Page:Six Months at the White House.djvu/201

194 Christ teaches it, and Christ is God. I have told them that a house divided against itself cannot stand; and Christ and Reason say the same; and they will find it so.'

"'Douglas don't care whether slavery is voted up or down, but God cares, and humanity cares, and I care; and with God's help I shall not fail. I may not see the end; but it will come, and I shall be vindicated; and these men will find that they have not read their Bibles right.'

"Much of this was uttered as if he was speaking to himself, and with a sad, earnest solemnity of manner impossible to be described. After a pause, he resumed: 'Doesn't it appear strange that men can ignore the moral aspect of this contest?  A revelation could not make it plainer to me that slavery or the Government must be destroyed.  The future would be something awful, as I look at it, but for this rock on which I stand,' (alluding to the Testament which he still held in his hand,), 'especially with the knowledge of how these ministers are going to vote.  It seems as if God had borne with this thing [slavery] until the very teachers of religion had come to defend it from the Bible, and to claim for it a divine character and sanction; and now the cup of iniquity is full, and the vials of wrath will be poured out.'  After this the conversation was continued for a long time.  Everything be said was of a peculiarly deep, tender, and religious tone, and all was tinged with a touching mel-