soil lay buried the last year's flower-roots,
waiting for a resurrection.

So in our hearts it was winter,--a winter of patient suffering and
expectancy,--a winter of suppressed sobs, of inward bleedings,--a cold,
choked, compressed anguish of endurance, for how long and how much God
only could tell us.

The first paper of the Chimney-Corner, as was most meet and fitting, was
given to those homes made sacred and venerable by the cross of
martyrdom,--by the chrism of a great sorrow. That Chimney-Corner made
bright by home firelight seemed a fitting place for a solemn act of
reverent sympathy for the homes by whose darkness our homes had been
preserved bright, by whose emptiness our homes had been kept full, by
whose losses our homes had been enriched; and so we ventured with
trembling to utter these words of sympathy and cheer to those whom God
had chosen to this great sacrifice of sorrow.

The winter months passed with silent footsteps, spring returned, and the
sun, with ever-waxing power, unsealed the snowy sepulchre of buds and
leaves,--birds reappeared, brooks were unchained, flowers filled every
desolate dell with blossoms and perfume. And with returning spring, in
like manner, the chill frost of our fears and of our dangers melted
before the breath of the Lord. The great war, which lay like a mountain
of ice upon our hearts, suddenly dissolved and was gone. The fears of
the past were as a dream when one awaketh, and now we scarce realize our
deliverance. A thousand hopes are springing up everywhere, like
spring-flowers in the forest. All is hopefulness, all is bewildering
joy.

But this our joy has been ordained to be changed into a wail of sorrow.
The kind hard hand, that held the helm so steadily in the desperate
tossings of the storm, has been stricken down just as we entered
port,--the fatherly heart that bore all our sorrows can take no earthly
part in our joys. His were the cares, the watchings, the toils, the
agonies of a nation in mortal struggle; and God looking down was so well
pleased with his humble faithfulness, his patient continuance in
well-doing, that earthly rewards and honors seemed all too poor for him,
so He reached down and took him to immortal glories. "Well done, good
and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!"

Henceforth the place of Abraham Lincoln is first among that noble army
of martyrs who have given their blood to the cause of human freedom. The
eyes are yet too