f ruler in the earth. There has been something
even unearthly about his extreme unselfishness, his utter want of
personal ambition, personal self-valuation, personal feeling.

The most unsparing criticism, denunciation, and ridicule never moved
him to a single bitter expression, never seemed to awaken in him a
single bitter thought. The most exultant hour of party victory brought
no exultation to him; he accepted power not as an honor, but as a
responsibility; and when, after a severe struggle, that power came a
second time into his hands, there was something preternatural in the
calmness of his acceptance of it. The first impulse seemed to be a
disclaimer of all triumph over the party that had strained their
utmost to push him from his seat, and then a sober girding up of his
loins to go on with the work to which he was appointed. His last
inaugural was characterized by a tone so peculiarly solemn and free
from earthly passion, that it seems to us now, who look back on it in
the light of what has followed, as if his soul had already parted from
earthly things, and felt the powers of the world to come. It was not
the formal state paper of the chief of a party in an hour of victory,
so much as the solemn soliloquy of a great soul reviewing its course
under a vast responsibility, and appealing from all earthly judgments
to the tribunal of Infinite Justice. It was the solemn clearing of his
soul for the great sacrament of Death, and the words that he quoted in
it with such thrilling power were those of the adoring spirits that
veil their faces before the throne,--"Just and true are thy ways, thou
King of saints!"

Among the rich treasures which this bitter struggle has brought to
our country, not the least is the moral wealth which has come to us
in the memory of our martyrs. Thousands of men, women, and children
too, in this great conflict, have "endured tortures, not accepting
deliverance," counting not their lives dear unto them in the holy
cause; and they have done this as understandingly and thoughtfully as
the first Christians who sealed their witness with their blood.

Let us in our hour of deliverance and victory record the solemn vow,
that our right hand shall forget her cunning before we forget them and
their sufferings,--that our tongue shall cleave to the roof of our
mouth if we remember them not above our chief joy.

Least suffering among that noble band were those who laid down their
lives on the battlefi