Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v1.djvu/235

Rh "In view of my great responsibility to my God and my country," etc.

His fourth and last regular Message bestows the profoundest gratitude to Almighty God.

The second Inaugural is an almost unbroken invocation to God for His assistance and succor in behalf of our bleeding nation. It contains passages (I say it without irreverence) which approach the Divine Sermon on the Mount for moral sublimity and supreme elevation of thought as closely as a merely human document can do it. It is, in my judgment, the most sublime of Mr. Lincoln's utterances. I think it exceeds even the Gettysburg speech. It is, and will ever remain, a sacred classic.

In the general exultation which followed the surrender of Lee, the President said: "He from whom all blessings flow must not be forgotten."

And a call for a National Thanksgiving was being prepared when he was stricken down.

I have thus presented but a small part of the documents and sayings in which Mr. Lincoln recognized, praised, and relied on the Almighty. He seemed to act as if He was present, exercising a personal supervision over our affairs, and in every way, and upon all proper occasions, he recognizes and attests his gratitude to Him for mercies and providences, and humbly receives blows from His chastening hand.

The proper Christianity of such a man cannot be questioned. The President once said: "When any church will inscribe over its altar as its sole qualification for membership, the Saviour'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