look away from them to God! For even they who have gone, though dead, yet speak, and from their honored graves they echo back the admonition of the prophet, "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils."

There is a widely prevalent disposition, often rebuked in the Scriptures, to "trust in an arm of flesh, and make a man our hope." This is especially manifest in great public emergencies. As these emergencies often serve to call out the latent energies of some master mind, which seems to ride upon the whirlwind and direct the storm; so when the storm of danger threatens, we are prone to look about us, and fix our thoughts on this one, or on that, as the controlling genius, whose presence and whose power is the harbinger of safety. Thereupon, we demi-deify the man, and exhalt him into the very Jupiter Stator of our hopes. Or if no such divinity can be found, we still sigh for the illustrious dead, and fondly invoke the heroes of a former age, to receive our hero-worship. How. fervent and how frequent have been the aspirations of the past year, for a Washington, with his wise counsels and his steady hand, to guide our fortunes through the turmoil and the strife of threatened revolution. Such aspirations are no disparagement to any executive incumbent. The name of the Father of his Country knows comparison with none. Pure as he was wise, and good as he was great, we ne'er shall look upon his like again." But it is time for us as a nation to learn that there is a power more potent than any arm of flesh. And though the hand of a Washington were always upon the helm of State, yet there may be dangers which baffle the pilot's art; there may be storms which no human skill can withstand. And God may permit those dangers to threaten, and may bid those storms to rise, thereby to punish this fond idolatry of man and vindicate the denunciations of his Word.

Perhaps there are no people more prone than we to worship the idol of an hour. When once the popular enthusiasm is aroused in favor of any man, he is, for the time, the embodiment of all excellence, and concentrates upon himself the admiration and the hopes of the nation. Short, indeed may be his reign, and trivial in itself the circumstance which hurls him from his lofty pedestal. Divided too may be the homage, for each party has its shrine. But to one divinity or another all conspire to yield the praise, the trust, the honors, which belong only to God. "Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's," is a maxim which justifies all due respect to talent, virtue, or office. But render" unto God the things which are God's," equally forbids the forgetfulness of his sovereign authority and government; the exaltation of a creature to the place of the Creator; or in any confidence in man, which is not subordinate to a conscious and constant dependence upon God. There is in this modern apotheosis of individuals an atheistical contempt for Jehovab, which may be well supposed to provoke his displeas

ure. It implies an absence of his fear, and it begets a violation of his law, which cannot fail to bring upon us the severity of his judgments. They are not words without meaning which his Spirit has indited, and the anathema is peculiarly applicable to nations: "Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord." And though it should be a sentence slow in its fulfilment, yet pronounced by the same authority, it will infalli bly be executed: "The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish! yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted." But the lesson of the text is not only taught in those judgments upon a people which are the results of its neglect, but in those events of Divine Providence which reveal the weakness and the frailty of man. Was it only to startle his fears by the constant allusions to his end, that the Bible is filled with such graphic and affecting statements of human frailty? His "breath is in his nostrils"; his "life is a vapor," or the fleeting shadow of a summer cloud. The transcient flower, that unfolds its leaves to display in its gorgeous beauty the careful finish and profuse abundance of Jehovah's works, whilst yet we gaze upon its exquisite form and hue, withers and dies, to teach the gazer's frailty! The prophet of old was commissioned, in accents solemn and sublime, to make a divine communication to the world. And what is this announcement from the throne? Some new principle in philosophy; some panacea for the ills of life; some unexpected transitions of empire? No! in all the awful grandeur of Jehovah's word, it is still the story of human frailty:-"The voice said, Cry! And he said, What shall cry? All flesh is grass! and the goodliness thereof is as a flower of the field!" In accents more impressive still, God's voice repeats, from time to time, this truth we are slow to learn. Death is the teacher now! and echoes the prophet's words from coffined dust, from open graves, from consecrated urns! He invades the sanctuary of sweet domestic bliss; we mark his ravages in the wide circle of our kindred; our compan ons and acquaintanes are turned into darkness;" and before his relentless hand, fall the illustrious victims who have been exalted to the very pinnacle of honor, as if to render more conspicuous their fall.

