"It was said by one of the wisest of the ancient Greeks that it was 'impossible to penetrate the secret thoughts, quality and judgment of man till he is put to proof by high office and administration of the laws.' Whatever we may think of the splendid record of the late President in every walk of life he followed, it does not enable us to anticipate the character and success of the Administration upon which he so happily entered. In other positions of public life, the concurrence of so many different influences is required to accomplish even slight results, that individual credit or responsibility therefor is but slight and intangible. In the administration of government, the highest secular duty to which men are ever called, responsibility is indivisible and unchangeable; and the final results, whether for good or evil, are indelibly stamped on the woof and warp of the web of time, and will so remain forever. Good intentions are of no account, and a plea of confession and avoidance,--admitting failure and disclaiming error,--so advantageous in other cases, never governs the world in judging men who fail rightly to administer government. We are happy in being absolved from the responsibility of judgment where decision is impossible. "Undoubtedly, the open assertion in some parts of the world of the right of assassination as a method of reform in administration and government may have intensified the general interest in this calamitous event. But the courage and composure with which the presidential martyr bore his affliction; the firmness and constancy of his aged mother; the serenity and saint-like resignation of the heroic wife, administering consolation and courage to the husband and father, in a voice sweet as the zephyrs of the south, with a spirit as gentle as love, and a soul as dauntless as the hearts of the women of Israel,--were not unobserved or unhonored. It melted hearts in the four quarters of the globe, and drew from the sons of men, in every land and clime, such an attestation and confession of the faith that all created beings are the children of one Father, as never before fell from human lips. We should be dead to sensibility and honor did we not feel such unwonted tests of the universal scope and sweep of human sympathy vouchsafed to us by the appointed leaders of churches, empires and democracies, and by that august lady the Queen of England and Empress of India, who presides over the councils of the empire whence we derive our ideas of Christian faith, language, liberty and law, who gave to the afflicted children of revolted and republican America the emblems of mourning, reserved by the customs of her court to the best beloved and bravest of her realm, and sent, over her own hand, to the wife, mother and orphans, swift and touching evidence of the strength of her sympathy and the depths of her sorrow--the grandest of sovereigns and noblest of women!