Part 7

“‘We’ve been wrong, North and South, about slavery. No use to blame it all on the South. We’ve been in it too, from the start. If both sides had been willin’ to give in a little, we might a worked it out, that is if we’d all been willin’ to admit the thing was wrong, and take our share of the burden in puttin’ an end to it. It’s because we wouldn’t or mebbe couldn’t that war has come.

“‘It’s for our sins, Billy, this war is. We’ve brought it on ourselves. And God ain’t goin’ to stop it because we ask Him to. We’ve got to fulfill the law. We broke the law, and God wouldn’t be God as I see Him if He didn’t stand by His own laws and make us take all that’s comin’ to us. I can’t think we won’t win the war. Seems to me that must be God’s way, but if we don’t, and the Union is broken and slavery goes on, well, all it means accordin’ to my way of seein’ things is that the laws ain’t satisfied yet, that we ain’t done our part. There’ll be more trouble until the reason of trouble ends.

“‘But I don’t lay it up against God, Billy. What it seems to me He’s tryin’ to do is to get men to see that there can’t be any peace or happiness in this world so long as they ain’t fair to one another. You can’t have a happy world unless you’ve got a just world, and slavery ain’t just. It’s got to go. I don’t know when. It’s always seemed to me a pretty durable struggle--did back in ’58, but I didn’t see anything so bad then as we’ve come to. Even if I’d known I couldn’t have done different, Billy. Even if we don’t win this war and the Confederates set up a country with slavery in it, that ain’t going to end it for me. I’ll have to go on fightin’ slavery. I know God means I should.

“‘It takes God a long time to work out His will with men like us, Billy, bad men, stupid men, selfish men. But even if we’re beat, there’s a gain. There are more men who see clear now how hard it is for people to rule themselves, more people determined government by the people shan’t perish from the earth, more people willin’ to admit that you can’t have peace when you’ve got a thing like slavery goin’ on. That’s something, that’s goin’ to help when the next struggle comes.

“‘You mustn’t think I’m givin’ in, Billy. I ain’t, but look how things are goin’. What if we lose the election, and you must admit it looks now as if we would, what if we lose and a Copperhead Government makes peace--gives the South her slaves--lets the “erring sisters” set up for themselves. I’ve got to think about that, Billy.

“‘Seems to me I can’t bear the idea all this blood-lettin’ should end that way, for I know lasting peace ain’t in that set of circumstances. That means trouble, more trouble, mebbe war again until we obey the law of God, and let our brother man go free.’

“And he just dropped his head and groaned, seemed as if I could hear him prayin’, ‘Oh, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me!’

“Think he prayed? Think Abraham Lincoln prayed?” Billy’s eyes were stern, and his voice full of reproachful surprise.

“I _know_ he did. You wouldn’t ask that question if you could have heard him that night he left here for Washington sayin’ good-by to us in the rain, tellin’ us that without God’s help he could not succeed in what he was goin’ into--that with it, he could not fail; tellin’ us he was turnin’ us over to God, and askin’ us to remember him in our prayers. Why, a man can’t talk like that that don’t pray, leastwise an honest man like Abraham Lincoln.

“And he couldn’t have stood it without God, sufferin’ as he did, abused as he was, defeated again and again, and yet always hangin’ on, always believin’. Don’t you _see_ from what I’ve been tellin’ you that Abraham Lincoln all through the war was seekin’ to work with God, strugglin’ to find out His purpose, and make it prevail on earth. A man can’t do that unless he gets close to God, talks with Him.

“How do you suppose a man--just a common man, like Abraham Lincoln, could ever have risen up to say anything like he did in ’65 in his Inaugural if he hadn’t known God:

“‘With malice toward none, with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan--to do which may achieve a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.’

“That ain’t ordinary human nature--particularly when it’s fightin’ a war--that’s God’s nature. If that ain’t what Christ had in mind, then I don’t read the Bible right.

“Yes, sir, he _prayed_--that’s what carried him on--and, God heard him and helped him. Fact is I never knew a man I felt so sure God approved of as Abraham Lincoln.”

Transcriber’s Notes:

--Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

--Illustrations have been moved to follow the text that they illustrate, so the page number of the illustration may not match the page number in the List of Illustrations.

--Contents page references refer to the first page of content, not the story's title page.

--Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.

--Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.

--Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.