The proclamation accomplished its end, for, during the war, our armies came into military possession of every State in rebellion. Then, too, was called forth the new power that comes from the simultaneous diffusion of thought and feeling among the nations of mankind. The mysterious sympathy of the millions throughout the world was given spontaneously. The best writers of Europe waked the conscience of the thoughtful, till the intelligent moral sentiment of the Old World was drawn to the side of the unlettered statesman of the West. Russia, whose emperor had just accomplished one of the grandest acts in the course oftime, by raising twenty millions of bondmen into freeholders, and thus assuring the growth and culture of a Russian people, remained our unwavering friend. From the oldest abode of civilization, which gave the first example of an imperial government with equality among the people, Prince Kung, the secretary of state for foreign affairs, remembered the saying of Confucius, that we should not do to others what we would not that others should do to us, and, in the name of his emperor, read a lesson to European diplomatists by closing the ports of China against the warships and privateers of "the seditious."
The war continued, with all the peoples of the world, for anxious spectators. Its cares weighed heavily on LINCOLN, and his face was ploughed with the furrows of thought and sadness. With malice towards none, free from the spirit of revenge, victory made him importunate for peace, and his enemies never doubted his word, or despaired of his abounding clemency. He longed to utter pardon as the word for all, but not unless the freedom of the negro should be assured. The grand battles of Fort Donelson, Chattanooga, Malvern Hill, Antietam, Gettysburg, the Wilderness of Virginia, Winchester, Nashville, the capture of New Orleans, Vicksburg, Mobile, Fort Fisher, the march from Atlanta, and the capture of Savannah and Charleston, all foretold the issue. Still more, the self-regeneration of Missouri, the heart of the continent; of Maryland, whose sons never heard the midnight bells chime so sweetly as when theyrang out to earth and heaven that, by the voice of her own people, she took her place among the free; of Tennessee, which passed through fire and blood, through sorrows and the shadow of death, to work out her own deliverance, and by the faithfulness of her own sons to renew her youth like the eagle—proved that victory was deserved, and would be worth all that it cost. If words of mercy, uttered as they were by LINCOLN on the waters of Virginia, were defiantly repelled, the armies of the country, moving with one will, went as the arrow to its mark, and, without a feeling of revenge, struck the death-blow at rebellion.
Where, in the history of nations, had a Chief Magistrate possessed more sources of consolation and joy than LINCOLN? His countrymen had shown their love by choosing him to a second term of service. The raging war that had divided the country had lulled, and private grief was hushed by the grandeur of the result. The nation had its new birth of freedom, soon to be secured forever by an amendment of the Constitution. His persistent gentleness had conquered for him a kindlier feeling on the part of the South. His scoffers among the grandees of Europe began to do him honor. The laboring classes everywhere saw in his advancement their own. All peoples sent him their benedictions. And at this moment of the height of his fame, to which his humility and modesty added charms, he fell by the hand of the assassin, and the only triumph awarded him was the march to the grave.
This is no time to say that human glory is but dust and ashes; that we mortals are no more than shadows in pursuit of shadows. How mean a thing were man if there were not that within him which is higher than himself; if he could not master the illusions of sense, and discern the connexions of events by a superior light which comes from God! He so shares the divine impulses that he has power to subject ambition to the ennoblement of his kind. Not in vain has LINCOLN lived, for he has helped to make this republic an example of justice, with no caste but the caste of humanity. The heroes who led our armies and ships into battle and fell in the service—Lyon, McPherson, Reynolds, Sedgwick, Wadsworth, Foote, Ward, with their compeers—did not die in vain; they and the myriads of nameless martyrs, and he, the chief martyr, gave up their lives willingly "that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
The assassination of LINCOLN, who was so free from malice, has, by some mysterious influence, struck the country with solemn awe, and hushed, instead of exciting, the passion for revenge. It seems as if the just had died for the unjust. When I think of the friends I have lost in this war—and every one who hears me has, like myself, lost some of those whom he most loved—there is no consolation to be derived from victims on the scaffold, or from anything but the established union of the regenerated nation.
