In Lincoln's inaugural address will be found the passage about the sad
singularity of the two contendants in the fratricidal combat being
Christians alike: "Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God."
The example is forthcoming. There is plenty of evidence that the
speaker always "took counsel of God." His words are: "I have been
driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I
have nowhere else to go." [Footnote: No longer was Lincoln's piety held
as hypocrisy, as in 1860, when a campaign song sneers at
How each night he seeks the closet,
There, alone, to kneel and pray.]
(Connect with the Confederate commander, Robert E. Lee's avowal: "I
have never seen the day when I did not pray for the people of the
North.")
"Everybody thinks better than anybody."--(Lincoln.) (This is also
ascribed to Talleyrand. "It is only the rich who are robbed.")
* * * * *
"WE SHALL SEE OUR FRIENDS IN HEAVEN!"
For weeks after the death of his son Willie the inconsolable father
mourned in particular on that day in each week, and even the military
sights at Fortress Monroe to court a change failed to distract him. He
was studying Shakespeare. Calling his private secretary to him, he read
several passages, and finally that of Queen Constance's lament over her
lost child:
And, father cardinal, I have heard you say
That we shall see, and know, our friends in heaven.
(_King John, III., 4._)
"If that be true, I shall see my boy again!" He said:
"Colonel, did you ever dream of a lost friend, and feel that you were
holding sweet communion with that friend, and yet have a sad
consciousness that it was not reality? Just so I dream of my boy
Willie!"
(Colonel Lamon, the presidential body-guard-in-chief, was the recipient
of this spiritual confidence.)
* * * * *