dential career, increasing and growing more prominent as the time passed on. We doubt not he has been called to a higher service, in the realms of eternal truth and life. Thus far in the history of our country, no name will so link itself to the name of WASHINGTON, as the name of ABRAHAM LINCOLN. So long as there is an emancipated bondman, or a descendant of his, in this land, so long will that name be revered and remembered, with devoutest gratitude to God.

We bow in the darkness and greatness of our grief submissively to Him, who has permitted our ruler to be taken from us. We trust Him still, for ourselves. and for our country. May the example of the illustrious dead be a copy to our coming statesmen. May his life be a lesson to all the young men of our land, and may God sanctify his death, to the benefit of all.

"Thy converse drew us with delight,

The men of rathe and riper years:
The feeble soul, a haunt of fears,
Forgot his weakness in thy sight.

"And, doubtless, unto thee is given
A life that bears immortal fruit

In such great offices as suit

The full-grown energies of heaven."

SERMON PREACHED AT THE NORTH SECOND STREET METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

BY REV. J. WESLEY CARHART, D.D.

Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us.-Psalm, lxii, 8.

Never, perhaps, in the history of the world, did the heart of any nation throb with such sorrow as does ours to day.

We have suffered great national bereavements before, in the death of Washington, Lafayette and others of less distinction; but these sorrows were under other and less aggravating circumstances. Then peace smiled on all the land. The great life-work of Washington and Lafayette seemed to be done. They went to the garner of the Lord, like the shock of corn fully ripe and ready for its master's use. They were permitted to die peacefully, surrounded by kindred and friends to soothe and comfort.

Not so with the martyr Abraham Lincoln. In the midst of years and usefulness he was struck down by the hand of a cowardly assassin, one who dared not meet him face to face. Severer is the wound, since hearts were already bleeding over loved and lost ones, in every city, village and town throughout the land.

We mourn to day, not merely the Chief Magistrate of the nation, but each feels that he has lost a personal friend. It would seem as though in every house there was one dead. Abraham Lincoln was enshrined in the hearts of this great people as no other man ever was. Even his political enemies, how bitter soever they may have been, feel that a great and good man has fallen, and they hasten to pay that tribute to his memory which they feel his noble qualities merited, and are found mingling with the weeping multitudes every where. where. Tear drops glisten in the eyes of the little children, as they reverently speak his name.

Our sorrow is intensified by the peculiar combination of circumstances attending it. Four years ago, rebellion fired its first gun on Fort Sumter. That gun echoed and reëchoed throughout the land. It was heard in every valley and was returned with added thunder from every hillside, until the sons of freedom poured in almost endless columns, from New England, from the Empire state and from the boundless prairies of the west, to avenge the insult offered to our flag, and protect the altars of liberty. Never before did the world witness such an uprising of a great people. The strife raged, longer, louder and more bloody, until the gory folds of war hung over all our hearts. It was war in fearful earnest.

""Twas war, war, war, with blood and woe;

Widows in tears, and children without sires;
Uncounted, trampling hosts-a ceaseless flow;

Hearts burnt to dross by sorrow's quenchless fires-
Brothers erecting brothers' funeral pyres,

And lovers weeping o'er some portrait fair

That tells of one whose noble heart aspires

The victor's joy to know, his palm to bear,

And on his honored brow the crown of conqueror wear." At length, victory great and glorious blesses our arms. The dawn of peace paints the eastern sky. There are rifts in the cloud of war. The sound of battle recedes. The air is less sulphureous than before, and on every breeze is borne the victorious shout of freemen. Sumter is again ours. Four years from the day it fell, the same old flag, so gallantly defended by Major Anderson and his brave band, is again thrown to the breeze of heaven above those battered ramparts, amid the joyous acclamations of a delivered people. On that same day, when our hopes were so high and our joy so unbounded, the arrow enters our hearts again. The heaviest sorrow of the whole war falls upon us.

What extremes sometimes meet in our experiences here! What contrasts sometimes appear, in the history of individuals and nations! The news is flashed on the lightning's wing to every home and every heart-"The President is assassinated!" The whole nation bows itself in sorrow, and is draped in mourning. Never was a nation's grief sincerer! Never was such a spectacle, on such a scale, witnessed before!

Abraham Lincoln was born in Hardin county, Kentucky, February 12th, 1809. At an early age he

removed with his father's family to Spencer county, Indiana, where, for ten years, he labored on his father's farm. His educational advantages were limited, he having attended school in all, only about a year.

On the breaking out of the Black Hawk war in 1832, he enlisted as a private, and was elected captain of a volunteer company. This event, he said, gave him more satisfaction than any other success of his life.

Such was his character for honesty, sobriety and intelligence, that he was soon called upon to hold responsible civil trusts. In such high esteem was he held by his countrymen, that in 1846 he was elected a representative in congress, and took his seat on the first Monday of December, 1847. On May 16th, 1860, the Republican National Convention met at Chicago, and on motion of the chairman of the New York delegation, the nomination of Abraham Lincoln for the presidency of the United States was made unanimous, and in November following, he was elected by a large majority.

He came to the presidential chair amid the threatenings of war and the greatest uncertainty as to who were the friends or the foes of the republic. With his administration of righteousness and wisdom during those four terrible years, we are familiar. Never before were such responsibilities imposed upon the chief magistrate of a nation. Never before were they met so manfully, and discharged with such fidelity.