In his character LINCOLN was through andthrough an American. He is the first native of the region west of the Alleghenies to attain to the highest station; and how happy it is that the man who was brought forward as the natural outgrowth and first fruits of that region should have been of unblemished purity in private life, a good son, a kind husband, a most affectionate father, and, as a man, so gentle to all. As to integrity, Douglas, his rival, said of him: "Lincoln is the honestest man I ever knew."
The habits of his mind were those of meditation and inward thought, rather than of action. He delighted to express his opinions by an apothegm, illustrate them by a parable, or drive them home by a story. He was skilful in analysis, discerned with precision the central idea on which a question turned, and knew how to disengage it and present it by itself in a few homely, strong old English words that would be intelligible to all. He excelled in logical statements more than in executive ability. He reasoned clearly, his reflective judgment was good, and his purposes were fixed; but, like the Hamlet of his only poet, his will was tardy in action, and, for this reason, and not from humility or tenderness of feeling, he sometimes deplored that the duty which devolved on him had not fallen to the lot of another.
LINCOLN gained a name by discussing questions which, of all others, most easily lead to fanaticism; but he was never carried away by enthusiastic zeal, never indulged in extravagant language, never hurried to support extreme measures,never allowed himself to be controlled by sudden impulses. During the progress of the election at which he was chosen President he expressed no opinion that went beyond the Jefferson proviso of 1784. Like Jefferson and Lafayette, he had faith in the intuitions of the people, and read those intuitions with rare sagacity. He knew how to bide time, and was less apt to run ahead of public thought than to lag behind. He never sought to electrify the community by taking an advanced position with a banner of opinion, but rather studied to move forward compactly, exposing no detachment in front or rear; so that the course of his administration might have been explained as the calculating policy of a shrewd and watchful politician, had there not been seen behind it a fixedness of principle which from the first determined his purpose, and grew more intense with every year, consuming his life by its energy. Yet his sensibilities were not acute; he had no vividness of imagination to picture to his mind the horrors of the battlefield or the sufferings in hospitals; his conscience was more tender than his feelings.
LINCOLN was one of the most unassuming of men. In time of success, he gave credit for it to those whom he employed, to the people, and to the Providence of God. He did not know what ostentation is; when he became President he was rather saddened than elated, and conduct and manners showed more than ever his belief that all men are born equal. He was no respecter of persons, and neither rank, nor reputation, nor services overawedhim. In judging of character he failed in discrimination, and his appointments were sometimes bad; but he readily deferred to public opinion, and in appointing the head of the armies he followed the manifest preference of Congress.
A good President will secure unity to his administration by his own supervision of the various departments. LINCOLN, who accepted advice readily, was never governed by any member of his cabinet, and could not be moved from a purpose deliberately formed; but his supervision of affairs was unsteady and incomplete, and sometimes, by a sudden interference transcending the usual forms, he rather confused than advanced the public business. If he ever failed in the scrupulous regard due to the relative rights of Congress, it was so evidently without design that no conflict could ensue, or evil precedent be established. Truth he would receive from any one, but when impressed by others, he did not use their opinions till, by reflection, he had made them thoroughly his own.
It was the nature of LINCOLN to forgive. When hostilities ceased, he, who had always sent forth the flag with every one of its stars in the field, was eager to receive back his returning countrymen, and meditated "some new announcement to the South." The amendment of the Constitution abolishing slavery had his most earnest and unwearied support. During the rage of war we get a glimpse into his soul from his privately suggesting to Louisiana, that "in defining the franchise some of the colored people might be let in,"saying: "They would probably help, in some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of liberty in the family of freedom." In 1857 he avowed himself "not in favor of" what he improperly called "negro citizenship," for the Constitution discriminates between citizens and electors. Three days before his death he declared his preference that "the elective franchise were now conferred on the very intelligent of the colored men, and on those of them who served our cause as soldiers"; but he wished it done by the States themselves, and he never harbored the thought of exacting it from a new government, as a condition of its recognition.
The last day of his life beamed with sunshine, as he sent, by the Speaker of this House, his friendly greetings to the men of the Rocky mountains and the Pacific slope; as he contemplated the return of hundreds of thousands of soldiers to fruitful industry; as he welcomed in advance hundreds of thousands of emigrants from Europe; as his eye kindled with enthusiasm at the coming wealth of the nation. And so, with these thoughts for his country, he was removed from the toils and temptations of this life, and was at peace.
