The death of Lincoln, April 15th, 1865 : some of the religious lessons which it teaches ; a sermon, preached in Zion church, New-York, on the first Sunday after Easter, April 23d, 1865

THE DEATH OF LINCOLN,

APRIL 15th, 1865.

'anie of l|e lleligiaits Iff^saits toljiclj it Crac|fs.

A SEBMON,

PREACHED IN

ZION CHURCH, NEW-YORK,

First Sunday after Easter, April ^3d, 1865.

BY THK RKCTOR,

THE RIGHT REV. HORATIO SOUTHGATE, D. D.

PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE VESTRY.

Lefo-§^orK:

JOHN W. AMEEMAN, PRINTER,
No. 47 Cedar Street.

1865.

TIE DEATH OF LINCOLN,

APRIL 15th, 1865.

Some of t|e lleligians '^tmn to|icl] it Ceiic^es,

A SEKMON,

PEEACEIED IN

ZION CHURCH, NEW-YORK,

First Sunday after Easter, April 23d., 1865-

BY THE EECTOR,

THE RIGHT REV. HORATIO SOUTHGATE, D. D.

PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE VESTRY.

Ilcfa-gork:

JOHN W. AMEEMAN, PEINTEE,
No, 4T Cedas Steeet.

1865.

Digitized by the Internet Arclnive

in 2010 witln funding from

The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant

http://www.archive.org/details/deathoflincolnapOOsout

SERMON.

Isaiah, xxvL, 9.— When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world
will learn righteousness.

It is raj custom, on the first Sunday after Easter, to
give an annual review of the state and progress of the
Parish. But I have no heart to speak of it to-day ;
although the record would show the highest degree of
prosperity that we have attained since I have been your
Rector, My thoughts are filled with the one theme
which, for a week, has occupied all minds. I find it in
vain to attempt to turn them to other studies and
meditations, and, I have no doubt, the same is true of
you. Let me, then, speak as the Pulpit may fittingly
speak, of the one great event which absorbs all interest ;
and which will live in history as long as the world shall
last, the most striking feature of the middle years of
the nineteenth century, perhaps the most marked in
the whole centennial cycle.

I would hardly trust myself to speak so soon, if it were
not probable that the great National Day of Fasting,
which will commemorate the unparalleled calamity that
has fallen upon us, will have passed before my return
from the field of my next month's labours ; and it may
be, therefore, if I do not speak now^ my Pulpit will
have been silent upon the mighty theme.

I would not have this to be ; for I reco2:nise in the
catastrophe an occasion for many utterances which may
fitly fall from the lips of the Minister of God. The
office of the Pulpit is peculiar, and it is limited. It
has nothing to do with worldly politics, farther than to
apply to them the great laws of morality and religion.
But here is an event, occurring within the civil world,
which bows all hearts in humiliation and sorrow. The
public mind requires the consolations of Christian sym-
pathy. There are, also, lessons, deep religious lessons,
to be drawn from this universal bereavement. I ac-
knowledge myself unqualified, by my very profession,
for the task of discussing the civil questions coni"iected
with it, and its bearing upon the future political condi-
tion and destiny of our land. But within the scope
which my office allows, the vast field of its religious
uses, I may expatiate at liberty ; and I shall best fulfil
the functions of that office, if I may teach you how,
as Christian men, you are to regard this visitation of
the mighty hand of God.

For, although the blows which have so deeply wound-
ed our peace were struck by wicked men, the lowest
theory of Divine Providence must acknowledge that
they fell, not only with the prescience, but with the
permission of Deity. The most important death, by
the hand of violence, that the world has ever known,
was foreordained of God, although it was accomplished
by the art of Satan, instigating the heart of a traitor.
It came to pass, that the divine purpose of universal
mercy to man might be fulfilled ; and yet, for Judas,
who betrayed our Lord, it were better for him if he
had never been born. So here, while the murderous
passions of revenge and hate may have stimulated the

heart, and nerved the hand of the wretched man, who,
if his life be not speedily ended, is henceforth a "fugitive
and a vagabond in the earth," it is no less true, that the
death of our President falls within the lines of God's
Providence, and enters into the accomplishment of
His designs. It would have been as easy for Deity to
avert the fatal ball from his head, as to turn aside the
knife from the heart of his Secretary of State, or to
frighten the culprit who seems to have been in waiting
for Stanton, or to disarrange the plan which appears to
have been laid for the sacrifice of the Vice-President.
Why was Lincoln suffered, against his wish, to go to the
theatre, while Grant, who intended to be there, and was,
doubtless, to be another of the victims, was diverted
from his purpose ? We can see in these different
issues the hand of God, guiding the order of events,
directing each to the accomplishment of that end which
suited best with His own supreme design. I say, then,
that the death of the President was, unquestionably, a
link in the sequence of affairs which connected the ac-
complished past with the unborn future. It will be only
when anticipation shall have become history, that we can
read the divine purpose aright. W^hat He intends for
us, what is to follow from this direful tragedy, we can
only feebly conjecture. But it is all clear to the eye
of Him who knoweth the end from the beginning.

