whom it is written, 'He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might He increaseth the strength." Yes, he leaned upon his arm. He recognized and received the truth, that the kingdom is the Lord's and He is the governor among the nations. He remembered that God is in history, and he felt that nowhere had his hand and his mercy been so marvel

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lously conspicuous as in the history of this nation. He hoped and he prayed that that same hand would continue to guide us, and that same mercy continue to abound to us in the time of our greatest need. I speak what I know, and testify what I have often heard him say, when I affirm that that guidance and mercy were the props on which he humbly and habitually leaned; that they were the best hope he had for himself, and for his country. Hence, when he was leaving his home in Illinois, and coming to this city to take his seat in the Executive Chair of a disturbed and troubled nation, he said to the old and tried friends who gathered tearfully around him, and bade him farewell, I leave you with this request, pray for me. They did pray for him, and millions of others prayed for him. Nor did they pray in vain. Their prayers were heard, and the answer appears in all his subsequent history. It shines forth with a heavenly radiance in the whole course and tenor of his administration, from its commencement to its close.

God raised him up for a great and glorious mission, furnished him for his work, and aided him in its accomplishment. Nor was it merely by strength of mind, and honesty of heart, and purity and pertinacity of purpose, that He furnished him. In addition to these things, He gave him a calm and abiding confidence in the overruling providence of God, and in the ultimate triumph of truth and righteousness, through the power and the blessing of God. This confidence strengthened him in all his hours of anxiety and toil, and inspired him with calm and cheering hope, when others were inclining to despondency and gloom. Never shall I forget the em

phasis and the deep emotion with which he said, in this very room, to a company of clergymen and others, who called to pay him their respects in the darkest day of our civil conflict: "Gentlemen, my hope of success, in this great and terrible struggle, rests on that immutable foundation, the justice and goodness of God; and, when events are very threatening, and prospects very dark, I still hope, that in some way which man cannot see, all will be well in the end, because our cause is just, and God is on our side." Such was his sublime and holy faith; and it was an anchor to his soul, both sure and steadfast. It made him firm and strong. It emboldened him in the pathway of duty, however rugged and perilous it might be. It made him valiant for the right, for the cause of God and humanity; and it held him in steady, patient, and unswerving adherence to a policy of administration which he thought, and which we all now think, both God and humanity required him to adopt. We admired and loved him on many accounts; for strong and various reasons. We admired his childlike simplicity; his freedom from guile and deceit; his stanch and sterling integrity; his kind and forgiving temper; his industry and patience; his persistent, self-sacrificing devotion to all the duties of his eminent position, from the least to the greatest; his readiness to hear and consider the cause of the poor and humble, the suffering and the oppressed; his charity for those who questioned the correctness of his opinions and the wisdom of his policy; his wonderful skill in reconciling differences among the friends of the Union, leading them away from abstractions and inducing them to

work together and harmoniously for the common weal; his true and enlarged philanthropy, that knew no distinction of color or race, but regarded all men as brethren, and endowed alike by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, amongst which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; his inflexible purpose, that what freedom had gained in our terrible civil strife should never be lost, and that the end of the war should be the end of slavery, and as a consequence of rebellion; his readiness to spend and be spent for the attainment of such a triumph, a triumph, the blessed fruits of which shall be as wide-spreading as the earth, and as enduring as the sun. All these things commanded and fixed our admiration, and the admiration of the world, and stamped upon his character and life the unmistakable impress of greatness. But more sublime than any or all of these, more holy and influential, more beautiful and strong and sustaining, was his abiding confidence in God, and in the final triumph of truth and righteousness, through him, and for his sake. This was his noblest virtue, his grandest principle; the secret, alike of his strength, his patience, and his success. This, it seems to me, after being near him steadily, and with him often, for more than four years, is the principle by which, more than by any other, he being dead yet speaketh. Yes, by his steady, enduring confidence in God, and in the complete, ultimate success of the cause of God, which is the cause of humanity, more than in any other way, does he now speak to us, and to the nation he loved and served so well. By this he speaks to his successor in office, and

By this he speaks to

charges him to have faith in God. the members of his Cabinet, the men with whom he counselled so often, and associated with so long, and he charges them to have faith in God. By this he speaks to all who occupy positions of influence and authority in these sad and troublous times, and he charges them all to have faith in God. By this he speaks to this great people, as they sit in sackcloth to-day, and weep for him with a bitter wailing, and refuse to be comforted, and he charges them to have faith in God; and by this he will speak through the ages, and to all rulers and peoples in every land, and his message to them will be, Cling to liberty and right, battle for them, bleed for them, die for them if need be, and have confidence in God. Oh that the voice of this testimony may sink down into our hearts to-day, and every day, and into the heart of the nation, and exert its appropriate influence upon our feelings, our faith, our patience, and our devotion to the cause, now dearer to us than ever before, because consecrated by the blood of its most conspicuous defender, its wisest and most fondly trusted friend!

He is dead. But the God in whom he trusted lives,and he can guide and strengthen his successor as he guided and strengthened him. He is dead. But the memory of his virtues, of his wise and patriotic counsels and labors, of his calm and steady faith in God, lives as precious, and will be a power for good in the country quite down to the end of time. He is dead. But the cause he so ardently loved, so ably, patiently, faithfully represented and defended, not for himself only, not for us