Hardly had the late President been consigned to the grave when the prime minister of England died, full of years and honors. Palmerston traced his lineage to the time of the conqueror; LINCOLN went back only to his grandfather. Palmerston received his education from the best scholars of Harrow, Edinburg, and Cambridge; LINCOLN'S early teachers were the silent forests, theprairie, the river, and the stars. Palmerston was in public life for sixty years; LINCOLN for but a tenth of that time. Palmerston was a skilful guide of an established aristocracy; LINCOLN a leader, or rather a companion, of the people. Palmerston was exclusively an Englishman, and made his boast in the House of Commons that the interest of England was his Shibboleth; LINCOLN thought always of mankind, as well as his own country, and served human nature itself. Palmerston, from his narrowness as an Englishman, did not endear his country to any one court or to any one nation, but rather caused general uneasiness and dislike; LINCOLN left America more beloved than ever by all the peoples of Europe. Palmerston was self-possessed and adroit in reconciling the conflicting factions of the aristocracy; LINCOLN, frank and ingenuous, knew how to poise himself on the ever-moving opinions of the masses. Palmerston was capable of insolence towards the weak, quick to the sense of honor, not heedful of right; LINCOLN rejected counsel given only as a matter of policy, and was not capable of being wilfully unjust. Palmerston, essentially superficial, delighted in banter, and knew how to divert grave opposition by playful levity; LINCOLN was a man of infinite jest on his lips with saddest earnestness at his heart. Palmerston was a fair representative of the aristocratic liberality of the day, choosing for his tribunal, not the conscience of humanity, but the House of Commons; LINCOLN took to heart the eternal truths ofliberty, obeyed them as the commands of Providence, and accepted the human race as the judge of his fidelity. Palmerston did nothing that will endure; LINCOLN finished a work which all time cannot overthrow. Palmerston is a shining example of the ablest of a cultivated aristocracy; LINCOLN is the genuine fruit of institutions where the laboring man shares and assists to form the great ideas and designs of his country. Palmerston was buried in Westminster Abbey by the order of his Queen, and was attended by the British aristocracy to his grave, which, after a few years, will hardly be noticed by the side of the graves of Fox and Chatham; LINCOLN was followed by the sorrow of his country across the continent to his resting-place in the heart of the Mississippi valley, to be remembered through all time by his countrymen, and by all the peoples of the world.
As the sum of all, the hand of LINCOLN raised the flag; the American people was the hero of the war; and, therefore, the result is a new era of republicanism. The disturbances in the country grew not out of anything republican, but out of slavery, which is a part of the system of hereditary wrong; and the expulsion of this domestic anomaly opens to the renovated nation a career of unthought of dignity and glory. Henceforth our country has a moral unity as the land of free labor. The party for slavery and the party against slavery are no more, and are merged in the party of Union and freedom. The States which would have leftus are not brought back as subjugated States, for then we should hold them only so long as that conquest could be maintained; they come to their rightful place under the constitution as original, necessary, and inseparable members of the Union.
We build monuments to the dead, but no monuments of victory. We respect the example of the Romans, who never, even in conquered lands, raised emblems of triumph. And our generals are not to be classed in the herd of vulgar warriors, but are of the school of Timoleon, and William of Nassau, and Washington. They have used the sword only to give peace to their country and restore her to her place in the great assembly of the nations.
SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES of America: as I bid you farewell, my last words shall be words of hope and confidence; for now slavery is no more, the Union is restored, a people begins to live according to the laws of reason, and republicanism is intrenched in a continent.
