The Soldiers' journal. (Rendezvous of Distribution, Va.) 1864-1865, 1864-03-16
Ok
Abraham Lincoln.

Mrs Harriet Beecher Stowe is writing a series
of articles for the Christian WdtchnGn and Re1ec
tor on Men of Our Times For the issue of
that paper, of January 7th, she speaks as follows
of President Lincoln:
'sLittle did the convention that nominated
Abraham Lincoln for President know what they
were doing. Little did the honest, fatherly, pa
triotic man, who stood in his simplicity on the
| platform at Springfield asking the prayers of his
| townsmen, and receiving their pledges to re-
| member him, foresee how awfuliy he was to need
those prayers, the prayers of all the nation, and
the prayers of all the working, suffering, COM
mon people throughout the world Gods hand
was upon him with visible protection, saving
first from the danger of assassination at Balti-
more, and bringing him safely to our national
Capital.
Lincoln is strong man, but his strength is
| of peculiar kind: it is not aggressive so much
as passive, and among passive things il is like
the strength not so much of stone buttress, as
of wire cable. 1t is strength swaying to every
influence, yielding on this side and on that to
| popular needs yet tenaciously and infiexibly
bound to carry its great end ; and probably by
no other kind of strength could our national ship
have been drawn thus far during the tossings
and tempests which beset her way.
Surrounded by all sorts of conflicting claims
by traitors, by half-hearted, tnid men, by bor
der State men, and free State men, by radical
abolitionists and conservatives, he has listened
to all, weighed the words fall, waited, Observed
yielded now here and there; but, in the main,
kept one infexible, honest purpose, and drawn
the national ship through. 49,
SIN times of our trouble Abraham Lincoln has
had his turn of being the best abused man of our
nation. Like Moses leading his Israel through
| the wilderness, he has seen the day when every
| man seemed ready to stone him, and, yet, with
| simple, wiry, steady perseverance he has held
on conscious of honest intentions, and looking
to God for help. All the nation have felt, in the
increasing solemnity of his Proclamation and
papers, how deep an education was being
wrought in his mind by this simple faith in God.
the Ruler of nations, and this humble willing
ness to learn the awful lesson of His Provi~
dence.'
MR.. LINCOLN ABRoAD.-The popularity of Mr..
Lincoln has been as much advanced abroad by
his late acts as in the United States. His main
tenance of the act of Emancipation in his An
nual Message has given immense satisfaction to
all those not prejudiced by special reasons for
the rebellion, and his sagacity, straightforward
ness and honesty in the midst of such confusion
and excitement called from M. Loubelaye the
other day at the College de France, before an i'm
/ mense audience of the elite of the intellectual
world, the exclamation, that Mr.. Lincoln was
''greater man than Cesar y So, too, heard
leading French politician say Lately: You
| Americans don't appreciate Mr.. Lincoln at his
proper value. No monarch in Europe could car
/ ry on such colossal war in front while harassed
| by so many factions and fault-fnders behind
! No, you don't give him his DUE" From Euro
| pean point of view the merit of Mr.. Lincoln IS,
in effect, immense; but in a Republic it is the
people and not the President who carry on the
war. The personal compliment paid TO Mr.. LIN
~ 40 In