One comfort and consolation we have, in the know-
ledge of the fact, that we are the sufferers of a grievous
wrong. Our President has been struck down by the
hand of violence. Our country is stabbed in the body
of the chief civil officer under the President. It is in-
justice, it is infraction of God's law, it is murder, prac-
ticed upon us. Believe you, brethren, that the cause

will prosper in behalf of which the blows were struck?
Beliere you that the cause will suffer whose chief was
wickedly shot from behiud by the hand of one who
hates it ? Forbid it, justice. Nay, the God of mercy ^
no less than the God of righteousness^ will suffer no en-
terprise to prevail by such fiendish instrumentalities.
On this point I feel wholly at ease. Our great sorrow,
coming as it does, must be the harbinger of good to
us. Suffering from the unrighteous deed of man, we
may cheerfully commit the keeping of our beloved
country to Him as to a faithful Creator. Assassination
is the weapon of hatred, malice and uncharitableness.
It cannot prosper. I see, then, in the very wickedness
of the act on which God frowns, the assurance that no
harm can come from it to those against whom it was
aimed ; no good can come from it to those who planned
and executed it, or to the cause in behalf of which it
was attempted. They struck a fatal blow at Rehellion
who were so unwise as to seek to sustain its sinking
fortunes, or prevent its threatened downfall, by the
crime of wilful murder. As God is true, as He is just,
as He is benevolent, as He would sustain the dignity
and sanctity of His own laws, He is now pursuing, with
His infinite displeasure, the agents in this iniquitous
transaction ; and, as far as they represent it. He is hos-
tile to the enterprise which has resorted to this impious
means of success.

But, how far is that enterprise itself involved in the
responsibility ? How far does this hideous act impli-
cate those who are sustaining that enterprise — the mil-
lions of our fellow-countrymen at the South ? Let us
suppose, as it is most charitable to do, and as is alto-
gether most probable, that they knew nothing of it

beforehand, and that they will repudiate it with indig-
nation and horror when it is revealed to them. Is
their cause responsible ? We say it is ; so far, and only
so far, as the act is the natural and legitimate offspring
of Rebellion. And is not Rebellion its mother ? and
is it not of the very same quality with its parent ?
What is Rebellion ? It is itself a violation of the law
of God, an undertaking to destroy the powers that be,
which are ordained of God. I have nothing to retract
or alter in the doctrine with which, from this sacred
place, I set forth, four years ago, the guiltiness of re-
bellion, as declared by the word of God. That doc-
trine stands to-day, and will stand forever ; because it
rests upon the immovable basis of the Divine Word.
I neednot repeat it now. But, if Rebellion be a sin,
what wonder is it that it breeds sin ? If I, or four
millions with me, aim a blow at my country's life, what
wonder is it if one of us, or four of us, or a hundred of
us, are so blinded by the passion which possesses us all,
that they cannot discriminate between the act which
would destroy the life of the Government, and the act
which would destroy the lives of the individual men in
whom, for the moment, it is vested ? Is it any matter
for marvel, that persons of no more than ordinary intel-
ligence, animated by hate, confound the two ? Is not
the act which has just now transpired in Washington,
and which has brought a nation into the dust of grief,
perfectly germain with the act of secession, which more
than four years ago struck a blow, meant to be a fatal
one, at the Constitution, which is the vital organ of our
national existence ? What was the life, even of the
honored chieftain who has been so terribly and so mys-
teriously snatched from us, when compared with the

