y 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.

In one hour, joy lay without a pulse, without a gleam or breath. A
sorrow came that swept through the land as huge storms sweep through
the forest and field, rolling thunder along the sky, disheveling the
flowers, daunting every singer in thicket or forest, and pouring
blackness and darkness across the land and up the mountains. Did ever
so many hearts, in so brief a time, touch two such boundless feelings?
It was the uttermost of joy; it was the uttermost of sorrow--noon and
midnight, without a space between.

The blow brought not a sharp pang. It was so terrible that at first it
stunned sensibility. Citizens were like men awakened at midnight by an
earthquake, and bewildered to find everything that they were
accustomed to trust wavering and falling. The very earth was no longer
solid. The first feeling was the least. Men waited to get strength to
feel. They wandered in the streets as if groping after some impending
dread, or undeveloped sorrow, or some one to tell them what ailed
them. They met each other as if eac