Sabbath April 16. 1865

I woke with a heavy pain at my heart such as one feels when the dead are in the house, and for a moment could not think what had happened but God reigns, and wicked men cannot circumvent them, or prevent his purposes from being carried out — Though hand join in hand the wicked shall not go unpunished.  The cry of the poor & needy slave has gone up to God, these many years, and now that of our captive, suffering, soldiers is added — We hope and believe that He has begun to visit for these things and that the shackles will fall from the limbs of the slave, and the prison doors will be opened to the languishing captive.

Mr. Curtis preached a very good sermon from the text “Though he slay me yet will I trust in him” — Every body seems to think and speak only of the terrible tragedy at Washington — One man shed tears as he spoke of it & said he would do what he could to hang traitors — Ann Harvey said she had never been so shocked, or so much regretted the death of any public man as she did that of President Lincoln, but she believed that God had some purpose in permitting it — She was sorry though, that he was at such a place as the theater — a feeling I have heard expressed by more than one — Some said that they had felt paralized by the news, and unable to attend to any business — Many felt a half expressed and vague dread that this is but the beginning of horrors — — That more assassinations may be expected and they know not what — Mrs Blackinton, who has spent 25 years in the South & has imbibed some ideas belonging to that latitude, said that “what made the death of Mr. Lincoln to be particularly regretted was the fact that Vice President Johnson was so unfitted to take his place — he had risen from low life — had been a tailor — his wife had taught him to read” &c. &c.  I told her “for that very reason I honored him, he must be a man of decided talent — a great man — to have acquired so much distinction, and to have honorably filled so many exalted positions” — She said she knew “he was not habitually intemperate — but Southern Gentlemen had never regarded him as being on an equality with them” — I said “so much the better, he will have nothing in common with them, and so will be untrammelled in his dealing with traitors ——