OUNG men, you are the architects of your own fortunes. Rely upon your own strength of body and soul. Take for your star selfreliance, faith, honesty, and industry. Inscribe on your banner, "Luck is a fool, pluck is a hero." Don't take too much advice— keep at your helm and steer your own ship, and remember that the great art of commanding is to take a fair share of the work. Don't practice too much humanity. Think wel of yourself. Strike out. Assume your own position. Put potatoes in your cart, over a rough road, and small ones go to the bottom. Rise above the envious and jealous. Fire above the mark you intend to hit. Energy, invincible, determination, with a right motive, are the levers that move the world. Don't drink. Don't chew. Don't smoke. Don't swear. Don't deceive. Don't read novels. Don't marry until you can support a wife. Be in earnest. Be self-reliant. Be generous. Be civil. Read the papers. Advertise your business. Make money and do good with it. Love your God and fellow men. Love truth and virtue. Love your country, and obey its laws. If this advice be implicitly followed by the young men of the country, the millennium is at hand. DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. HENRY WARD BEECHER. HO shall recount our martyr's sufferings for this people since November, 1860?. His horizon had been black with storm by day and by night; he has trod the way of danger and of darkness; on his shoulders rested a government dearer to him than his own life. At its integrity millions of men were striking at home, and upon this government foreign eyes lowered. It stood a lone island DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 599 in the sea, full of storms, and every tide and wave seemed eager to devour it. Upon thousands of hearts great sorrows and anxieties have rested, but not on one such or in such a measure as upon that simple, truthful, noble soul, our faithful and sainted Lincoln. Never rising to the enthusiasm of more impatient natures in hours of hope, and never sinking with mercurial natures in hours of defeat to such depths of despondency, he held on with immovable patience and fidelity, putting caution against hope that it might not be premature and hope against caution that it might not yield to dread and danger. He wrestled ceaselessly through four black and dreadful purgatorial years wherein God was cleansing the sin of His people as by fire. At last the watcher beheld the gray dawn for the country; the mountains began to give their forms forth from out of darkness, and the East came rushing towards us with arms full of joy for all our sorrows. Then it was for him to be glad exceedingly that had sorrowed immeasurably. Peace could bring no heart such joy, such rest, such honor, trust and gratitude. He but looked upon it as Moses looked upon the promised land, and then the wail of the nation proclaimed that he had gone from among us. Not thine the sorrow, but ours, sainted soul. Thou hast indeed entered the promised land while we yet are on the march. To us remains the rocking of the deep and the storm upon the land. Days of duty and nights of watching, but thou art sphered high above all darkness, far beyond all sorrow and weariness. Oh, weary heart, rejoice exceedingly thou that hast enough suffered. Thou hast beheld Him who, invisibly, hath led thee in this great wilderness. Thou standest among the elect; around thee are the royal men that have ennobled human life in every age, and the coronet of glory on thy brow as a diadem of joy is upon thee for evermore. Over all this land, over all the little cloud of years that now from thy infinite horizon moves back as a speck, thou art lifted up as high as the star is above the cloud. In the goodly company of Mount Zion thou shalt find that rest which thou hast sorrowing sought; and thy name, an everlasting name in Heaven, shall flourish in fragrance and beauty as long as the sun shall last upon the earth, and hearts remain to revere truth, fidelity and goodness. He who now sleeps has by this event been clothed with new influence. Dead, he speaks to men who now willingly hear what before they refused to listen to. Now his simple and weighty words will be gathered like those of Washington, and your children and children's children shall be taught to ponder the simplicity and deep wisdom of the utterances. which, in time of party heat, passed as idle words. The patriotism of men will receive a new impulse, and men, for his sake, will love the whole 600 FUNERAL OF LINCOLN. country which he loved so well. I swear you on the altar of his memory to be more faithful to the country for which he has perished by his very perishing, and swear anew hatred to that slavery which made him a martyr and a conqueror. And now the martyr is moving in triumphal march, mightier than when alive. The nation rises up at every stage of his coming. Cities and States are his pall-bearers, and the cannon speaks the hours with solemn progression. Dead, dead, dead, he yet speaketh. Is Washington dead? Is Hampden dead? Is David dead? Is any man that ever was fit to live dead? Disenthralled of flesh, risen to the unobstructed sphere where passion never comes, he begins his illimitable work. His life is now grafted upon the infinite, and will be fruitful, as no earthly life can be. Pass on, thou that hast overcome! Your sorrows, oh people, are his peans, your bells and bands and muffled drums sound triumph in his ears. Wail and weep here; God makes it echo joy and triumph there. Pass on! Four years ago, oh Illinois, we took from thy midst an untried man; and from among the people; we return him to you a mighty conqueror. Not thine any more, but the nation's; not ours, but the world's. Give him place, oh ye prairies. In the midst of this great continent his dust shall rest, a sacred treasure to myriads who shall pilgrim to that shrine to kindle. anew their zeal and patriotism. Ye winds that move over the mighty places of the West, chant his requiem! Ye people behold the martyr whose blood, as so many articulate words, pleads for fidelity, for law, for liberty! R THE SUN IS WARM, THE SKY IS CLEAR. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. HE sun is warm, the sky is clear, The waves are dancing fast and bright, Blue isles and snowy mountains wear The purple noon's transparent light: The breath of the moist air is light Around its unexpanded buds; Like many a voice of one delight,— The winds', the birds', the oceanfloods', The City's voice itself is soft like Solitude's. I see the Deep's untrampled floor With green and purple sea-weeds strown; I see the waves upon the shore Like light dissolved in star-showers thrown; I sit upon the sands alone; The lightning of the noontide ocean Is flashing round me, and a tone Arises from its measured motion,How sweet, did any heart now share in my emotion! Alas! I have nor hope nor health, Nor peace within nor calm around, Nor that Content surpassing wealth The sage in meditation found, sure; Others I see whom these surround; Smiling they live, and call life pleasure; To me that cup has been dealt in another measure. Yet now despair itself is mild |