The Chief Justice and Judges of the Court of Claims, and the Chief Justice and Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, directly in the rear of the Supreme Court;
The Heads of Bureaus in the Departments, directly in the rear of the officers of the Army and Navy;
Representatives on either side of the Hall, in the rear of those invited, four rows of seats on either side of the main aisles being reserved for Senators;
The Orator of the day, Hon. George Bancroft, at the table of the Clerk of the House;
The Chairmen of the Joint Committee of Arrangements, at the right and left of the orator, and next to them the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House;
The other officers of the Senate and of the House, on the floor at the right and the left of the Speaker's platform.
When order was restored, at twelve o'clock and twenty minutes p.m., the Marine band, stationed in the vestibule, played appropriate dirges.
Hon. LAFAYETE S. FOSTER, President pro tempore of the Senate, called the two Houses of Congress to order at 12.30.
Rev. DR. BOYNTON, Chaplain of the House, offered the following prayer:
Almighty God, who dost inhabit eternity, while we appear but for a little moment and then vanish away, we adore The Eternal Name. Infinite in power and majesty, and greatly to be feared art Thou. All earthly distinctions disappear in Thy presence, and we come before Thy throne simply as men, fallen men, condemned alike by Thy law, and justly cut off through sin from communion with Thee. But through Thy infinite mercy, a new way of access has been opened through Thy Son, and consecrated by His blood. We come, in that all-worthy Name, and plead the promise of pardon and acceptance through Him. By the imposing solemnities of this scene we are carried back to the hour when the nation heard, and shuddered at the hearing, that Abraham Lincoln was dead—was murdered. We would bow ourselves submissively to Him by whom that awful hour was appointed. We bow to the stroke that fell on the country in the very hour of its triumph, and hushed all its shouts of victory to one voiceless sorrow. "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." The shadow of that death has not yet passed from the heart of the nation, as this national testimonial bears witness to-day. The gloom thrown from these surrounding emblems of death is fringed, we know, with the glory of a great triumph, and the light of a great and good man's memory. Still, O Lord, may this hour bring to us the proper warning! "Be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh." Any one of us may be called as suddenly as he whom we mourn.