Abraham Lincoln"s Religion.
by Madison Clinton Peters.
LINCOLN THE MAN
_Thou, too, sail on O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears, With all its hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate!_
_We know what Master laid thy keel, What Workman wrought thy ribs of steel, Who made each mast and sail and rope, What anvils rang, what hammers beat, In what a forge and what a heat Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!_
_Fear not each sudden sound and shock: "Tis the wave, and not the rock, "Tis but the flapping of the sail, And not a rent made by the gale!_
_In spite of rock and tempest"s roar, In spite of false lights on the sh.o.r.e, Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, Our faith triumphant o"er our fears, Are all with thee_--are all with thee!
_Henry Wadsworth Longfellow_
I
LINCOLN THE MAN
The name of Abraham Lincoln is imperishable, immortal; can never fade from the pages of history or grow dim with the lapse of time.
Had this lowly born Kentucky boy been ushered into the world centuries ago in England, doubtless he would have become the father of a royal family, the founder of a kingly dynasty, the pioneer of a courtly line whose proudest boast would be to acclaim him their progenitor.
Fortunately he belongs to modern time and sprang from the loins of a democratic race in a young and democratic country, around whose virgin brow he twined the garlands of a never-fading l.u.s.ter.
His fame is America"s, but his glory belongs to the world, and humanity is proud to honor him as one of the n.o.blest among the sons of men.
He founded no royal house to perpetuate his name on its escutcheon, yet no Caliph or Conqueror, no Emperor or Excellency, no Master or Monarch, no Prince or Potentate, no Prelate or Pontiff, no Saladin or Sultan has left behind a name so dear to the hearts of posterity as that of this plain man of the people, this champion of human rights, this friend of the down-trodden and oppressed, whose heart went out in sympathy and love to all mankind, irrespective of race or religion.
No character in American history or, perhaps, in the world"s history stands out so clearly silhouetted against the background of time as Lincoln; none so free from defect or flaw, with no irregularities to mar its outlines, no inequalities to detract from its perfect formation; its every curve and section a symmetry of proportion.
Born, February 12, 1809, as lowly as Jesus of Nazareth, in a one-room, shackling Kentucky cabin, the child of a poverty-stricken man, whom misfortune had seemingly chosen for her own, and whose ambitions were blighted and hopes almost dead, he conquered every environment of an untoward fate, burst every link that bound him to the misery of his surroundings, and came forth in invincible majesty to write his name in letters of adamant on the walls of Fame.
Reared in gripping, grinding, pinching penury and pallid poverty, amid the most squalid dest.i.tution possible to conceive, successively a ch.o.r.eboy, common laborer, rail-splitter, river pilot, and country storekeeper, he made his way through trials and difficulties that would have overwhelmed the bravest spirit; broke down every barrier, turned all obstacles into stepping-stones to progress, until he entered the arena of public life as a lawyer, commanding the confidence and respect of all who knew him and the terrible odds he had to fight against to win out in the battle of life.
Practically an unknown man when nominated for the Presidency, his election due to factional strife among his opponents, the people of America when approaching the greatest crisis in their history, turned as if by chance, and Providence that chance did guide, to this comparatively obscure man of the prairies, and with one bound he took his place with the world"s greatest statesmen, the leader of his party, the real ruler of a mighty nation.
Led as it were by an Unseen Hand to the front, he solved problems that staggered the wisest minds of the nation, directed military campaigns, and conducted diplomatic relations with such skill as to astonish the most astute statesmen, cabinet ministers, and army generals. The rail-splitter of the Sangamon had become at the supreme moment the man of destiny to whom the nation looked in the most crucial period it had yet encountered.
Such a man is not an accident,--he is more than a circ.u.mstance. He is sent upon a mission and bears his credentials from a Higher Power than that of earth,--there is a purpose and a plan in his existence, the latter is mapped out, the former must be fulfilled.
In view of the fact that Lincoln had barely a year"s schooling, where and how did he acquire his profound wisdom and his depth of knowledge?
That he was a G.o.d-ordained man, raised up to accomplish a divine design, few, who have closely studied the character and work of the man, will gainsay.
As the early prophets were inspired by G.o.d to utter golden words of divine wisdom, so Lincoln was inspired from the same source to speak, and act in conformity to divine intention. The keynote of this idea is forcibly struck by Henry Watterson, when he writes: "And a thousand years hence, no tragedy, no drama, no epic poem will be filled with greater wonder, or be followed by mankind with deeper feelings, than that which tells the story of his life and death."
Lincoln was a Providential man,--of that there can be little question, but every man has it in his power to be Providential also, though not in the same way, by being the deliverer of a race and the saviour of a nation, but by living up to the promptings of his better nature and seizing the opportunities G.o.d sends his way. Any man can thus be Providential in the full length and breadth and sweep of his life.
Next to Washington, Lincoln stands out the most colossal figure in American history, and is pre-eminent to Washington in the affection with which his memory is enshrined in the hearts of his countrymen; though Washington, as the Father of his Country, must always be given the more exalted place.
