BY REV. ROBERT W. CUSHMAN, PASTOR OF THE BOWDOIN SQUARE BAPTIST CHURCH, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS. A SOLEMN PROVIDENCE OF GOD SANCTIFIED. Occasioned by the Death of President Harrison. How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel. Lamentations ii: 1. ALTHOUGH it may not have been seemly to cover the temple of God with mourning for a patriot fallen, on the anniversary* of a Saviour risen, and to permit our grief for a temporal calamity to supplant our joy for an eternal blessing, it is no desecration of the place, nor the hour in which we are now assembled, to make the recent dispensation of Providence the theme of our meditation, and to gather from it lessons which may make us better fit to live as well as die. The temples which are devoted to the worship of God were reared also for the benefit of mankind. The Sabbath, also, was made for man: and although it is peculiarly fitting, on that day, to indulge in the emotions of grateful joy for the salvation which is in Christ Jesus, it cannot be inappropriate to give our attention to those movements of the divine *The Sabbath following the President's death was Easter, when most of the churches-even the Episcopal-were dressed in deep mourning. hand which affect a nation's interests. It is our duty to heed the voice of Providence no less than the voice of revelation. It is equally addressed to us for our learning; it is equally authoritative; its lessons are sometimes equally clear; and they often come home to the heart with even greater power than those to which we are accustomed to listen from the written word. And, woe betide that people who are too much engrossed with their secular interests or their sinful pleasures to regard them! "Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning that they may follow strong drink, and continue until night till wine inflame them! And the harp, and the viol, the tabret and pipe, and wine are in their feasts but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands.” A more fearful cloud never poured its wrath on a nation's head than that which was gathering, unobserved, and muttering its thunders, unheeded, in the political horizon of Israel at the time of that prophetic denunciation. May God save this country from such insensibility, and help us so to "hear the rod and who hath appointed it," in the dispensation he has meeted to us, that we may be roused to the correction of all wrong-doing with which we may have been chargeable in his sight that if there be yet "left the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked; if the rich men thereof have been full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongues have been deceitful in their mouths," we may, by hearty repentance and reform, be saved from the curse of "sowing for others to reap; of treading out the olive for others to anoint themselves with oil;" while "our land is made a desolation, and the inhabitants thereof a hissing" to the world. Though we are required to love all mankind, Christianity does not forbid our loving our country with a warmer affection than we bear to the rest of the world. In indulging the emotions of patriotism, we are but following the example of men whose piety has obtained a good report from God, and the outbreathings of whose affection for their own dear native land have been registered on the page of inspiration for our learning. "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem! let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy." Nay, we may appeal to still higher examples: the great Captain of our Salvation himself was a patriot : "To all mankind a Saviour he was sent, His smiles, his tears, he gave to thee, Jerusalem: We therefore feel ourselves not only justified, but in the way of our duty, in here attempting such an improvement of this mournful event as not only piety but patriotism may seem to dictate. While, however, we would indulge the expression of those sentiments which a love of our country and an ardent desire for her prosperity may suggest, we would eschew the utterance of aught that might fan the embers of political feeling. With questions of policy, on which good men as well as bad may have been divided, the minister of the gospel, in his official duties, has nothing to do. And if the proprieties of the office did not forbid, who is there here, my brethren, that has the heart, under this stroke, to entertain them? Is there room left for the exultation of success? Tell me, ye who were lavish of your wealth and time for his elevation; who thought your efforts richly paid, if for compassing sea and land you gained one proselyte to your political faith; one name to the roll of his political friends; do you find place now, beneath these weeds of a nation's sorrow, for exultation? "Alas!" methinks I hear you exclaim, "How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel!" "He hath removed away the the speech of the trusty; and taken away the understanding of the aged he hath poured contempt upon princes; and weakened the strength of the mighty." And tell me, ye who opposed his elevation, can you find in your heart a plea for the rancors of defeat? If he were personally your deadliest foe, and his recent honors and power your greatest abhorrence and dread, could you ask more? could you ask more? Might not hate herself be sated at such a sight, of