BY GOLDWIN SMITH
Abraham Lincoln is assuredly one of the marvels of history. No land but America has produced his like. This destined chief of a nation in its most perilous hour was the son of a thriftless and wandering settler. He had a strong andeminently fair understanding, with great powers of patient thought, which he cultivated by the study of Euclid. In all his views there was the simplicity of his character. Both as an advocate and as a politician he was "Honest Abe." As an advocate he would throw up his brief when he knew that his case was bad. He said himself that he had not controlled events, but had been guided by them. To know how to be guided by events, however, if it is not imperial genius, is practical wisdom. Lincoln's goodness of heart, his sense of duty, his unselfishness, his freedom from vanity, his long suffering, his simplicity, were never disturbed either by power or by opposition. To the charge of levity no man could be less open. Though he trusted in Providence, care for the public and sorrow for the public calamities filled his heart and sat visibly upon his brow. His State papers are excellent, not only as public documents, but as compositions, and are distinguished by their depth of human feeling and tenderness, from those of other statesmen. He spoke always from his own heart to the heart of the people. His brief funeral oration over the graves of those who had fallen in the war is one of the gems of the language.
BY H. A. DELANO
He was uneducated, as that term goes to-day, and yet he gave statesmen and educators things to think about for a hundred years to come. Beneath the awkward, angular and diffident frame beat one of the noblest, largest, tenderest hearts that ever swelled in aspiration for truth, or longed to accomplish a freeman's duty. He might have lacked in that acute analysis which knows the "properties of matter," but he knew the passions, emotions, and weaknesses of men; he knew their motives. He had the genius to mine men and strike easily the rich ore of human nature. He was poor in this world's goods, and I prize gratefully afac-simileletter lying among the treasures of my study written by Mr. Lincoln to an old friend, requesting the favor of a small loan, as he had entered upon that campaign of his that was not done until death released the most steadfast hero of that cruel war. Men speculate as to his religion. It was the religion of the seer, the hero, the patriot, and the lover of his race and time. Amid the political idiocy of the times, the corruption in high places, the dilettante culture, the vaporings of wild and helpless theorists, in this swamp of political quagmire, O Lincoln, it is refreshing to think of thee!
From "Greeley on Lincoln"
When I last saw him, some five or six weeks before his death, his face was haggard with care, and seamed with thought and trouble. It looked care-ploughed, tempest-tossed, weather-beaten, as if he were some tough old mariner, who had for years been beating up against the wind and tide, unable to make his port or find safe anchorage. Judging from that scathed, rugged countenance, I do not believe he could have lived out his second term had no felon hand been lifted against his priceless life.
The chief moral I deduce from his eventful career asserts
The might that slumbers in a peasant's arm!
The might that slumbers in a peasant's arm!
the majestic heritage, the measureless opportunity, of the humblest American youth. Here was an heir of poverty and insignificance, obscure, untaught, buried throughout his childhood in the frontier forests, with no transcendent, dazzling abilities, such as make their way in any country, under any institutions, but emphatically in intellect, as in station, one of the millions of strivers for a rude livelihood, who, though attaching himself stubbornly to the less popular party, and especially so in the State which he has chosen as his home, did nevertheless become a central figure of theWestern Hemisphere, and an object of honor, love, and reverence throughout the civilized world. Had he been a genius, an intellectual prodigy, like Julius Caesar, or Shakespeare, or Mirabeau, or Webster, we might say: "This lesson is not for us—with such faculties any one could achieve and succeed"; but he was not a born king of men, ruling by the resistless might of his natural superiority, but a child of the people, who made himself a great persuader, therefore a leader by dint of firm resolve, and patient effort, and dogged perseverance. He slowly won his way to eminence and renown by ever doing the work that lay next to him—doing it with all his growing might—doing it as well as he could, and learning by his failure, when failure was encountered, how to do it better. Wendell Phillips once coarsely said, "He grew because we watered him"; which was only true in so far as this—he was open to all impressions and influences, and gladly profited by all the teachings of events and circumstances, no matter how adverse or unwelcome. There was probably no year of his life in which he was not a wiser, larger, better man than he had been the year preceding. It was of such a nature—patient, plodding, sometimes groping, but ever towards the light—that Tennyson sings:
Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,At last he beat his music out.There lives more faith in honest doubt,Believe me, than in half the creeds.
Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,At last he beat his music out.There lives more faith in honest doubt,Believe me, than in half the creeds.
