Holmes County farmer. [volume] (Millersburg, Ohio) 1857-1926, 1865-03-16
MIR. Lincoln on Providence and
the war.

| ehC W.
Mr.. Lincoln's second inaugural rivals the
late encyclical letter of Pope Plus, of which
Catholic monarchs have interdicted the cir
culation in their dominions. The subordi-
nation of secular to spiritual rule claimed
by the Holy See is an attempt to replace
the politics of the nineteenth century by the
politics of the middle ages which, however
absurd, is still intelligible, and from the
stand point of His Holiness, consistent. -
But Mr.. Lincoln S substitution Of religion
for statesmmnnship is not less gratutous
than it is absurd. The Presidents theolo-
gy smacks as strongly of the dark ages as
does Pope Plus politics. He prostrates
himself before the Deity with a super
stitious astonishment like that felt by Cal
lixtus Ill. at the visitation of the great
comet of 1856, when that Pope ordered the
church bells to be rung daily at noon and a
prayer be said against the Devil, the Turk,
and the comet. Mr. Lincoln expects our
cause to succeed by the prevailing efficacy
of our prayers when we hold up the negro
towards heaven as token of our penitence
for other mems sins; much as, in 1885,
when Rome was threatened with the chol-
era, the Pope and cardinals carried black
image of the Virgin in solemn procession
through the streets while other cities Cath
ollc and Protestant, cleansed their streets
and Illuminated their dwellings,
Things have turned out so differently
from what Mr.. Lincoln expected when he
was inaugurated before that he is "astoun-
ded. y Paralyzed by anazement, he has
no confidence to predict any end to the
war. Nobody, he says, expected for the
war the magnitude or the duration it has
already attained. - Already This is the
language of AN 'astounded' statesman who,
having lost all hold of any stable principles
of Judging, apprehends that the war may,
for aught he can tell, swell to proportions
still more fearful than it has yet attained.
And so, abandoning all pretenses of states
manship-6f which there is no vestigc or
semblage in this strange inaugural--Mr
Lincoln ta kes refuge in piety. If this hid
eous calamity Of intestine war is not the
fruit, folly, infatuation, and incapacity, but
the work of God, then may Mr. Lincoln
stand excused for the feebleness of his
craftsmanship; aud even Mr.. Davis ought
to be forgiven for his preordained persis-
tence in rebellion. If we are to believe the
'astounded' statesman who is to taxed an
other turn at the helm, this gigantic crime
is the Lord S doings, and it is marvellous in
Mr.. Lincolns eyes; as it must, indeed, be
in the eyes Of everybody who adopts his pi-
Gus theory
And so our puzzled, "astounled," and
pious President, giving over all attempt to
solve the problem offered to his statesman
ship falls to speculating on the comparative
efficacy OF opposite prayers offered to the
same God. This point, as well as the gov
ernmental question which Mr.. Lincoln
abstans from touching, seems too difficult
for his powers; and although he does not
exactly see how shareholders can have eff
frontery to pray to God at all, he will form
no judgement, he says, on the subject, lest
he should be judged himself But without
quite disputing the right of any class of
sinners to pray Mr. Lincoln ventures to
hope that has prayers have a better chance
to be heard than the interpreting of the
rebels in calling down slaughter upon u.s.
But Gu this point he speaks with the modest
lndecision characteristic of the man. "The
prayers Of both should not be answered; y
which is as near as he can come to commit
ting himself to the opinion that one party
or the other must fail. But he finds in the
experienced fruits Of four years praying
no certain indication Of which will be the
successful party in what he, with curious
ing match : That Of aeitter," he says,
"has been fully answered God has his
own purposes Mr.. Lincoln rises in his
devotional tervor into sort of dythyrambic,
sliding into rhyme as uncousciously as
Monsieur Jourdain had spoken prose all
his life without suspecting himself of that
accomplishment His poetry will compare
tavorably with his piety we merely break
it into lines, which the copyist for the tele
graph omitted to do. Says Mr.. Lincoln,
rerGdtim ct iteruttm
"Fondly do we hope,
Fervently do we pray,
That TINS mighty scOurgc of war,
May speedily pass away"
Amen! say we; and let all the people say,
Amen! We join in the prayer; but have
no expectation that God will hear it in any
other way than by sanctifying the means
which he leaves human craftsmanship to
devise We have no faith in staying the
cholera by marching in procession with a
black image of the Virgin; or the more ter
rible scourge of war by calling Gods at
tention to the black race.
The superabounding piety of Lincoln S
inaugural is as admirably reasoned as it is
appropriate IN state paper of this kind,
where simple recognition Of the power and
providence OF the Supreme Being is all that
was ever before thought becoming. If it
be doubtful whether God will listen to the
prayers OF shareholders, may it not also be
little uncertain whether he is pleased with
the piety of libeler Mr.. Lincoln doubts
whether Divine Justice may not have de-
cided to continue this war until the whole
amount Of blood shed by the sword shall
equal that drava from tie southern slaves by
Me lash With what face can statesman
stand up in the face Of the world with the
language of piety in his mouth, and put
forth this deliberate calumny on Ia part of his
countrymen? This has been the bloodiest
war in history, and Mr.. Lincoln charges on
the Southern people the monstrous cruelty
of having drawn SO much blood from their
slaves by the unmerciful use of the lash, that
counting drop against drop, all that has been
shed in this most sanguinary war does not
get equal what has trickled from the lacera-
ted backs of the negroes. Does he think |
this odious libel has any tendency to hasten
the fulfllmentof his prayers for peace !?
This representation Of the purposes of