Throughout the city all flags were at half-mast. On public buildings, churches and private dwellings, the emblems of rejoicing gave place to those of mourning. Public sentiment was such that no one living in the better part of the residential districts dared to withhold the ordinary tokens of the general sorrow. Houses that five days before were conspicuously dark amid the almost universal illumination were now draped in black; some it may be in self-defence, but probably in most cases as the expression of genuine sorrow. Though the Confederacy for which the secessionists of our city had worked and prayed was irretrievably lost, they had at least come to respect Mr. Lincoln, not only for his unswerving fidelity to what he believed to be the right, but also for his broad charity, and not a few of them, while still differing from him politically, admired him as a man. They recognized in him a great and generous friend of the South, and so joined with us, on that day of tears, in eulogizing the martyr and denouncing his assassin. The same lips that four years before had scornfully called him clown, the Illinois ape, baboon and gorilla, now praised him. He had not only subdued the rebellion by force of arms, but also by his clearness of conception, fairness in administration, unflinching advocacy of the rights of all, patience and persistence in duty, and large-heartedness, had conquered their inveterate prejudices. In the afternoon of that day of sorrow, the churches were thrown open, and large congregations met to pray. They poured out their hearts in thanksgiving to God for the unsullied life of the martyred President; for his courage and wisdom in proclaiming liberty to the captive, and freedom to the oppressed. They prayed for his constitutional successor in office, and for God’s blessing on the people both North and South. Nor did they forget the assassin whose wanton act had bowed a nation in grief. In all their utterances they were calm and sane, as men always are when, in submission to the will of God, they commune with Him. At last the curtain of darkness fell on that terrible day, and men with throbbing brows and aching hearts lay down to rest; but to many, if sleep came at all, it came but fitfully. We seemed to be living in a new world. One era of our national life had ended, another had begun. And with ever new experiences our mourning was prolonged as from day to day with the whole Republic we followed in thought the dust of the immortal martyr to its last resting-place at Springfield, Illinois. It was most fitting that it should lie near the home of his early manhood, and in the State that he, in larger measure than any other, had made illustrious.