There are those who profess to have been always satisfied with his conduct of the war, deeming it prompt, energetic, vigorous, masterly. I did not, and could not, so regard it. I believed then—I believe this hour,—that a Napoleon I., a Jackson, would have crushed secession out in a single short campaign—almost in a single victory. I believed that an advance to Richmond 100,000 strong might have been made by the end of June, 1861; that would have insured a counter-revolution throughout the South, and a voluntary return of every State, through a dispersion and disavowal of its rebel chiefs, to the councils and the flag of the Union. But such a return would have not merely left slavery intact—it would have established it on firmer foundations than ever before. The momentarily alienated North and South would have fallen on each other's necks, and, amid tears and kisses, have sealed their reunion by ignominiously making the Black the scapegoat of their bygone quarrel, and wreaking on him the spite which they had purposed to expend on each other. But God had higher ends, to which a Bull Run, a Ball's Bluff, a Gaines's Mill, a Groveton, were indispensable: and so they came to pass, and were endured and profited by. The Republic needed to be passed through chastening, purifying fires of adversity and suffering: so these came and did their work and the verdure of a new national life springs greenly, luxuriantly, from their ashes. Other men were helpful to the great renovation, and nobly did their part in it; yet, looking back through thelifting mists of seven eventful, tragic, trying, glorious years, I clearly discern that the one providential leader, the indispensable hero of the great drama—faithfully reflecting even in his hesitations and seeming vacillations the sentiment of the masses—fitted by his very defects and shortcomings for the burden laid upon him, the good to be wrought out through him, was Abraham Lincoln.
BY J. T. TROWBRIDGE
Heroic soul, in homely garb half hid,Sincere, sagacious, melancholy, quaint;What he endured, no less than what he did,Has reared his monument, and crowned him saint.
Heroic soul, in homely garb half hid,Sincere, sagacious, melancholy, quaint;What he endured, no less than what he did,Has reared his monument, and crowned him saint.
BY B. B. TYLER
In 1865, the bullet of an assassin suddenly terminated the life among men of one who was an honor to his race. He was great and good. He was great because he was good. Lincoln's religious character was the one thing which, above all other features of his unique mental and moral as well as physical personality, lifted him above his fellow men.
Because an effort has been made to parade Abraham Lincoln as an unbeliever, I have been led to search carefully for the facts in his life bearing on this point. The testimony seems to be almost entirely, if not altogether, on one side. I cannot account for the statement which William H. Herndon makes in his life of the martyred President, that, "Mr. Lincoln had no faith." For twenty-five years Mr. Herndon was Abraham Lincoln's law partner in Springfield, Ill. He had the best opportunities to know Abraham Lincoln. When, however, he affirms that "Mr. Lincoln had no faith," he speaks without warrant. It is simply certain that he uses words in their usually accepted signification, although his statement concerning Lincoln is not true.
Abraham Lincoln was a man of profound faith. He believed in God. He believed in Christ. He believed in the Bible. He believed in men. His faith made him great. His life is a beautiful commentary on the words, "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." There was a time in Lincoln's experience when his faith faltered, as there was a time when his reason tottered, but these sad experiences were temporary, and Abraham Lincoln was neither an infidel nor a lunatic. It is easy to trace in the life of this colossal character, a steady growth of faith. Thisgrace in him increased steadily in breadth and in strength with the passing years, until it came to pass that his last public utterances show forth the confidence and the fire of an ancient Hebrew prophet.
It is true that Lincoln never united with the Church, although a lifelong and regular attendant on its services. He had a reason for occupying a position outside the fellowship of the Church of Christ as it existed in his day and in his part of the world. This reason Lincoln did not hesitate to declare. He explained on one occasion that he had never become a church member because he did not like and could not in conscience subscribe to the long and frequently complicated statements of Christian doctrines which characterized the confessions of the Churches. He said: "When any Church will inscribe over its altar as its sole qualification for membership the Savior's condensed statement of the substance of both law and gospel, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself,' that Church will I join with all my heart and soul."
Abraham Lincoln in these words recognizes the central figure of the Bible, Jesus of Nazareth, as "the Saviour." He recognizes God as the supreme Lawgiver, and expresses readiness, while eschewing theological subtleties, to submit heart and soul to the supreme Lawgiver of the universe. His faith, according to this language, goes out manward aswell as Godward. He believed not only in God, but he believed in man as well, and this Christianity, according to Christ, requires of all disciples of the great Teacher.