laurels trampled beneath the foot of death, while the shout that went up on his entrance to power yet lingers round the capitol ;* and, softening into pity, let fall a tear as she beholds how the Lord of Hosts stains the pride of all glory? *This discourse was delivered the Sabbath but one after his death. Through what scenes and changes have a few short months conducted us! The contest, the victory, the jubilee, the catastrophe;-how soon they are over! The journals which chronicled the progress of the canvass have scarce been removed from our tables; the emblems of the parties still linger in our streets; the watchword and the song that fed the enthusiasm of the contest still greet our ear from the lip of childhood; the thousands who assisted at his inauguration have not yet all reached their homes: and now his funeral knell is mingling with the echoes of his triumph, and spreading the circling wave of sorrow on to the borders of the wilderness; and ocean's troubled bosom is bearing it to distant lands. One month, one brief month, beheld his elevation to the pinnacle of glory, and his repose in death: and that brief month was passed in preparation, rather than in the execution of any measure that might mark and distinguish his administration, or waken the murmurs of those who had sustained defeat. Here, then, is no place for exultation. The grave of honors so brief may receive the tear of all who have tears to shed for blighted hope and the evanescence of earthly distinctions. In circumstances like these, how vile appears that animosity which rules the elections of our country; which poisons the fountains of intelligence, and converts the press into a battery of warfare on the character of those who are candidates for our suffrage. Who, that has knowingly uttered aught untrue of him, does not now wish to humble himself before God for the wrong? And who, that is conscious of having contributed to his elevation by obloquy, by misrepresentation, or virulence towards those who were opposed to that elevation, does not now feel, as he reflects how easily God can overthrow all that a party or a nation can do,, that victory, if ever achieved at the expense of veracity and temper, may be too dearly earned? It is gratifying to know that such has been the effect of this dispensation. So nearly universal has been the merging of party feeling into patriotic sorrow, that strong rebuke from political opponents as well as supporters, has followed its manifestation. A deep and general grief has settled on the spirits of men of every party; and could the memory of the past be blotted out, the world might not suspect us of being a divided people. Would to Heaven that the sword of our civil wars might henceforth be buried in that grave where lies the hand that never drew a sword but against his country's foes; and that the first who has fallen while in office might be the last who shall enter it amid animosities and misrepresentation; that every man who shall hereafter be called to that high trust may be able to say, as he looks from the eminence on which the merited confidence of the nation has placed him, with the successor of him whose memory we honor, "I have no cause to cherish or indulge unkind feeling." We are not so utopian, however, as to suppose that the people of this land will all ever think alike on questions of national policy; or that they will refrain from earnest endeavor to effect the success of candidates for office whose views coincide with their own. Still, it is of right to be expected, and of right to be demanded, in the name of justice, virtue and humanity, that the iniquitous measures which have so long, and by all parties, been resorted to, that they are beginning to claim a prescriptive right to be admitted among the necessary and legitimate instrumentalities of an elective government, should be repudiated and brought to an end. If they are not, the elective franchise will cease to be a blessing; those to whom it belongs will be unable, intelligently, to exercise it; those who are worthy of the suffrages of their country, hopeless of success where impudence receives the meed of merit, and calumny mingles her foul waters with the current of truth in every channel of intelligence, and pours them over every road to public favor, will retire; and leave the staff of power to be grasped and wielded, and the wreath of honor to be worn by the intriguing, the unprincipled and the worthless. Every succeeding election will be marked by increasing disorder; till, at last, the ballot box, no longer trusted as the test of the strength of parties, will give place to the surer test of the sword; and the star of our freedom-the last hope of the world—will set in an ocean of blood. O my countrymen! Americans! children of the pilgrims! brothers in the noblest patrimony on which the sun has ever shone! let me entreat you to bury, in the grave of the beloved and honored Harrison, who periled his life in the hour of your country's danger; who has ever been as ready to serve her in the humblest as in the most exalted sphere; who has fallen a sacrifice to solicitude. and exertions that nature refused to bear; and whose love for you -for you ALL-was the ruling passion strong in death; let me implore you by the memory of his dying breath, which his heart, ever true to the magnet of his country's welfare, poured forth after |