Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/355

 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 287 that neither party expected for the war the magni tude or the duration it had attained. &quot;Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding&quot;; and, passing into a strain of rhapsody, which no lesser mind and character could ever dare to imitate, he said: &quot;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 pur poses. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come ; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh. If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offences 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 woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those 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