About a year before his assassination Lincoln, in a letter to Joshua Speed, said: "I am profitably engaged in reading the Bible. Take all of this book upon reason that you can and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a better man." He saw and declared that the teaching of the Bible had a tendency to improve character. He had a right view of this sacred literature. Its purpose is character building.
Leonard Swett, who knew Abraham Lincoln well, said at the unveiling of the Chicago monument that Lincoln "believed in God as the supreme ruler of the universe, the guide of men, and the controller of the great events and destinies of mankind. He believed himself to be an instrument and leader in this country of the force of freedom."
From this it appears that his belief was not merely theoretical, but that it was practical. He regarded himself as an instrument, as Moses was an instrument in the hands of Almighty God, to lead men into freedom.
It was after his election, in the autumn of 1860, and but a short time before his inauguration as President of the United States, that in a letter to Judge Joseph Gillespie, he said: "I have read on my knees the story of Gethsemane, where the Son of God prayed in vain that the cup of bitterness might pass from Him. I am in the garden of Gethsemane now, and my cup of bitterness is full and overflowing."
From this it is clear that he believed the Jesus of the Gospels to be "the Son of God." And what a sense of responsibility he must at the time of writing this letter have experienced to cause him to declare, "I am in the garden of Gethsemane now, and my cup of bitterness is full and overflowing!" Only a superlatively good man, only a man of genuine piety, could use honestly such language as this. These words do not indicate unbelief or agnosticism. If ever a man in public life in these United States was removed the distance of the antipodes from the coldness and bleakness of agnosticism, that man was Abraham Lincoln. This confession of faith, incidentally made in a brief letter to a dear friend, is not only orthodox according to the accepted standards of orthodoxy, but, better, it is evangelical. To him the hero of the Gospel histories was none other than "the Son of God." By the use of these words did Lincoln characterize Jesus of Nazareth.
Herndon has said in his life of Abraham Lincoln that he never read the Bible, but Alexander Williamson, who was employed as a tutor in President Lincoln's family in Washington, said that "Mr. Lincoln very frequently studied the Bible, with the aid of Cruden's Concordance, which lay on his table." If Lincoln was not a reader and student of the inspired literature which we call the Bible, what explanation can be made of hislanguage just quoted, addressed to Judge Gillespie, "I have read on my knees the story of Gethsemane, where the Son of God prayed in vain that the cup of bitterness might pass from Him"?
I have admitted that in Lincoln's experience there was a time when his faith faltered. It is interesting to know in what manner he came to have the faith which in the maturity of his royal manhood and in the zenith of his intellectual powers he expressed. One of his pastors—for he sat under the ministry of James Smith, has told in what way Lincoln came to be an intelligent believer in the Bible, in Jesus as the Son of God, and in Christianity as Divine in its origin, and a mighty moral and spiritual power for the regeneration of men and of the race. Mr. Smith placed before him, he says, the arguments for and against the Divine authority and inspiration of the Scriptures. To the arguments on both sides Lincoln gave a patient, impartial, and searching investigation. He himself said that he examined the arguments as a lawyer investigates testimony in a case in which he is deeply interested. At the conclusion of the investigation he declared that the arguments in favor of the Divine authority and inspiration of the Bible is unanswerable.
So far did Lincoln go in his open sympathy with the teachings of the Bible that on one occasion in the presence of a large assembly, he delivered the address at an annual meeting of the Springfield, Illinois, Bible Society. In the course of his address he drew a contrast between the decalog andthe most eminent lawgiver of antiquity, in which he said: "It seems to me that nothing short of infinite wisdom could by any possibility have devised and given to man this excellent and perfect moral code. It is suited to men in all the conditions of life, and inculcates all the duties they owe to their Creator, to themselves, and their fellow men."
Lincoln prepared an address, in which he declared that this country cannot exist half slave and half-free. He affirmed the saying of Jesus, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Having read this address to some friends, they urged him to strike out that portion of it. If he would do so, he could probably be elected to the United States Senate; but if he delivered the address as written, the ground taken was so high, the position was so advanced, his sentiments were so radical, he would probably fail of gaining a seat in the supreme legislative body of the greatest republic on earth.