Washington gave us a country; Lincoln preserved it; Washington wrote the first page of our history; Lincoln was called upon to write another, and at a period which covers the most momentous crisis the country had witnessed since Liberty Bell proclaimed the birth of a separate and independent nation. He wrote the page and he kept it clean, though to do so he had to wash it in rivers of human blood, the warm heart"s blood too of the countrymen he loved, but he would have willingly washed it in his own also, had the sacrifice been necessary. Alas! Lincoln"s blood was shed in the end, not on the altar of his country, but by the hand of an a.s.sa.s.sin; not for the glory of the flag, but for the sorrow of the nation.
More, perhaps, has been written concerning the ill.u.s.trious martyr President than of any other national character, and nearly all of this writing has been eulogy approaching almost to deification. We have enshrined Lincoln in a Pantheon of Glory, all by himself, for the praise and emulation of future ages, just as we have placed Benedict Arnold and Aaron Burr in a Pillory of Shame to be held up for the scorn, execration, and anathema of all time.
The beatification of Lincoln, especially by Northerners, is due, in a great measure, to his devotion and loyalty to the cause of the Union.
The issue of the war was to amalgamate the contending parties into a unified whole under one flag, but Lincoln was not to see the full fruition of his mighty work, the final triumph of his policy. The hand of the a.s.sa.s.sin fell upon him just at the very zenith of his fame, the meridian of his greatness, a time when public sentiment was at the boiling-point. He had struck the shackles from the limbs of four millions of people, brought order out of chaos, planted the banners of victory on the broken ramparts of defeat, and had done it in such a way that the vanquished almost fancied themselves the conquerors, and willingly, proudly, saluted the flag of a cemented Fatherland.
He had brought together the warring elements into a splendid and invincible Union; he had become the idol of his people as Washington had once been; he had been hailed as the Messiah of the slave and the Saviour of the oppressed, and then, in a moment, his great light was extinguished in the gloom and darkness of universal sorrow. With all that he had accomplished, nevertheless, he went down to the grave, like another Columbus, unconscious of the great work he had consummated.
His Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation not only melted the manacles of the slaves by its electric touch, but it freed the whole nation from the bondage of years. Free speech had been suppressed, men dared not utter their convictions, the pulpit had been overawed, the press had been shackled, we were being reproached by the nations of the earth for violating the first principles of freedom by holding men in bondage. Europe was in transports of laughter at a country proclaiming human liberty, while clinging to all the traditions of slavery, and her risible faculties were really excusable in face of such a paradox. Lincoln keenly felt the sneers and taunts, and in the indignation of his mighty manhood he arose and freed the nation from its incubus of shame. He made its soil too hot for the feet of slaves; he unshackled the pulpit; he unmuzzled the press; he removed the dark blots from the national honor, and united and free he placed his country greatest among the nations of the earth.
The immortal Proclamation linked his name with the rights of man, the cause of personal liberty, and the progress of humanity. This is why Lincoln is enthroned on so high a pedestal; this is why the great War President is enshrined in the heart of hearts of his countrymen.
Some are of the opinion, that had the ill.u.s.trious Tribune been spared, his plans of Reconstruction would have antagonized the best men of his party, and instead of coming down to posterity as the most revered and popular President, after Washington, he would have left his name in our annals as probably that of the most unpopular Executive we have had. But such surmise is a piece of far-fetched antic.i.p.ation very remotely removed from the boundary of probability. Lincoln would not have antagonized, he would have converted and brought men to the same viewpoint as himself.
As it is, he towers so majestically above our horizon, that in his great and commanding national role, we are apt to quite forget his character as an individual, his personality as a man and what it represented in the domain of private life.
That Lincoln was a man of strong character and tenacious purpose, rather than brilliant and intellectual, is a point conceded by all who have studied him in the calm of impartiality and in no sense indulged in hero worship. Despite the claim of his divine mission, his greatness was service in loyalty to an ideal and it was subordination of the personal self to his ideals rather than any extraordinary gifts with which nature had endowed him, which gives glory to him and the men who stood with him.
He has been contrasted with Napoleon, whose star was just sinking below the horizon as his was ascending above it, but it is rather invidious to contrast two so widely divergent actors on the stage of fame. The difference between them is the difference between the iron heel and the helping hand, between tyranny and freedom, between a man living for self and glory, and a man living for the broadest kind of cosmopolitanism and the widest type of humanitarianism.
Lincoln"s whole career is a manifestation of his absolute integrity of purpose, of his fearless honesty in all things, of his considerate feeling for others, of his profound respect for conscience, and his reverential fear of G.o.d.
WAS ABRAHAM LINCOLN A CHRISTIAN?
_G.o.d give us men! A time like this demands Clean minds, pure hearts, true faith, and ready hands.
Men who possess opinions and a will; Men whom desire for office does not kill; Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; Men who have honor; men who will not lie; Tall men; sun-crowned men; men who will live above the fog In public duty and in private thinking; Men who can stand before a demagogue And denounce his treacherous flatteries, and without winking.
For a while base tricksters with their wornout creeds, Their large professions, and their little deeds, Wrangle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps, Wrong rules the land and waiting Justice sleeps._
--_J. G. Holland_