8

life which the Rebellion itself sought to terminate ? It
is a great law of religion, (and, therefore, I insist upon
it this morning,) that sin produces sin by a sort of
natural necessity. He, who enters upon a course of
wickedness, is pretty sure to commit, in the prosecution
of it, many other iniquities than that which he origin-
ally contemplated. It has been so here. The plotted
murder of the Nation has led to the sacrifice of the
life of its head. Do we stand aghast at the inhuman
wickedness of the man who is now fleeing from the
wrath of an injured people ? Why are we so much
amazed ? He sowed to the wind ; he has reaped the
whirlwind. H^ suffered to enter into his heart the sin
of Rebellion. He nourished and cherished it in his
bosom. He gave himself up, body and soul, to it.
The power which God had taught him to revere and
fear, he repudiated and despised. He saw one holding
that power, representing it, embodying it. Is. it so
much to be wondered at, that he transferred his hatred
from one to the other ? How could it well be other-
wise? He had no personal enmity to Mr. Lincoln.
His life, in itself, was no object of hate to him. But
he wished to kill the nation ; and, that he might ac-
complish that purpose, he killed him in whom the life
of the nation breathed and acted. Was not this na-
tural ? Was it not to be expected ? And, does it not
show, that Rebellion is responsible for that ghastly mur-
der? Before God, it seems to me, that this is a
righteous verdict. I say, then, to my brethren of the
South, (many of whom know how kindly I have felt
towards them, however I condemned their sin ; not a
few of whom, even with tears, thanked me when, not
five months ago, I had the opportunity, and used it,

for pleading, before a congregation in wliicli were
gathered many of those who sway the council of the
nation, for the application, even to rebels, of the great
laws of Christian love and magnanimity,) I say to them,
with the same love which animated me then, " My
brothers, you and I are equally horrified, it may be,
by this transcendent crime. But, do you not see, that
it has sprung, by natural conception, out of the womb
of the great sin of Rebellion ? And, shall not this dire
catastrophe at length open your eyes to see the true
nature of the motive which has led you to raise a par-
ricidal hand against the Nation ? Will you repudiate
the crime, and not the mother which spawned it ? Oh,
my brothers, let us, at length, see eye to eye ; and, over
the body of our murdered Head, yours and ours, vow
that the sin which struck the blow, shall itself die by
the vigorous stroke of our restored unity and love." I
have some hope that it will be so ; that this revolting
spectacle of base and cowardly murder will dispel the
delusion which has so long haunted the minds of thou-
sands of intelligent and, otherwise, virtuous men, who
were once united with us, not only by the ties of a com-
mon country, but by the bonds of one faith, the love of
one Lord, the sacrament of one baptism, and the confi-
dence of a warm and tender friendship. But, if it may not
be, then, my brothers of this congregation, as Christian
men, as men who fear God and respect His command-
ments, let it be our firm resolve, and let the dead body
of our departed chief plead for the fulfilment of it, that
we will know no rest till the sin of Rebellion be purged
from the land. Has it been hateful before ? Let the
crime which it has inaugurated, show us its true fea-
tures in all their frightful hideousness. It is condemned

10

of God. Let it be proscribed and exterminated by
man. Let there be set upon it the mark of the first
murderer, " that every one that findeth it shall slay it."
It may be, (but this, as I have said of all such inter-
pretations of God's providence, is matter only of feeble
conjecture ; for, what fallible man shall presume to
fathom His designs?) that He saw, that the gentle and"
loving course on which our murdered President, with
the general consent and applause of the nation, was
about to enter, would leave the root of bitterness, in
the full vigor of its baneful life, beneath the soil ; there
to breed, hereafter, another crop of woes, after its kind.
It may be, that his gentle heart was taken away from
a new work for which he was not fitted. It may be,
that a sterner will has been called in to execute it.
His mission was ended. He had done the work to
which he had been appointed ; and, all now admit, in
the light of the final success, he did it well. We honor
him for his work's sake. He is beyond our poor re-
wards. But, he is with Him, whose " Well done, good
and faithful servant," is far more to him than would be
the plaudits of men, the ovation of a popular triumph.
The tears we shed, (and, who of us has shed no tear,
the last ten days ?) the sable hues of woe we display,
the gorgeous, yet mournful procession which bears his
slaughtered body, embalmed in our memories beyond
any art of man, to its final resting-place, and the lofty
record of his deeds and of his goodness which we will
make, and preserve, in the annals of the nation, and
point to, on the everlasting monument which we will
rear to his fame, are but the fitting tribute of grateful
and sorrowing hearts. But, we mourn not as men
without hope ; not for him ; for, there is more and

11

more of accumulating evidence, that he was a man who
feared God and wrought righteousness ; not for the
country for which he died ; for, God would not have
suffered any harm to hurt his life, till his work was
done. Of this we may be well assured ; and, there-
fore, through all the blinding tears of our present
grief, from beneath the cloud of our brooding fears,
we may, confidently, look forward to the light which
shines upon our distant path, and see it resting upon
the head of him who is now called to bear the burden
which our Lincoln has laid down, and believe, that he
too has his work to perform, and will be guided by the
same Almighty hand to fulfil it Let us give to him,
as he most needs, the homage which Christian men
owe, under their supreme Leader, Christ, to one who,
Christ's apostle tells us, bears the sword of justice as
the " minister of God." And, doubt ye not, that the
work which remains to be done, (and, God alone knows
what that work is,) will be fitly done by him whom
the Most High, in His providence, has called to the
arduous task on which he has entered.