Lincoln, under those circumstances, said: "I know there is a God, and that He hates the injustice of slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that His hand is in it. If He has a place and a work for me, and I think he has, I believe I am ready. I am nothing but truth is everything. I know I am right, because I know that liberty is right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God."
And yet we are asked to believe that a man who could express himself in this way and showthis courage was a doubter, a skeptic, an unbeliever, an agnostic, an infidel. "Christ is God." This was Lincoln's faith in 1860, found in a letter addressed to the Hon. Newton Bateman.
Lincoln's father was a Christian. Old Uncle Tommy Lincoln, as his friends familiarly called him, was a good man. He was what might be called a ne'er-do-well. As the world counts success, Thomas Lincoln, the father of Abraham Lincoln, was not successful, but he was an honest man. He was a truthful man. He was a man of faith. He worshipped God. He belonged to the church. He was a member of a congregation in Charleston, Ill., which I had the honor to serve in the beginning of my ministry, known as the Christian Church. He died not far from Charleston, and is buried a few miles distant from the beautiful little town, the county seat of Coles County, Ill.
During the last illness of his father, Lincoln wrote a letter to his step-brother, John Johnston, which closes with the following sentences: "I sincerely hope that father may recover his health, but at all events tell him to remember to call upon and confide in our great, and good, and merciful Maker, who will not turn away from him in any extremity. He notes the fall of the sparrow, and numbers the hairs of our heads, and He will not forget the dying man who puts his trust in Him. Say to him that if we could meet now it is doubtful whether it would not be more painful than pleasant, but that if it be his lot to go now he will soon have a joyful meeting with loved ones gonebefore, and where the rest of us, through the mercy of God, hope ere long to join them."
From this it appears that Lincoln cherished a hope of life everlasting through the mercy of God. This sounds very much like the talk of a Christian.
Although Lincoln was not a church member, he was a man of prayer. He believed that God can hear, does hear, and answer prayer. Lincoln said in conversation with General Sickles concerning the battle of Gettysburg, that he had no anxiety as to the result. At this General Sickles expressed surprise, and inquired into the reason for this unusual state of mind at that period in the history of the war. Lincoln hesitated to accede to the request of General Sickles, but was finally prevailed upon to do so, and this is what he said:
"Well, I will tell you how it was. In the pinch of your campaign up there, when everybody seemed panic stricken, and nobody could tell what was going to happen, oppressed by the gravity of our affairs, I went into my room one day and locked the door, and got down on my knees before Almighty God, and prayed to Him mightily for victory at Gettysburg. I told Him this was His war, and our cause His cause, but that we could not stand another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville. And I then and there made a solemn vow to Almighty God that if He would stand by our boys at Gettysburg I would stand by Him. And He did and I will. And after that (I don't know how it was, and I can't explain it) but soon a sweet comfort crept into my soul that things would go allright at Gettysburg, and that is why I had no fears about you."
Such faith as this will put to the blush many who are members of the church.
It was afterward that General Sickles asked him what news he had from Vicksburg. He answered that he had no news worth mentioning, but that Grant was still "pegging away" down there, and he thought a good deal of him as a general, and had no thought of removing him notwithstanding that he was urged to do so; and, "besides," he added, "I have been praying over Vicksburg also, and believe our Heavenly Father is going to give us victory there too, because we need it, in order to bisect the Confederacy and have the Mississippi flow unvexed to the sea."
When he entered upon the task to which the people of the United States had called him, at the railway station in Springfield on the eve of his departure to Washington to take the oath of office, he delivered an address. It is a model. I quote it entire. It is as follows:
"My friends, no one not in my position can realize the sadness I feel at this parting. To this people I owe all that I am. Here I have lived more than a quarter of a century. Here my children were born, and here one of them lies buried. I know not how soon I shall see you again. I go to assume a task more than that which has devolved upon any other man since the days of Washington. He never would have succeeded except for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which heat all times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed without the same Divine blessing which sustained him, and on the same almighty Being I place my reliance for support. And I hope you, my friends, will all pray that I may receive that Divine assistance, without which I cannot succeed, but with which success is certain. Again, I bid you an affectionate farewell."
