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SUPPLEMENT TO
THE CHRISTIAN UNION.
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 28, 1881.
Glymouth Gulpit.
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SERMON BY HENRY WARD BEECHER.

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PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

O, thou that dwellest in eternity, how shall we rise from our sphere and limitations to behold thine excellency. The glory and the power of thy being, boundless are they, transcending all that we know. Our wisdom is mocked by the thought of thine; strenght, and according to the glory of thy wisdom . We, confinedin this narrow sphere, go seeking the good that is of to-day and perishes with the morrow; and all our judgments, all our pleasures, are of the earth, all of them are confined, norrowed; all of them are poor and perishing. Thou art moving the wheel of universal affairs; and all creation is before thee, in the endlessness of its subjects and intrests, while we are studying thee and studying the fates of men from our intrests, from our homes, from the doors of our temples. We cannot understand thee, nor by searching can we find thee out. Some little twilight of thy glory falls upon us; but the image of it, and the full orb, who shall know?
Grant, then, that we may not endeavor to judge thee by our ignorance. May we be able in all the overrullings of our desires, and in all the twartings of our plans, to say, The will of the Lord will be done. Thy will is golden. Thy thoughts and thy wish are boudless good. There is in thee no evil, no sympathy therewith, and all pain and suffering are but the schoolmasters that thou dost send forth- monitors, captations of salvation, to mankind.
We thank thee that we may believe that over all the wisdom of life, over all the registered experience of mankind, there is a subline wisdom, and that there are plans in thine heart which never fail, which cannot be thwarted; which, running through time and wtwenity, shall being forth eternal glory.
Now grant, we pray thee, O Lord our God, that we may rest in thee. How vain are our trusts! Our houses that we build perish, and they that built are forgotton. All the things that we work out from the feild, from the sea and from the heavens, do perish in the using. All our wisdom in days of great catasrophe and sorrow is the wisdom of children; and they that are strong, with lordly step, fall down as the weakest. Before thee all things are plain, O Lord our God; and we pray that thou wilt have compassion upon us. Have compassion upon our infirmities, yea and upon our sins; and grant, we beseech of thee, that we may have something of the strength which thou givest to thy children, when thou renewest their strength and givest them to mount up as upon eagles' wings.
Thou hast laid thy hand heavily upon this nation. Thy servant, thine elect, whom thou didst ordain to be the head and leader of this great people, thou hast taken unto thyself, and in ways that fill us with horror and shame and sorrow in overmeasure. For him we have no supplicatio, but much thanksgiving that his toil is over, that his hand has plucked fruit from the tree of life, and that his voice, clear, is in sweet accord with the blessed music of the heavenly sphere. For him no moreturmoil, no more torment, no more fields of battle, no more strife, upon the couch, for life, but rest and eternal blessedness; and we rejoice that we have no occasion, now, to make petition in especial for the salvation of this nation, that thou hast brought more firmly together and inited in this common sorrow. That in this great affliction there has been no shock disorganizing the people, we render thee thanks. That thou art making it, as it were, a precious ointment, that thou art anointing this great people, and by this sorrow lifting them to a higher palne, we render thee thanks; and yet, in behalf of those whose house is made desolate, we pray, O Lord our God, wilt thou, this morning, hear our prayers for thine handmaiden, the mother, for thine handmaid, the wife and companion and counsellor, and for the children that brood in the nest. Will the Lord take them into the arms of his consolation, and endure them with that peace which cometh down from on high. Make all their way of life for them, and let that come to pass in their behalf which thou didst promise to the disciples of old, that, giving up houses, and lands, and all friends and all friendships, throughout the world, and in all times. May they, resting in the bosom of the love of this great people, be cherished and consoled and built up until the day of rejoicing shall come, when they may go home to rebuild in heven, on foundations immovable, the households that have been divided upon earth.
Grant, we beseech of thee, thy blessing to rest upon thy servant whom thou hast called, in a manner so strange and unlooked for, to preside over the destinies of this nation. Spare his life. Defend him from secret or open assault. Grant that he may, through all the period of his adminstration have with him the wisdom of God. And as thou hast from the days of his youth brought him up to know and to believe in the Lord, grant in this emergency, when thou hast so strangely laid upon him the weight of this great people, that he may grid himself, not in his own strength nor in the wisdom of counsellors, ut in the strength of the Lord Jehovah. Be his God, that he may guide fitly, to thy honor and glory, and to his own excellent reputation in days to come, the affairs of this great people.
And bless all the nations of the earth. They have sorrowed for us and with us. We reach forth our hands to beseech mercies upon them-peace, upbuilding, larger liberty, order and stability. We pray that the day may speedily come when all the nations of the earth shall be gathered together forever in a common faith, in common goodness. May the day come not only when sympathy shall flow upon great and Divine interferences with human affairs, but when the world there shall be one vein and one artery, and the blood of our kind shall flow side by side from every part of the earth to every part.
Lord God of our fathers, fulfill to us in continuance all the promises which have been made to them. Grant that the prayers which have been laid up, and that overhang us as invisiable clouds, may rain continually upn us and upon our children, and yet extend themselves to many generations.
We ask these mercies in the name of the Beloved, to whom, with the Father and the Father and the Holy Spirit, shall be praises evermore.
Amen.
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SERMON.
THE BLESSED DEAD.*
" As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, and His righteouness unto children's children. I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days; thy years are throughout all generations. Of old hast thou laid the foudation of the earth; and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed; but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end."

THESE passages you will find in the 102d and 103d Psalms.
How short is human at the longest! We spend our years gathering knowledge, and die just as we are prepared to use it!