From Cæsar to Bismarck and Gladstone the world has had its soldiers
and its statesmen, who rose to eminence and power step by step through
a series of geometrical progression, as it were, each promotion
following in regular order, the whole obedient to well-established and
well-understood laws of cause and effect. These were not what we call
"men of destiny." They were men of the time. They were men whose
career had a beginning, a middle and an end, rounding off a life with
a history, full, it may be, of interesting and exciting events, but
comprehensible and comprehensive, simple, clear, complete.
The inspired men are fewer. Whence their emanation, where and how they
got their power, and by what rule they lived, moved and had their
being, we cannot see. There is no explication to these lives. They
rose from shadow and went in mist. We see them, feel them, but we know
them not. They arrived, God's word upon their lips; they did their
office, God's mantle upon them; and they passed away God's holy light
between the world and them, leaving behind a memory half mortal and
half myth. From first to last they were distinctly the creations of
some special providence, baffling the wit of man to fathom, defeating
the machinations of the world, the flesh and the devil until their
work was done, and passed from the scene as mysteriously as they had
come upon it; Luther, to wit; Shakespeare, Burns, even Bonaparte, the
archangel of war, havoc and ruin; not to go back into the dark ages
for examples of the hand of God stretched out to raise us, to protect
and to cast down.
Tried by this standard and observed in an historic spirit, where shall
we find an illustration more impressive than in Abraham Lincoln, whose
life, career and death might be chanted by a Greek chorus as at once
the prelude and the epilogue of the most imperial theme of modern
times.
Born as low as the Son of God in a hovel, of what real parentage we
know not; reared in penury, squalor, with no gleam of light, nor fair
surroundings; a young manhood vexed by weird dreams and visions,
bordering at times on madness; singularly awkward, ungainly, even
among the uncouth about him; grotesque in his aspects and ways, it was
reserved for this strange being, late in life, without name or fame or
ordinary preparation, to be snatched from obscurity, raised to
supreme command, and entrusted with the destiny of a nation.
The great leaders of his party were made to stand aside; the most
experienced and accomplished men of the day, men like Seward and Chase
and Sumner, statesmen famous and trained, were sent to the rear; while
this comparatively unknown and fantastic figure was brought by unseen
hands to the front and given the reins of power. It is entirely
immaterial whether we believe in what he said or did, whether we are
for him or against him; but for us to admit that during four years,
carrying with them such a pressure of responsibility as the world has
never witnessed before, he filled the measure of the vast space
allotted him in the actions of mankind and in the eyes of the world,
is to say that he was inspired of God, for nowhere else could he have
acquired the enormous equipment indispensable to the situation.
Where did Shakespeare get his genius? Where did Mozart get his music?
Whose hand smote the lyre of the Scottish plowman? and stayed the life
of the German priest? God alone; and, so surely as these were raised
up by God, inspired by God was Abraham Lincoln, and, a thousand years
hence, no story, no tragedy, no epic poem will be filled with greater
wonder than that which tells of his life and death. If Lincoln was not
inspired of God, then were not Luther, or Shakespeare, or Burns. If
Lincoln was not inspired by God, then there is no such thing on earth
as special providence or the interposition of divine power in the
affairs of men.