your judiciary in its righteous decisions, and let no mawkish sentiment check the execution of them."

Another sentiment is now called into action.

5. Fear. A new pilot takes the helm. Mysteriously, he did not command our respect on the solemn day in which the nation put the crown upon his brow, and he took the solemn oath of office. He has repented: this is all we ask of him. Everything else in his history. inspires hope, respect, and gratitude. But still, it is not the hand that held the rudder-wheel on those tempestuous nights in which we were running through those narrow channels where ruin lay on either side. Fear naturally arises in such circumstances. It would come up if you were in a steamship at sea, among icebergs, with a captain who had sailed only river-craft until now.

And we have another source of fear. The man who has held the powers of Europe at bay may also be removed. A new man there would naturally awaken solicitude.

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And then, again: how do we know what new phase this assassination may put upon a yet unfinished war ? what new demonstrations of sympathy with treason may spring up in the loyal States ? But when these fears start up, we hear a voice saying to them, "Be still, and know that I am God. I kill, and I make alive. Of whom hast thou been afraid, and hast not remembered ? Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance; he will come and save you." "Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer, and the Holy One of Israel." His

me

say:

aim is to produce in you that confidence which shall "God is my rock, my buckler. In God have I put my trust. I will not fear what man can do unto God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will we not fear though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea."

me.

Feeling was not

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"Be still, and know that I am God." Do nothing rashly, say nothing rashly. Wait until you see the pillar of cloud go before you; then move. Be still. Quiet the agitated sea of your heart. designed to hold the helm, but simply to fill the sails. When trouble comes, be still; so still that you can hear every syllable God is whispering. For, you remember, that when the prophet stood upon the mount before the Lord, and the Lord passed by, there was a great and strong wind" that "rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind, an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake, a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire, a still small voice." There God was. The wind is raging and howling around us now, the earthquake shakes the solid globe; nay, our very hearts. The fire is raging. But if we listen only to them, we shall not hear the Lord. He is not in them. We must be still; for he comes in the still small voice, in a whisper within that soul which waits, above all things, to hear him speak.

Now when we are thus tranquillized, what does the Lord say to us? He says: "I am God."

II. His existence, attributes, providence, grace, and glory are what he would have us to know and permanently recognize. "Be still, and know that I am God."

1. His personal existence he would have us know. Just bring this test home to yourself. Imagine one of your neighbors to deny that you had a personal existence, to try to persuade others that you had not, to treat you as if you had not. Nay, let him affirm that you lack any one attribute of a rational being, - memory, judgment, conscience, affection, how deeply he injures and offends you. And if he be your own beloved child, nurtured and cherished by you, how painful his treatment and estimate of you become! Judge from that how God regards pantheism, polytheism, atheism, theoretic or practical. This nation has manifested atheism very extensively. The Lord says - do so no more. Deny not, forget not my person, my attributes. Be not blind, amid the works of my hands, to my glory. Be not deaf when I speak to you in my word. Treat me as having a heart, an intelligence, a will, of which your own is an imitation. Come as children, and speak to me daily.

Oh! will this nation be still enough now to hear the Lord God Almighty assert his own existence, and declare that excellence which makes the command to love him supremely, infinitely reasonable?

2. His providence he would have us know. It is a providence of care: "upholding all things by the word. of his power." States and families, like the individuals that compose them, "live and move, and have their being" in Him. It is a providence of forethought and

purpose, directing all events to one glorious issue, from the fall of a sparrow, or the shooting of an assassin's pistol, to the overthrow of an empire, making the wrath of man to praise Him, and restraining the remainder. Look at the shortsighted wickedness of Joseph's brethren in sending him into what they supposed would be a lifelong bondage. Look at Pharaoh's oppression, aiming at the extermination of the sons of Jacob, resulting in their becoming the medium of salvation to the world. Look at these conspirators. They have now sealed the verdict of the world; the Confederacy is a conspiracy of assassins. It began with attempted assassination of the chief citizen, the representative man of the nation. It ended in securing his murder. They have murdered their strongest friend, and broken down the last bulwark that kept the popular will from being executed on them. A dark destiny is now before them. And woe to the man that now comes between them and the preparing blow! They have united the loyal citizens more completely in that purpose which will leave in some places no vestige of them but the desolation their wickedness has wrought. They have now made the issue. Die they, or the nation

must.

Is it not wonderful how God secures his ends by the aims and endeavors of those who are attempting to thwart his purposes! See Him, fellow citizens; recognize his purposes concerning us, and his employment of his and our enemies to execute them. His time has come to bring Israel out of bondage, and Pharaoh must do it. His time has come to release our African

brethren, but the, masters must do it. His providence is one of moral judgment. He does not make up the full issue for any individual until death occurs. But communities He judges here. He declares by his servant Malachi: "Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked; between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not. For, behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud,. yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be as stubble.”

What a development have the slaveholders made of their character! Some thought it severe, some untimely, for a senator to utter that sentence of judgment on them, pronouncing slavery barbarous. But the burning day of judgment has now come, and they are witnesses on the stand to the truth of the indictment, — arrogance, treasons, perjury, breach of trust, brow-beating, cruelty, assassination; these are the epithets history will apply to their conduct. The great white throne is set, and black appears black before it. Davis and Stevens, Lee, Toombs and Floyd, Mason and Breckenridge, every naval and military officer that left our service, every member of their Congress, every gaol-keeper that guarded our soldiers in their prisons, every act of violence to our negro soldiers in their hands, every loyal man of the South that they robbed and murdered, the corpse of Abraham Lincoln, the mangled frame of William Seward are their witnesses. Truly there is a Nemesis. They have gone like Judas to their own place in history.

To know God in his providence we must become familiar with his treatment of the Jews. The Old Tes