* * * * *
The terrible and sensational news that Abraham Lincoln had been
assassinated, which was flashed over the wires on the morning of
April 15, 1865 (forty years ago yesterday), was the most appalling
announcement that had been made during the long crisis through which
the country had just passed. Every head was bowed in grief. No tongue
could find language sufficiently strong to express condemnation of the
fiendish act. The entire country was plunged in mourning. It was not
safe for any one to utter a word against the character of the martyred
president. At no place in the entire country was the terrible calamity
more deeply felt than in St. Paul. All public and private buildings
were draped in mourning. Every church held memorial services. The
services at the little House of Hope church on Walnut street will long
be remembered by all those who were there. The church was heavily
draped in mourning. It had been suddenly transformed from a house of
hope to a house of sorrow, a house of woe. The pastor of the church
was the Rev. Frederick A. Noble. He was one of the most eloquent and
learned divines in the city--fearless, forcible and aggressive--the
Henry Ward Beecher of the Northwest. President Lincoln was his ideal
statesman.
The members of the House of Hope were intensely patriotic. Many of
their number were at the front defending their imperiled country.
Scores and scores of times during the desperate conflict had the
eloquent pastor of this church delivered stirring addresses favoring
a vigorous prosecution of the war. During the darkest days of the
Rebellion, when the prospect of the final triumph of the cause of the
Union seemed furthest off, Mr. Noble never faltered; he believed that
the cause was just and that right would finally triumph. When the
terrible and heart-rending news was received that an assassin's bullet
had ended the life of the greatest of all presidents the effect was
so paralyzing that hearts almost ceased beating. Every member of the
congregation felt as if one of their own household had been suddenly
taken from them. The services at the church on the Sunday morning
following the assassination were most solemn and impressive. The
little edifice was crowded almost to suffication, and when the pastor
was seen slowly ascending the pulpit, breathless silence prevailed. He
was pale and haggard, and appeared to be suffering great mental agony.
With bowed head and uplifted hands, and with a voice trembling with
almost uncontrollable emotion, he delivered one of the most fervent
and impressive invocations ever heard by the audience. Had the dead
body of the president been placed in front of the altar, the solemnity
of the occasion could not have been greater. In the discourse that
followed, Mr. Noble briefly sketched the early history of the
president, and then devoted some time to the many grand deeds he had
accomplished during the time he had been in the presidential chair.
For more than four years he had patiently and anxiously watched the
progress of the terrible struggle, and now, when victory was in sight,
when it was apparent to all that the fall of Richmond, the surrender
of Lee and the probable surrender of Johnston would end the long war,
he was cruelly stricken down by the hand of an assassin. "With malice
towards none and with charity to all, and with firmness for the right,
as God gives us to see the right," were utterances then fresh from the
president's lips. To strike down such a man at such a time was indeed
a crime most horrible. There was scarcely a dry eye in the audience.
Men and women alike wept. It was supposed at the time that Secretary
of State Seward had also fallen a victim of the assassin's dagger.
It was the purpose of the conspirators to murder the president, vice
president and entire cabinet, but in only one instance did the attempt
prove fatal. Secretary Seward was the foremost statesmen of the
time. His diplomatic skill had kept the country free from foreign
entanglements during the long and bitter struggle. He, too, was
eulogized by the minister, and it rendered the occasion doubly
mournful.
Since that time two other presidents have been mercilessly slain by
the hand of an assassin, and although the shock to the country was
terrible, it never seemed as if the grief was as deep and universal
as when the bullet fired by John Wilkes Booth pierced the temple of
Abraham Lincoln.