and again we hear men say, "It was the worst thing for themselves they
could have done. They have shot a representative man, and the cause he
represented grows stronger and sterner by his death. Can it be that so
wise a devil was so foolish here? Must it not have been the act of one
poor madman, born and nursed in his own reckless brain?" My friends, let
us understand this matter. It was a foolish act. Its folly was only
equalled by its wickedness. It was a foolish act. But when did sin begin
to be wise? When did wickedness learn wisdom? When did the fool stop
saying in his heart, "There is no God," and acting godlessly in the
absurdity of his impiety? The cause that Abraham Lincoln died for shall
grow stronger by his death,--stronger and sterner. Stronger to set its
pillars deep into the structure of our nation's life; sterner to execute
the justice of the Lord upon his enemies. Stronger to spread its arms
and grasp our whole land into freedom; sterner to sweep the last poor
ghost of Slavery out of our haunted homes. But while we feel the folly
of this act, let not its folly hide its wickedness. It was the
wickedness of Slavery putting on a foolishness for which its wickedness
and that alone is responsible, that robbed the nation of a President and
the people of a father. And remember this, that the folly of the Slave
power in striking the representative of Freedom, and thinking that
thereby it killed Freedom itself, is only a folly that we shall echo if
we dare to think that in punishing the representatives of Slavery who
did this deed, we are putting Slavery to death. Dispersing armies and
hanging traitors, imperatively as justice and necessity may demand them
both, are not killing the spirit out of which they sprang. The traitor
must die because he has committed treason. The murderer must die because
he has committed murder. Slavery must die, because out of it, and it
alone, came forth the treason of the traitor and the murder of the
murderer. Do not say that it is dead. It is not, while its essential
spirit lives. While one man counts another man his born inferior for the
color of his skin, while both in North and South prejudices and
practices, which the law cannot touch, but which God hates, keep alive
in our people's hearts the spirit of the old iniquity, it is not dead.
The new American nature must supplant the old. We must grow like our
President, in his truth, his independence, his religion, and his wide
humanity. Then the character by which he died shall be in us, and by it
we shall live. Then peace shall come that knows no war, and law that
knows no treason; and full of his spirit a grateful land shall gather
round his grave, and in the daily psalm of prosperous and righteous
living, thank God forever for his life and death.
So let him lie here in our midst to-day, and let our people go and bend
with solemn thoughtfulness and look upon his face and read the lessons
of his burial. As he paused here on his journey from the Western home
and told us what by the help of God he meant to do, so let him pause
upon his way back to his Western grave and tell us with a silence more
eloquent than words how bravely, how truly, by the strength of God, he
did it. God brought him up as he brought David up from the sheepfolds to
feed Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance. He came up in
earnestness and faith, and he goes back in triumph. As he pauses here
to-day, and from his cold lips bids us bear witness how he has met the
duty that was laid on him, what can we say out of our full hearts but
this--"He fed them with a faithful and true heart, and ruled them
prudently with all his power." The _Shepherd of the People_! that old
name that the best rulers ever craved. What ruler ever won it like this
dead President of ours? He fed us faithfully and truly. He fed us with
counsel when we were in doubt, with inspiration when we sometimes
faltered, with caution when we would be rash, with calm, clear, trustful
cheerfulness through many an hour when our hearts were dark. He fed
hungry souls all over the country with sympathy and consolation. He
spread before the whole land feasts of great duty and devotion and
patriotism, on which the land grew strong. He fed us with solemn, solid
truths. He taught us the sacredness of government, the wickedness of
treason. He made our souls glad and vigorous with the love of liberty
that was in his. He showed us how to love truth and yet be
charitable--how to hate wrong and all oppression, and yet not treasure
one personal injury or insult. He fed _all_ his people, from the highest
to the lowest, from the most privileged down to the most enslaved. Best
of all, he fed us with a reverent and genuine religion. He spread before
us the love and fear of God just in that shape in which we need them
most, and out of his faithful service of a higher Master who of us has
not taken and eaten and grown strong? "He fed them with a faithful and
true heart." Yes, till the last. For at the last, behold him standing
with hand reached out to feed the South with mercy and the North with
charity, and the whole land with peace, when the Lord who had sent him
called him and his work was done!
He stood once on the battle-field of our own State, and said of the
brave men who had saved it words as noble as any countryman of ours ever
spoke. Let us stand in the country he has saved, and which is to be his
grave and monument, and say of Abraham Lincoln what he said of the
soldiers who had died at Gettysburg. He stood there with their graves
before him, and these are the words he said:--
"We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this
ground. The brave men who struggled here have consecrated it far
beyond our power to add or detract. The world will little note nor
long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they
did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated to the
unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly
advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great
task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take
increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full
measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead
shall not have died in vain; and this nation, under God, shall have
a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the
people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth."
May God make us worthy of the memory of Abraham Lincoln!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: A sermon preached in Philadelphia, while the body of the
President was lying in the city.]