But, there is another lesson which I must not fail to
teach you this morning. When tidings came of the
overthrow of the Army of Northern Virginia, and the
occupation of Petersburg and Richmond, and the hearts
of all loyal men leaped for joy, not only in view of that
grand achievement, but in confident anticipation of the
speedy return of peace, I said to myself, "Is it pos-
sible, then, that we are to have no greater chastening
than we have endured ? How wonderful and mys-
terious are the ways of God ! For four long years,
there have appeared, among us of the North, no living
signs of deep humiliation for the sinfulness which

12

brought upon us the curse of civil war. Nay, on the
contrary, all vice and wickedness have increased, and
grown rampant, among us. Corruption in public
places, and extravagance, luxury and reckless living
in private and social life, to an extent never before
known, all showing a greater forgetfulness of God
while His heavy hand was upon us, have proved, that
His chastisement brought us no profit. I have be-
lieved, with fear and trembling, when I have looked
upon this growing wickedness, in days which should
have been given to penitence and self-searching and
sober living, that the war would not end without our
receiving some new and severe discipline. That God
should give us success, when we have not only failed
to repent of our former degeneracy as a Nation, but,
even while under His rod, have heaped up iniquity on
iniquity ; that He should give us final success, without,
first, humbling us, has seemed to me impossible. And
now the end is at hand. The worst of the war is over.
The power of the Rebellion is broken. The day-star
of Peace is shining, with benign and cheerful light,
above our eastern horizon. And, amidst the universal
jubilation, there is no thought but of elated satisfaction
and triumph. And God does not punish us. Excepting
the precious lives which we have lost, (a loss which has
beclouded many a private home, but which has hardly
been felt by us as a Nation, so rapidly and fully have
their places been supplied by others,) the career of the
country, throughout the war, has been one of ever-in-
creasing wealth and prosperity, as well as of ever-
growing wickedness. And now all the evil is coming
to an end ; and, there remains no lesson of thorough
humiliation, to benefit us for the future. Nay, rather,

13

we seem likely to go forward with a more elated, a
more proud, a more self-complacent spirit than ever
before ; and one shudders to think of the way before
us, with all this increased confidence in ourselves, all
this more deeply corrupted morality of the people and
our rulers, all this neglect and practical defiance of
God." I could not understand it. It was a mystery
to me. Far and wide, in many lands, I had studied
God's ways towards man ; but this remained a strange
and unprecedented development of His providence.
I said to myself, "I cannot comprehend it. His ways
are not our ways ; His thoughts are not our thoughts ;
and, even when we have learned His ways, a sudden
cloud hides them from us."

While I was pondering upon these things, in mingled
surprise and adoration of His incomprehensible majesty,
while the sun was shining in the clear noon-day of our
triumphant prosperity, and hardly a shadow of dimness
rested upon the bright vista of our prospects ; while all
around breathed of peace, and every heart was reposing
in joyful security, suddenly, as if it were a thunderbolt
out of the clear sky at high noon, there fell upon us a
mighty woe. A darkness gathered, in an instant,
around us, like the blackness of a starless midnight.
We were as blind men groping for the wall. Our leader
gone, a sudden dismay sunk into our hearts. We
seemed to be standing upon the verge of universal
wreck and ruin.

Oh, my brothers, what a lesson for the future is here.
Let us thank God, amidst this overwhelming afiiiction,
that we find ourselves on our knees at last. Shall we
ever be proud again? Shall we not rejoice with
trembling, whatever good His supreme bounty may

14

bestow upon us? Shall we not be humble, even
in triumph ? No event of the war has made us really
mourn till now. Defeat has only roused our pride,
stimulated our hostile passions, quickened our revenge.
But now we are in the dust. We know, we feel, that
God liveth. We see His hand in chastisement. We
bow before the severe blow of His heavy discipline.
Happy for us, if this spirit shall abide with us ! Happy,
if we have learned to recognise God in our prosperity !
If our bitter sorrow may but convert us into an humble
and a righteous nation, we may, in the great hereafter,
raise to our departed President a monument which
shall bear the grateful inscription, " we were blessed by
his life; we were yet more blessed by his death."

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