Excerpt from Our Great National Reproach and the Counsel of Ahithophel Turned Into Foolishness: Two Sermons Preached in St. James' Church, Eckley, Penna The season of Easter is a season of joy and gladness, the season when we commemorate the triumph of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, over death and the grave. But this Easter season has been one of sorrow and gloom: joy's bright sun seems to have set in night. A heavy woe has befallen us: a calamity, such as no great nation has suffered for two hundred years, has come upon us. Our Chief Magistrate has fallen. Not in leading our armies against the enemies of the nation; not upon a dying bed, with his strength wasting away by some lingering disease: for then we could have borne it: but he is stricken down by the murderous villany of man. We are reminded of the lamentation of David over one who fell in a similar manner: "Died Abner as a fool dieth. Thy hands were not bound, nor thy feet put in fetters.

As a man falleth before wicked men, so fellest thou. And all the people wept again for him." Thus we wept as soon as we heard of it, and we are inclined to weep again as often as we make mention of it. We were all astounded at the first announcement of this melancholy fact. We were slow to believe that such a crime had really been committed. We read the account over and over again. We desired to see other papers. But all told the same horrible tale.

Then we caught at the faint hope which remained, that the wound might not prove fatal. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.