Abraham Lincoln | Page 6

sobs they answered
"We will pray for you." Again and again has he publicly invoked
Divine aid, and asked to be remembered in the prayers of the people.
His second Inaugural seems rather the tender pastoral of a white-haired
bishop than a political manifesto.
What were his person relations to his God, I know not. We are not in
all things able to judge him by our personal standard. How much
etiquette may be demanded, how much may have been yielded to the
tyranny of custom we cannot tell. In public life he was spotless in
integrity and dependent upon Divine aid. He had made no public

consecration to God in church covenant, but we may not enter the
sanctuary of his inner life. He constantly read the holy oracles, and
recognized their claim to be the inspired Scriptures.
He felt that religious responsibility when he set forth the Proclamation
of Emancipation closing with the sublime sentence: "And upon this act,
sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution,
on military necessity, I invoke the considerable judgment of mankind
and the gracious favor of Almighty God."
In one of the gloomy hours of the struggle he said to a delegation of
clergymen: "My hope of success in this great and terrible struggle rests
on that immutable foundation, the justice and goodness of God. And
when events are very threatening, and prospects very dark, I still hope,
in some way which men cannot see, all will be well in the end, because
our cause is just and God is on our side."
If, as the executive officer of the nation he erred, it was in excessive
tenderness in dealing with criminals. Unsuspecting and pure, he could
not credit unmixed guilt in others, and with difficulty could he bring
himself to suffer condign punishment to be inflicted. There were times
when he was inflexible. In vain did wealth and position plead for
Gardner, the slave-captain. As vainly did they for Beall and Johnson. If
he was lenient it was the error of amiableness.
In reviewing the administration of Abraham Lincoln, we see in him
another of those Providentially called and directed leaders who have
been raised up in great crises. His name stands on the roll with those of
Moses and Joshua, and William of Orange, and Washington. Not only
did Providence raise him up, but it divinely vindicated his dealings with
slavery. As emancipation was honored, did the pillar of flame light our
hosts on to victory!
In the dawning morn of peace and Union has this leader been slain.
When the nation thought it most needed him, has he been basely
butchered! As the ship which had been rocking in the waves and
bowing before the storm was reaching the harbor, a pirate, who sailed
with the passengers, basely stole on deck and shot the pilot at the

wheel!
The assassin has been held in abhorrence among all people and in all
ages. Here was a foul plot to destroy at one swoop the President, the
officers eligible to the succession, the Cabinet, the Lieutenant- General,
and no doubt the loyal Governors of the States. That the scheme was
successful only in part, God be praised. Never has an assassination
produced so terrible a shock. For--
"He had borne his faculties so meek, had been So clear in his great
office, that his virtues Do plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking off."
He fell, and the whole land mourns. Secession smote him in her
impotent death-rage, but the State lives on! The reins which dropped
from his nerveless hand another grasped, and the nation lives. No
revolution comes. No war of rival dynasties! The constitutional
successor is in the chief seat of power, and how much secession has
taken by this new crime remains to be seen.
Fellow-citizens, there are some duties which press upon us in this hour.
1. We must anew commit ourselves to the work of suppressing
rebellion and re-enthroning the majesty of the Union and Constitution.
Mr. Lincoln lived until the nation's flag had waved in triumph over
every important Southern city; until the proud Southern aristocracy had
thrown itself at the feet of its slaves, and with frantic outcries implored
salvation at their hands; had lived to walk through Richmond, and be
hailed by its dusky freedmen as their deliverer; had lived until he
received the report of the surrender of Lee's grand army, and then he
was slain. We must complete the work. Onward, until it be wrought.
We believe it will be soon, but were it a hundred years it must be
accomplished!
2. We must complete the destruction of slavery. Added to its long
catalogue of crimes, it has now slain the Lord's Anointed, the