At the time of Lincoln's assassination these words were printed in a great variety of forms. In my home for a number of years, beautifully framed, these parting words addressed to the friends of many years in Springfield, Ill., ornamented my humble residence. And yet one of his biographers refers to this address as if its genuineness may well be doubted. At the time of its delivery it was taken down and published broadcast in the papers of the day.
But it would be wearisome to you to recite all the evidences bearing on the religious character of Abraham Lincoln. John G. Nicolay well says: "Benevolence and forgiveness were the very basis of his character; his world-wide humanity is aptly embodied in a phrase of his second inaugural: 'With malice toward none, with charity for all.' His nature was deeply religious, but he belonged to no denomination; he had faith in the eternal justice and boundless mercy of Providence, and made the Golden Rule of Christ his practical creed."
In this passage Mr. Nicolay refers especially to Lincoln's second inaugural address. This addresshas the ring of an ancient Hebrew prophet. Only a man of faith and piety could deliver such an address. After the struggles through which the country had passed Lincoln's self-poise, his confidence in God, his belief in and affection for his fellow men, remained unabated. In Lincoln's second inaugural address he used these words:
"Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained: neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease when or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered: that of neither has been answered fully.
"The Almighty has His own purposes. 'Wo unto the world because of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses come; but we to that man by whom the offense cometh.' If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the wo due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure fromthose divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him. Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with a lash shall be paid with another drawn by a sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said. 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the Nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among our selves and with all nations."
The spirit of this address, under the circumstances, is intensely Christian, and it is one of the most remarkable speeches in the literature of the world.
When Lincoln was urged to issue his Proclamation of Emancipation he waited on God for guidance. He said to some who urged this matter, who were anxious to have the President act without delay: "I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that, if it is probable that God would reveal His will to others on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed He wouldreveal it directly to me, for, unless I am more deceived in myself that I often am, it is my earnest desire to know the will of Providence in this matter, and if I can learn what it is, I will do it."
Stoddard, in his Life of Lincoln, gives attention beyond any of his biographers to the religious side of Lincoln's character. Commenting on the inaugural from which I have quoted, Mr. Stoddard said:
"His mind and soul have reached the full development in a religious life so unusually intense and absorbing that it could not otherwise than utter itself in the grand sentences of his last address to the people. The knowledge had come, and the faith had come, and the charity had come, and with all had come the love of God which had put away all thought of rebellious resistance to the will of God leading, as in his earlier days of trial, to despair and insanity."
I wish to call special attention to Lincoln's temperance habits. He was a teetotaler so far as the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage was concerned. When the committee of the Chicago Convention waited upon Lincoln to inform him of his nomination he treated them to ice-water and said:
"Gentlemen, we must pledge our mutual healths in the most healthy beverage which God has given to man. It is the only beverage I have ever used or allowed in my family, and I cannot conscientiously depart from it on the present occasion. It is pure Adam's ale from the spring."
Mr. John Hay, one of his biographers, says: "Mr. Lincoln was a man of exceedingly temperate habits. He made no use of either whisky or tobacco during all the years that I knew him."
Abraham Lincoln was a model in every respect but one. It was a mistake on the part of this great and good man that he never identified himself openly with the Church. I know what can be said in favor of his position. It is not, however, satisfactory. If all men were to act in this matter as Lincoln did, there would be no Church. This is obvious. Hence the mistake which he made. Otherwise, as to his personal habits; as to his confidence in God; as to his faith in man; as to his conception and use of the Bible; as to his habits of prayer; as to his judicial fairness; as to his sympathy with men—in all these respects, as in many others, Abraham Lincoln is a character to be studied and imitated.
[26]From 'The Homiletic Review,' Funk & Wagnalls, Publishers.
[26]From 'The Homiletic Review,' Funk & Wagnalls, Publishers.
(Reunion at Gettysburg Twenty-Five Years After the Battle)
BY RICHARD WATSON GILDER
1888