The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1894-06-08

government would be organized
upon new basis, with involuntary
servitude forever eliminated. In
his message to Congress following
the Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln
said: "In giving freedom to the
slave we insure freedom to the free,
honorable alike in what we give and
what we preserve. We shall nobly
save, or meanly lose the last best
hope of earth. The way is plain,
peaceful, glorious, just-a way
which if followed, the world will
forever applaud, and God must for
ever bless"
In that last inaugural, so near to
the close of his life as to partake
of the character of a benediction to
the nation, who can fail to appreciate
the prophetic solemnity of the Ian
guage, "Woe unto the world be-
cause of offences, and woe to those
by whom they come. Fondly do
we hope, fervently do we pray,
that this mighty scourge of war
may soon pass, yet if God wills that
it continue until all the wealth
piled by the bondsman's unrequited
toll shall be sunk, and until every
drop of blood drawn by the lash
shall be paid by another drawn by
the sword, yet still it must be said
the judgements of the Lord are
trueand righteous altogether. With
malice towards none, with charity
for all, with firmness in the right
as God gives us to see the right let
us strive to finish this work, to
bind up the nations wounds, to
care for him who shall have borne
the battle and for his widow and
his orphans, to do all which may
achieve and cherish a just and
lasting peace among ourselves, and
with all nations"
This was the parting charge to
the land he loved, of him whom
Lowell calls "The first true great
American" Abraham Lincoln:
see again
To veX with blame or praise;
The land marks, thatattest his bright briefreign,
Are battles; not the pomps of gala days.
The grandest leader in the grandest war;
That ever time in history gave place.
What were the tinsel fattery of star,
To such breast? or what ribbons grace?
'Tis to the man, and the mans honest worth,
The nations loyalty upsprings
Through him the soil of labor shines henceforth,
High DER the silken broideries of kings.
Born of the people, well he knew to grasp,
The wants and wishes of the weak and small
Therefore we hold him with no shadowy clasp,
Therefore we love him with a love apart from
any fawning love of pedigree,
His was the royal soul and mind and heart
Not the poor outward shows of royalty.
AS years pass on the fame of our
great leadel shall grow brighter
and brighte as the fires of passion
and prejudice engendered by the
war shall fade and die out in the
hearts ofall. Never shall be eclipsed
the fame of Lincoln, Grant, Sher-
man, Sheridan and Meade.
Oh to be envied! you who follow
ed such leaders upon the field of
battle to glorious and triumphant
victory, your names and your deeds
to your country belong, you shall
live in the marble and live in the
song.
And yet it may be as Count Toll
stoi teaches, when we come to ex-
,perience the new birth, and rightly
interpret the "Sermon on the
Mount,' we shall learn war no
more.
Let us now refer to the heroes of
the pen, those who prepared the
way for the ushering in of the day
of freedom. Garrison, who had five
thousand dollars offered for his
head by the Governor of Georgia
Whittier, the mild and angelic, in
age, yet in his frey youth he was
dragged through the streets of
Philadelphia with rope around his
body, by a bowling mob Elijah
Lovejoy, murdered at Alton, ILL.,;
John Brown, of Osawatomie, &c.
John Brown, of Osawatomie, said on his dying
day;
4 would not have shrine for my soul, priest in
slaverys pay.
But let some poor slave mother kneel at the gal
lows stair,
And with her children round her knee, send up
for me prayer
John Brown of Osawatomie,
They led him forth to die;
And 10, poor slave mother
With her little ones drew nigh.