I

Recent events are well calculated to leave upon the hearts of this people the deep impression of the truth which we have endeavored to enforce. Amid the agitations of the public mind and the long and anxions struggle still pending at the capital, a star of the first magnitude suddenly fell; a giant intellect was stricken down, in the very arena of debate. The funeral pageant was scarcely over, when another honored son of the same State, and the successor to her greatest, fell, where he had fallen. "God speaketh once, yea, twice, but man regardeth it not." Still raged the war of angry words; still gleamed the lightnings of indignant

eloquence, and muttered the thunders of the coming storm. But now arrives another messenger from a distant court, he comes charged with an embassy of startling interest, his mission must be executed with haste; and, regardless alike of courtly etiquette and diplomatic formalities, he rushes at once and unbidden into the presence of our venerated Chief. His tone is imperious, his credentials are indubitable, and his is the Sovereign, whose inandates alone cannot be defied. All the arts of the most skilful diplomacy fail to swerve him from his purpose. In his presence the lips of eloquent Senators are sealed; and the wisdom of profoundest statesmen, and the courage of bravest warriors, can find expression only in silence and in tears: for who can reply to the summons of Death? Ah! 'tis the hand of God! and the brave old warrior, unharmed from many a battle fray, and now exalted to the very pinnacle of honor, yields to the resistless fiat,-as falls at last the brave old oak, upon the mountain's brow, whose brawny arms have wrestled with many a storm! We are not here to rehearse his battles and his victories: the muse of history will do them justice. We are not here to pronounce his eulogium: the task is more appropriate to other hands. But without trenching upon the sacredness of this place, or the spirit of the text, we may yet pause to bestow the tribute of a tear to the memory of a Patriot! For the good which he has done, and for theood which he intended; for his stern integrity, and his undoubted patriotism; for the honor which he has won, and for the office which he held; let his virtues be embalmed, and his name go down to posterity, among those whom his countrymen have delighted to honor! But we stand here to-day, to contemplate the providence of that omnipotent Being, by whom "princes reign, and rulers decree justice." And from the grave of our President, we gather again the lesson of our frailty; we hear again the voice of God, saying, "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils."

It will be well for us, as a people, if we so far heed the high and solemn lessons of this event, as that we shall be led devoutly to recognize the providence of that God whom our fathers worshipped; as that we shall cease to build our hopes, exclusively, upon the elevation of certain men to office, or upon the success of certain parties and policies. A strong and well-founded preference for particular men and measures is lawful, as it is unavoidable. But, my hearers, we must learn, and God by his judgments, it would seem, intends to make us know, that the elevation or overthrow of men, the success or failure of measures, and our country's general weal or woe, are entirely in his hands. It is time, then, that we learn in all our ways to acknowledge God; that we are restrained by his fear from the public and shameless violation of his laws; and that our conscious dependence should prompt the humble and hearty prayer for his guidance and blessing, upon our rulers and upon ourselves. And

may we not hope that this event will leave its salutary impression upon the Representatives of the people in Congress assembled ; that it will effectually rebuke, and rebuking assuage the bitterness of party and sectional dissensions; that unholy ambition will stand abashed in the presence of Infinite Majesty; and that the ceaseless strife of tongues will at length give place to the strife of mutual endeavors after the public good?

