PRAYER.

Captain J. RICHARDS BOYLE D. D.

Almighty and Most Merciful God, Our Heavenly Father, before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God! Thou art the blessed and only Potentate, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who alone hath immortality, and who dwelleth in the light that no man can approach unto! Heaven is Thy throne, the earth is Thy footstool, and Thy Kingdom ruleth over all!

In the presence and in the name of this great outpouring of American patriotism and brotherhood, and on this inspiring Centennial Anniversary, we humbly and reverently adore and worship Thee, and solemnly await Thy divine presence and blessing.

We thank Thee, O God, for Thy gracious and manifest Providence which has been vouchsafed our Nation from its birth in this fair city nearly a century and a third ago. We thank Thee for the sagacious and sacrificial men who here and then gave to mankind a new civilization, consecrated to human liberty, and-appealing to Thee for guidance, pledged to its defence their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. We thank Thee for our brave forefathers who with bleeding feet bore the new flag over the sanguinary fields of the War of Independence; and for that glorious soldier and patriot, the noble Washington, who led them to final victory, and whose character and fame are enshrined in our hearts forever. We thank Thee for the long and unbroken line of statesmen, educators and heroes who, under Thy Providence, have guided our public destinies on from that early day until the present hour, in ever increasing honor and power and glory.

We thank Thee most especially tonight for our heroes of the War of the Rebellion, in the field, the state, and the church, who amid sufferings incredible and with fortitude invincible rescued

our beloved Nation when it was violently threatened with dismemberment and death. And above all these we thank Thee now and always for that supreme and colossal man, Abraham Lincoln, who stands forth forever among these later heroes, taller than the tallest, greater than the greatest, better than the best. Thine own Infinite Hand fashioned him from the clay of our common humanity. Thy ministry trained him in the severe struggles of his early life for his high responsibilities and his unexampled burdens and achievements. The light of Thy Spirit baptized his mighty brain. The love of Thy heart filled his great soul. The rectitude of Thy eternal law was enthroned within his incorruptible conscience. He was Thine own chosen Apostle of patriotism and liberty to our imperilled people. We most devoutly thank Thee for his providential call and appearance in the hour of our deep darkness and cruel trial; and for the magnetism of his person, the eloquence of his tongue and pen, the wisdom of his mind, and the boundless tenderness and toleration of his loving heart. We thank Thee for the freedom he gave to a race long oppressed in bondage, for the civic and moral regeneration he wrought out for the whole Nation, and for the fact that his sacred blood,-so foully and wickedly shed— has cemented for all time the foundations of our Republic. Like Abraham of old this modern Abraham was the friend of God and he is the father of new generations of faithful men. He was Thy servant,and he is our beloved Chief.

We pray Thy blessing to rest upon his name, his memory, his deeds and his influence forevermore. We implore Thy favor upon his only living son and his family; upon all the survivors of the Civil War and their loved ones; upon the distinguished and partiotic Order under whose auspices we are here assembled; upon their Companions throughout the land; and upon all similar assemblages of our people who are commemorating this anniversary. We beseech Thee to bless the President of the United States who is so soon to lay aside the cares of State, and his chosen successor who within a few days is to assume his high and responsible duties. Grant, we pray Thee, that international peace, domestic tranquility, and great prosperity may abound under his administration. Bless all our States,-their officers, their people, their business, their schools, their charities and their homes. Bless this great and kindly city and all our

communities. Lead our Nation forward through all coming years in the unfolding of manly and womanly character, in undisturbed brotherhood, and in Thy faith and love, and save our children's children through all generations. And unto Thee, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, we shall ascribe praise, and honor, and glory, world without end. Amen.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Brevet Major-General JOSHUA L. CHAMBERLAIN.

Great crises in human affairs call out the great in men. They call for great men. This greatness is of quality rather than quantity. It is not intensified selfhood, nor multiplied possessions. It implies extraordinary powers to cope with difficult situations; but it implies still more, high purpose-the intent to turn these powers to the service of man. Its essence is of magnanimity. Some have indeed thought it great to seize occasion in troubled times to aggrandize themselves. And something slavish in the lower instincts of human nature seems to grant their claim. Kings and conquerors have been named "great" because of the magnificence of the servitude they have been able to command, or the vastness of their conquests, or even of the ruin they have wrought.

But true greatness is not in nor of the single self; it is of that larger personality, that shared and sharing life with others, in which, each giving of his best for their betterment, we are greater than ourselves; and self-surrender for the sake of that great belonging, is the true nobility.

The heroes of history are not self-seekers; they are saviors. They give of their strength to the weak, the wronged, the imperilled. Suffering and sacrifice they take on themselves. Summoned by troubles, they have brought more than peace; they have brought better standing and understanding for human aspirations. Their mastery is for truth and right; that is for man. Hence they are reverenced and beloved through the ages. If we mourn the passing of the heroic age, all the more conspicuous and honored is heroic example, still vouchsafed to

ours.

There are crises yet, when powers and susceptibilities of good fevered with blind unrest and trembling for embodiment seem turned to mutual destruction. Happy then the hour when comes the strong spirit, master because holding self to a higher

obedience, the impress of whose character is command. He comes to mould these elemental forces not to his own will, but to their place in the appointed order of the ongoing world. For lack of such men the march of human right has so many times been halted-hence the dire waste of noble endeavor; grandeur of martyrdoms uplifted in vain; high moments of possibility lost to mankind.

There came upon our country, in our day, a crisis, a momentous peril, a maddened strife such as no description can portray, nor simile shadow forth; volcanic eruption, earthquake, upwhelming seas of human force involving in their sweep agonies and destruction such as the catastrophies of Italy never wrought; not merely the measurable material loss, but the immeasurable spiritual cost; the maddened attempt to rend asunder this ordained Union, this People of the United States of America, a government by divine right, if anything on earth can be so. The shock was deep and vast. It was the convulsion of a historic and commissioned people. It was the dissolution of covenants that had held diverse rights and powers in poise; collision of forces correlated to secure unity and order,-now set loose against each other, working destruction. It was more than the conflict of laws, clash of interests, disharmony of ideas and principles. It was the sundering of being; war of self against self; of sphere against sphere in the concentric order of this great composite national life of ours.

For us the aggregate human wisdom had been found wanting. Conventions, Congresses and compromises had failed; the heights of argument, sentiment and eloquence had been scaled in vain; the mighty bond of historic memories, patriotism and christian fellowship had been dissolved in that ferment. Had a committee of wisest men been chosen,-expert doctors of law, medicine and divinity,-nay the twelve apostles themselves been summoned,-to determine what combination of qualities must mark the man who could mount above this storm, make his voice heard amidst these jarring elements, and command the "law of the mind" to prevail over the "law in the members," they could not have completed their inventory, nor have found the man of such composition.

It was a divine providence which brought forth the man, to execute the divine decree, in a crisis of human history.