Never rising to the enthusiasm of more impassioned natures in hours of hope, and never sinking with the mercurial in hours of defeat to the depths of despondency, he held on with unmovable patience and fortitude, putting caution against hope, that it might not be premature, and hope against caution, that it might not yield to dread and danger.  He wrestled ceaselessly, through four black and dreadful purgatorial years, wherein God was cleansing the sin of his people as by fire.

At last, the watcher beheld the gray dawn for the country.  The mountains began to give forth their forms from out the darkness, and the East came rushing toward us with arms full of joy for all our sorrows.  Then it was for him to be glad exceedingly that had sorrowed immeasurably.  Peace could bring to no other heart such joy, such rest, such honor, such trust, such gratitude.  But he looked upon it as Moses looked upon the promised land.  Then the wail of a nation proclaimed that he had gone from among us.  Not thine the sorrow, but ours, sainted soul.  Thou hast, indeed, entered the promised land, while we are yet on the march.  To us remains the rocking of the deep, the storm upon the land, days of duty and nights of watching; but thou art sphered high above all darkness and fear, beyond all sorrow and weariness.  Rest, O weary heart!  Rejoice exceedingly, thou that hast enough suffered!  Thou hast beheld him who invisibly led thee in this great wilderness.  Thou standest among the elect.  Around thee are the royal men that have ennobled human life in every age.  Kingly art thou, with glory on thy brow as a diadem.  And joy is upon thee for evermore.  Over all this land, over all the little cloud of years that now from thine infinite horizon moves back as a speck, thou art lifted up as high as the star is above the clouds that bide us, but never reach it.  In the goodly company of Mount Zion thou shalt find that rest which thou hast sorrowing sought in vain; and thy name, an everlasting name in heaven, shall flourish in fragrance and beauty as long as men shall last upon the earth, or hearts remain, to revere truth, fidelity, and goodness.

Never did two such orbs of experience meet in one hemisphere, as the joy and the sorrow of the same week in this land.  The joy was as sudden as if no man had expected it, and as entrancing as if it had fallen a sphere from heaven.  It rose up over sobriety, and swept business from its moorings, and ran down through the land in irresistible course.  Men embraced each other in brotherhood that were strangers in the flesh.  They sang, or prayed, or, deeper yet, many could only think thanksgiving and weep gladness.  That peace was sure; that government was firmer than ever; that the land was cleansed of plague; that the ages were opening to our footsteps, and we were to begin a march of blessings; that blood was staunched, and scowling enmities were sinking like storms beneath the horizon; that the dear fatherland, nothing lost, much gained, was to rise up in unexampled honor among the nations of the earth—­these thoughts, and that undistinguishable throng of fancies, and hopes, and desires, and yearnings, that filled the soul with tremblings like the heated air of midsummer days—­all these kindled up such a surge of joy as no words may describe.