tion, liberty, and religion. Terrible in battle, may it be beneficent in peace. Happily, no bird or beast of prey has been inscribed upon it. The stars that redeem the night from darkness, and the beams of red light that beautify the morning, have been united upon its folds. As long as the sun endures, or the stars, may it wave over a nation neither enslaved nor enslaving. Hail to the flag of our fathers and our flag! Glory to the banner that has gone through four years black with tempests of war! And glory be to God, who, above all hosts and banners, hath ordained victory, and shall ordain peace! Reverently, piously, in hopeful patriotism, we spread this banner on the sky as of old the bow was planted on the cloud, and with solemn fervour beseech God to look upon it, and make it the memorial of an everlasting covenant, and decree that never again in this fair land shall a deluge of blood prevail. There is scarcely a man born in the South who has lifted his hand against this banner but had a father who would have died for it. Is memory dead? Is there no historic pride? Has a fatal fury struck blindness or hate into eyes that used to look kindly towards each other—that read the same Bible—that hung over the historic pages of our national glory—that studied the same Constitution? Let this uplifting bring back all of the past that was good, but leave in darkness all that was bad. In the name of God we lift up our banner and dedicate it to peace, union, and liberty, now and for ever more. * There is no historic figure* more noble than that of the Jewish lawgiver. After so many thousand years, the figure of Moses is not diminished, but stands up against the background of early days distinct and individual, as if he had lived but yesterday. There is scarcely another event in history more touching than his death. The last stage was reached. Jordan only lay between them and the promised land. The promised land! Oh, with what yearnings had heaved his heart for the divinely-promised place! He had dreamed of it by night, and mused on it by day. It was holy and endeared as God's favoured spot. It was to be the cradle of an illustrious history. All his long, laborious, and now weary life he had aimed at this, as the consummation of every desire, the reward of every toil and pain. Then came the word of God to him, "Thou mayest not go over. Get thee up into the mountain, look upon it, and die. Again a great leader of the people has passed through toil, sorrow, battle, and war, and come near to the promised land of peace, into which he might not pass over. Who shall recount our martyr's sufferings for this people? Since the November of 1860, his horizon has been black with storms. By day and by night he trod a way of The following paragraphs of the Fort Sumter Oration refer to the death of Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States, who was cut off by the hand of an assassin, on the 15th of April, 1865. The war had just been brought to a close. 1865.] HENRY WARD BEECHER. danger and darkness. On his shoulders rested a Government dearer to him than his own life. At its integrity millions of men were striking at home. Upon this Government foreign eyes lowered. It stood like a lone island in a sea full of storms, and every tide and wave seemed eager to devour it. Upon thousands of hearts great sorrows and anxieties have rested, but not on one such, and in such measure, as upon that simple, truthful, noble soul, our faithful and sainted Lincoln. Never rising to the enthusiasm of more impassioned natures in hours of hope, and never sinking with the mercurial in hours of defeat to the depths of despondency, he held on with unmovable patience and fortitude, putting caution against hope, that it might not be premature, and hope against caution, that it might not yield to dread and danger. He wrestled ceaselessly through four black and dreadful purgatorial years, wherein God was cleansing the sin of this people as by fire. At last the watcher beheld the grey dawn for the country. The mountains began to give forth their forms out of the darkness, and the East came rushing towards us with arms full of joy for all our sorrows. Then it was for him to be glad exceedingly that had sorrowed immeasurably. Peace could bring to no other heart such joy, such rest, such honour, such trust, such gratitude. But he looked upon it as Moses looked upon the promised land. Then the wail of a nation proclaimed that he had gone from among us. Never did two such orbs of experience meet in one hemisphere as the joy and sorrow of the same week in this land. The joy was as sudden as if no man had expected it, and as entrancing as if it had fallen from heaven. It rose over sobriety and swept business from its moorings, and ran down through the land an irresistible course. Men embraced each other in brotherhood that were strangers in the flesh; they sang; they prayed. That peace was sure; that Government was firmer than ever; that the land was cleansed of plague; that the ages were opening to our footsteps, and we were to begin a march of blessings; that the dear fatherland, nothing lost, much gained, was to rise up in unexampled honour among the nations of the earth-these thoughts kindled up such a surge of joy as no words may describe. In one hour joy lay without a pulse, without a gleam, or breath. A sorrow came that swept through the land as huge storms sweep through the forest and field, rolling thunder along the sky, dishevelling the flowers, daunting every singer in thicket and forest, and pouring_blackness and darkness across the land and up the mountains. Did ever so many hearts in so brief a time touch two such