The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-02-12

familiar of Lincoln's committal of his immediate political future, and his whose ambition, to the right which he saw, in the speech which he passed into history as fThe house divided against itself He had been nominated for senator, and to 9 dozen friends he read this passage from his proposed speech of acceptance:
 "A house divided against itself cannot stand. l believe tClis government can not endure permanently half slave and half free. do not expect the Union to be dissolved-I do not expect the house to fall--but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one or all the other"
 His friends were thrown into conster- nation. Lincoln said; T am thoroughly convinced the time is come when it should be uttered; and if it must be that I go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to the truth; die in advocacy of what is right and just. The nation cannot live on in- justice, a house divided against itself, |. l say aSaln and agalH'
 Lincoln made that speech because he saw it to be right. It cost him his election as senator; in Gods providence it was taken up, and made him presi- dent Tae same note of unfaltering, personal responsibility is struck in these words which he uttered shortly after he became president:
 "When the time comes I shall take the ground that I think is right right for the north, for t,e south, for the east, for the west-for the whole coun- try. Now, my friends, there appears to be 2 difference of opinion between you and me; and I really feel called up on to decide th2t question for myself" (Feb., 1S6S). (Hale, p. 46).
 1 have spoken of Llncolns faith in the moral oreer of the world as another of the clements of his character, part Of the grain and fibre of lis majestic strength. l cite two passages which show this elemental quality of the man. 1 The following was an answer to a re- ligious address to him;
 "In tde very responsible position in which l happen to be placed, being an humble instrument in the hands of our | heavely father as l am, and as we all are, to work out His great purposes, l have desired that all my works and acts may be according to His will, and that il might be so, I have sought His aid; but if, after endeavoring to do my best in the light which He affords me, l find my efforts fail I must believe that for some purpose unknown to me he wills 1t otherwise. If I had had my way, this war would never have com menced; If I had been allowed my say this war would have ended before this; but we find 1t still continues, and we must believe that He permits 1t for some wise purpose of His own, myster- ious and unknown to us, and though, with our limited understandings, we may not be able to comprehend 1t, yet we cannot but believe that He who made the world .stiil governs 1t"
 Among his papers this was found. "A meditation on the divine will"
 The will cf God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act In ac- cordance with the will of God Both may be- and one must ba wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time, In tire present civil war 1t is quite possible that God 1 purpose Is something different from the purpose of eithei party; and yet the human instrumentalities working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect his purpose. am almost ready to say that this Is probably true; that God wills ttlis contest, and wills that it shall not end yet Later, he wrote a letter, on April 1, 1894 which shows how the veil was beginning to be lifted which hid the mysterious working ot Gods providence in the war Lincolr was one of the first in his great numili ty, before whose prophetic eye the vel began to be lifted He wrote: "f clain not to have controlled events, but con fess plainly that events have controlled mo. Now, at the end of three years struggle, the nations condition is no what either party or any man would have devised. Whither it is tendiny seems plain. If God now wills the re moval of great wrong, and wills als, that we of the north, as we'll as yo, of the south. shall pay fairly for ou complicity in that wrong, impartial his tory will find therein new cause to at test and revere the justice and good ness of God"
 With this firm faith in Gods govern ment of the world, wrought Into tn
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