How the highest objects of earthly desire dwindle at the approach of Death; how fade away the glittering appendages of rank and office; how unattractive becomes the utmost goal of a fond ambition! But if the yet unopened grave thus echoes the Preacher's voice, and approaching Death writes "vanity of vanities" upon human hopes; how worthless and how vain must appear all the factitious distinctions of life, when contemplated from eternity. In what light, to the illustrious chief, do his worldrenowned victories now appear? What value does he now attach to the hero's laurel, or to the statesman's civic crown? It was not the glory of a Mexican campaign, or the dignity of the highest executive office, but his conscious rectitude of purpose, to which his mind alone reverted in the final struggle. Crowned with the first honor of the first of nations, with the renown of deeds unsurpassed in ancient story, and with a spotless fame; yet of more value than them all, in the dying hour, was the conviction of an honest heart: "I have always done my duty." We would fondly hope that his conceptions of duty were not limited to the faithful discharge of official trusts. Yet even though they were,-Hear it, ye nations' rulers! too often struggling hardest for your private ends, and your personal aggrandizement,-no successes of ambition; no plaudits of a section or a party; no staff of office, though the highest, will impart one ray of comfort to the dying strife! Could we reach your ear, and were ours the power of graphic words, we would paint the coming scene, "the one event," when yourselves should feel the touch of death, and grapple with the fell destroyer: and there beside your dying pillow, should stand the phantom of your fond pursuits; and there the empty robes of rank; and there, if false to your trust, the wages of your iniquity; and there the spectre of your wounded, weeping country; with Conscience thundering in your ears, "I have not done my duty."

But a mightier hand has already drawn that scene, in the reality of an event over which the nation mourns. And may we not hope, that many of those to whom its lessons are more especially addressed, have in thought transferred themselves to the sufferer's dying bed; and in the presence chamber of Death solemnly resolved to trample on every unhallowed aspiration, and, sustained by an approving conscience, nobly to sacrifice upon the altar of a pure patriotism, everything but honor? If so, in his death, perhaps more than in his life, the hero and the statesman has subserved his country's good. We honor the spirit which dic

tated, and we heartily accord with the sentiment so eloquently expressed by a distinguished Senator: "If on the altar of our common country, we can sacrifice the bitterness of party and of sectional feeling--if at this moment, when the heart of a great nation is palpitating with anxiety, we can come to the discharge of the high and solemn duties which devolve upon us, with hearts purified by affliction, in the singleness and sincerity of purpose and in the humility of spirit which become us; this melancholy dispensation of Providence will indeed have been productive of results most salutary to the great interests of the American people." Akin to this is the language of another, who was himself a competitor with the departed for the suffrages of the nation: "It is a solemn appeal, and should be solemnly heard and heeded. His death, whose loss we mourn, will not be in vain, if it tends to subdue the feelings that have been excited, and to prepare the various sections of our country for a mutual spirit of forbearance, which shall insure the safety of all, by the zealous co-operation of all. We could offer no more appropriate nor durable tribute to departed worth, than such a sacrifice of conflicting views upon the altar of our common country." Heaven forbid that these sentiments should evaporate in words! For the political results of this event, we look mainly to its effects in softening and subduing the tone of public feeling and legislative action. If it fails in this, and instead of arresting the angry current which has been sweeping over us, it should serve but as the occasion for intrigue to develop its plans, and faction to fan the fires of internal strife; then, woe! woe! to our country! the glory has departed! the motto upon our national escutcheon must be changed; and "Ilium fuit" must be the mournful record of our greatness!

But it were unseemly in this place to contemplate only those lessons of this event, which it addresses to us as citizens. In one point of view indeed, Death has a different aspect, when the victim is distinguished by influence and station, from that which he ordinarily bears. For, besides the sundering of those domestic ties, the rupture of which brings as keen a pang to the most exalted as to the most abject, there is in the one case also the breaking up of political organizations, the transfer of power, and the deep sense of public bereavement, increased by the possible contingencies of the event. But in another point of view, and considered in itself, Death is "the one event," that levels all distinctions, and is the same to all. The mightiest and the meanest, he whose exit is unnoticed as the fall of an autumn leaf, and be around whose bier a nation mourns, alike must meet the destroyer upon the same common terms. Death is, equally to both, the end of their earthly career; the introduction of their immortal spirits into the immediate presence of their Judge, to receive the sentence of irrevocable doom. Be it then a monarch or a beggar, considered in its relation to eternal con