boundless feelings? It was the uttermost of joy; it was the uttermost of sorrow, noon and midnight, without a space between. The blow brought not a sharp pang. It was so terrible that at first it stunned sensibility. Men wandered in the streets as if groping after some impending dread or undeveloped sorrow, or after some one to tell them what ailed them. There was a piteous helplessness. Strong men bowed down and wept. Other and common griefs belonged to some one in chief; this belonged to all. Every virtuous household in the land felt as if its firstborn were gone. Men walked for days as if a corpse lay unburied in their dwellings. There was nothing else to think of, they could speak of nothing but that; and yet of that they could speak only falteringly. All business was laid aside. Pleasure forgot to smile. The city for nearly a week ceased to roar. The great Leviathan lay down and was still. Rear to his name monuments; found charitable institutions and write his name above their lintels; but no monument will ever equal the universal, spontaneous, and sublime sorrow that in a moment swept down lines and parties, and covered up animosities, and in an hour brought a divided people into unity of grief and indivisible fellowship of anguish. Eschines (B.c. 389-314), 245. Against Ctesiphon, 246. The Rainbow about the Throne, 175. Baker, Edward Dickinson (1811-1861), 287. On the Civil War, April 20th, 1861, 287. Incitements to Industry, 168. Basil the Great (329-379), 250. On the Death of the Martyr Gordius, Baxter, Richard (1615-1691), 165 Now or Never, 165. Beecher, Henry Ward (1813-18...), 299. The "Fort Sumter Oration," April, 1865, Against the Legislative Union between Bernard, St., Abbot of Clairvaux (1091-1153), On the Death of his brother Gerard, 257. Blair, Hugh (1718-1800), 193. On Death, 193. The Praise truly valuable, 194. Bourdaloue, Louis (1632-1704), 260. The Passion of Jesus Christ, 261. Bright, John (1811-18...), 148. What is War? 1853, 148. Mr. Bright on his own Political Career, Brougham, Henry, Lord (1779-1868), 108. On Parliamentary Keform, October 7th, Burke, Edmund (1730-1797), 39. On "Junius and the State of the On Conciliating the Colonies, March To the Electors of Bristol, September Butler, Joseph (1692-1752), 182. On Love to God, 183. Calhoun, John Caldwell (1782-1850), 279. Canning, George (1770-1827), 94. On Parliamentary Reform-18th March, Right Policy of Britain, 1823, 97. Speech at the Shakespeare Tercentenary Chalmers, Thomas (1780-1847), 199. The Insignificance of this Earth, 200. Channing, William Ellery (1780-1842), 295. The Characteristics of the Age, 297. 28. Reply to the Attack of Horatio Walpole, Reply to Lord Mansfield on the case of On the Gin Act, February 21st, 1743, 23. The Consolations of Literature, 285. Excessive Grief at the Death of Friends, Cicero (B.C. 107-43), 247. Against Caius Verres, 248. Cobbett, William (1765-1835), 88. On Reform and Reformers, 88. Free Trade, 138. Corwin, Thomas (1794-1865), 283. On Dissolving Parliament, 1658, 8. A Vindication of Irish Parliamentary On the Bill of Attainder against the Earl The Sentimental Grievances of the Irish, Doddridge, Philip (1702-1751), 184. Capernaum, 184. Duncombe, Thomas Slingsby (1796-1861), 131. Edwards, Jonathan (1703-1758), 292. In the Hands of an Angry God, 293. On the State of the Nation, July 3rd, Emmett, Robert (1780-1803), 113. Emmett's Defence, 1803, 113. Erskine, Thomas, Lord (1750-1823), 56. On behalf of John Stockdale, December Against Thomas Williams, July 24th, Everett, Edward (1794-1865), 281. The Men and Deeds of the Revolution, Fléchier, Esprit (1632-1710), 262. Funeral Oration for Viscount Turenne, Fox, Charles James (1749-1806), 45.. On the Westminster Scrutiny, June 8th, On the State of the Nation, 1795, 49. The Corn-Law League and its Opponents, 117. Gavazzi, Alessandro (1809-18...), 270. Gladstone, the Right Hon. William Ewart The Disestablishment of the Irish Gough, John B. (1817-18...), 236. The Cause of Temperance, 236. Graham, Sir James Robert George (1792- The Clergy and the Property of the The Reason Why, February, 1850, 127. Grattan, Henry (1750-1820), 51. On Moving a Declaration of Irish Right, Invective against Mr. Corry, February Grey, Charles, Earl (1764-1845), 83. On Moving the Second Reading of the Guthrie, Thomas (1800-1873), 212. The Past and the Present, 212. Hall, Robert (1764-1831), 196. On the Threatened Invasion of Britain by Hooker, Richard (1554-1600), 159. Perseverance and Preservation, 159. Huskisson, the Right Hon. William (1770- Commercial Policy, 13th April, 1829, 98. Irving, Edward (1792-1834), 207. An Ordination Charge, 207. Jeffrey, Francis, Lord (1773-1850), 225. Sir James Mackintosh and Sir Walter Jewell, John (1522-1571), 157. On the Holy Communion and the Mass Lacordaire, Jean B. H. (1802-1861), 268. The most diligent Bishop in all England, Leighton, Robert (1613-1684), 163. An Exhortation to Candidates for the Review of the Session of 1836, 103. Macaulay, Thomas Babington, Lord (1800- On Copyright, 136. Mackintosh, Sir James (1766-1832), 91. Defence of Peltier, February 21st, 1803, 92 Speech when surrounded by a Mob in the Court of the King's Bench, January Massillon, Jean Baptiste (1662-1742), 265. Morpeth, Lord, see Carlisle, Earl of. O'Connell, Daniel (1775-1847), 105. Palmerston, Henry John Temple, Third Peel, Sir Robert, Bart. (1788-1850), 227. On the Civilization of Africa, April 2nd, 1792, 75. On the Rupture of the Negotiations with On the Prosecution of Emmett, 86. On a Motion for Reducing the Army, 20. Robertson, Frederick William (1816-1853), 217 Russell, John, Earl (1792-18...), 120. The Reform Bill of 1831-2, 121. |