Pray devoutly for the smitten widow and fatherless children of our
Chief Magistrate. They are sorely stricken and God alone can heal
them. To them it is not the loss of the Chief Magistrate that makes
this hour so sad, but that they have no more a husband or a father!
And now that there has been sorrow in all the land, and the death-
angel in all its homes, from the humblest to the highest, is not our
expiation well-nigh wrought, and will not our Father have compassion
upon us?
Let us devoutly pray the King of nations to guide _our nation_
through its remaining struggle! It may be He means to show us that He
alone is the Savior!
Let us implore Divine guidance upon Mr. Lincoln's successor, Andrew
Johnson, President of the United States. He was faithful amid the
faithless. He was true to the Union when few in his section had for
it aught but curses. Pray for him. He comes to power at a critical
time and needs wisdom from above. Confide in him. He will surely rise
above the one error which temporarily drew him down. He is only hated
by traitors, and when they hate, it is safe for loyal men to trust.
By and by we may understand all this. Now it passes comprehension,
but we have seen so many manifestations of God's supervising agency
when we least looked for it, that we may safely trust Him. He means
to save us. Nay, blessed be His name, He _has_ saved us!
His grand purposes will go forward. The wrath of man shall praise
Him, and the remainder of wrath will He restrain. Remember, and take
heart as you remember, the ringing line of Whittier.
"God's errands never fail."
He who rides upon the whirlwind and directs the storm, is neither
dead nor sleeping, and He is a God who never compromises with wrong,
and never abdicates His throne.