will have different degrees of weight in different minds. For myself, I turn to the future full of hope. Dark as were the heavens yesterday, already the clouds begin to lift. The people will rally from this stunning blow; not simply to the level of their former purpose, but to a more discerning and a more determined purpose. The probable comprehensiveness of the conspiracy is baffled. However it may have aimed at the heads of several of the departments, it counts but a single victim; others escaping by a seeming interposition of providence, impressing us with the truth that " the Lord is our defence; and the Holy One of Israel our king." up. Perhaps we were in danger of forgetting this. The rebellion was manifestly waning: apparently breaking We had out-numbered the rebels, out-generalled them, out-flanked them, out-witted them, and whipped them. Were we not too confidently feeling that we owed it all to a few men? Was not our trust too much in man, too little in God? Did we sufficiently remember that the "Holy One of Israel is our King?" Perhaps, also, we were too little disposed to be thorough in our work. The well-defined labor of war appears to be chiefly past. The difficult, the untried, the unprecedented task of re-construction is before us. Perhaps we had not the nerve for it; were not equal to the stern work of dealing with arch-traitors, of meting out punishment to leading rebels, and hanging wholesale murderers, as we would those of less criminality. Who can say that we have not had a lesson on this point? Who can deny that the magnanimity we were cherishing has received a severe shock, and that we have been made to feel that we should deal with great villains as certainly as with small offenders, and far more severely? Some of our cotemporaries may, indeed, invoke endless perdition on the heads of these assassins of a nation's life; and they as richly deserve it as mortals can. But between endless ruin and absolute exemption from punishment, there is a very broad margin within which the line of duty may fall; and when we remember the very general inclination of the people, the various sects of religionists included, to mitigate the punishment provided by human laws, thus showing, on a broad scale, the popular notion of justice unwarped by religious theories, such inclination may be regarded, within certain limits, as the voice of God, who always mingles mercy with judgment. Let us, then, with one voice, grant forgiveness to the ignorant and deluded, but now repentant masses, and demand expatriation or death for the ambitious, crafty, and fiendish leaders. Thus may we teach all future traitors the hazards of their enterprise, and their probable doom. However such matters may be adjusted, let us not doubt that the people of this widely extended country will prove even more determined than ever. The institutions of the land have lost none of their preciousness. They are not weakened by this sad event. The assassination of our honored President shocks all our hearts; but it gives no shock to the machinery of government. All the heads of departments, and every member of Congress might be cut off, and we should spring to our feet, extemporize another government, and demon strate to the world that we live in institutions rather than in men. Why, indeed, should we be apprehensive? The army remains intact. Our military successes, under God, will continue. Our Lieutenant-General has been thoroughly proved, and bears with him the entire confidence of the nation. His forces are now within supporting distance of each other, while the army of treason is shorn of half its numbers, besides being dispirited and broken. Having accomplished so much, with the blessing of God, how can we fail to finish the work? If there has ever been an hour when we have faltered in our purpose, that hour has now gone by. Henceforth we are a unit, whose energies are consecrated to the most patriotic service. And shall we not find a satisfactory leader in our new, let me say, God-given President. It is true he is as yet untried. But four years ago Abraham Lincoln was untried; and the trial has endeared him to all hearts - has called forth a nation's gratitude in his re-election to the highest office in our gift, and made his death the occasion of a deeper and more general sorrow than we had ever before known. Who can say that his mantle has not fallen on one altogether worthy of it? President Johnson, though untried in that office, is not unknown to the country. Through a long public career, his fidelity has been unquestioned. Born and reared in the midst of slavery, he knows its baneful influence and its crushing power. Cherishing in purest affection the Union and Liberty, he has felt the iron of secession enter his soul. Acquainted minutely and in detail with the spirit and purpose of the rebel leaders, he may be better prepared than Mr. Lincoln himself to estimate their deep demerit, and mete to them the meed of justice as traitors before the law. It is narrated of Mr. Johnson that, in October last, on an occasion of addressing some thousands of colored people in the city of Nashville, if I remember correctly, he exhorted them to patience, and assured them that God would raise up for them a Moses to lead them out of the wilderness. His auditors shouted, "You shall be our Moses!" Mr. Johnson modestly replied that he was not equal to so important a labor. But they repeated their claim, "You shall be our Moses; we want no other than you." "Well, then," said Mr. Johnson, "I will be your Moses." Was this incident prophetic? He will I have rejoiced that our merchants and men of business, both in Boston and New York, have made haste to give him assurances of confidence and support. be surrounded, I trust, by the same experienced advisers who have stayed up the hands of his predecessor, and can command the same resources, and the support of the same constituency, as have borne us through the storm of the last four years. Shall we not all welcome him, then, to our hearts, and pray the blessing of God to be with him? These are grave experiences through which our nation. is passing. The discipline of a life-time is condensed. into the lessons of an hour. The significance of all history from the beginning of the world is in the events of the last few days. Can these events fail to bring us profit? Can we fail to discern the dangers whence we are escaping; the deep wickedness whence they sprang? Can they fail to snatch us out of the ruts of custom and of customary prejudices, and to teach us, mid the sharp chastisements of the Divine hand, the dignity and the glory of right, and the fearfulness of injustice and wrong? Can they fail to purify the nation's heart, and enlarge the promise of its coming glories? Will they not tone down the rebellion itself, and make the leaders turn back from their purpose as from a fathomless abyss ? Who shall assign limits to the providential blessings which late events, victorious and tragic, may be made to yield? A transcendently good man has been taken from us; but other good men remain. Since "God is our defence," since" the Holy One of Israel is our King," we may affirm his continuous watchcare. The very existence of our nation seems providential. The great eras in our history reveal the divine purpose. But no period is equally instructive with that of the last four years. No work is more important or glorious than the emancipation of the slaves. No agent has been more conspicuously providential than Abraham Lincoln himself. Startling, then, as is the manner of his death, who will exclude the event from the overrulings of the divine hand? "God moves in a mysterious way, Providence does not skip events, or omit opportunities. If the crucifixion of our Lord, through the malignities of the Jewish hierarchy, is made a means of the salvation of the world, is it too much to hope that the |