will come, how it will come, I do not know, but that time will surely come."

For its coming he was ever watching. While the war was still young he began evidently to suspect that the salvation of the Union would prove to be bound up with the emancipation of the slaves. But he was not the man to be hurried by the unthinking prematurely into action. Nothing more definitely proves his perfect understanding of the complexity of his problem than his recorded interviews with those who saw but one side of the question or whose minds proved to be single-track.

On the 13th of September, 1862, in reply to a delegation of Chicago clergymen who sought to convince Lincoln that the disasters the Union Army had recently suffered were tokens of God's displeasure at his failure to proclaim the freedom of the slaves, he said sarcastically that if it was probable that God would reveal His will to others on a point so intimately connected with the President's duty, it might be supposed that He would reveal it to the President himself; and that it was a little strange that if the Lord had a special communication for him, He would send it way round through the wicked city of Chicago. However, before he dismissed the delegation, he assured the clergymen that he had the matter under con

sideration, thanked them for the suggestions they had made, and expressed the hope that nothing he had said had hurt their feelings. He also told them that the time was not yet ripe for the action they urged, and that to "issue a document that the world would see must necessarily be inoperative would be like the Pope's bull against the comet." To another delegation of ministers determined to hasten his action he said:

Gentlemen, suppose all the property you possessed were in gold, and you had placed it in the hands of a Blondin to carry across the Niagara River on a rope. With slow, cautious, steady steps he walks the rope, bearing your all. Would you shake the cable and keep shouting at him; "Blondin, stand up a little straighter; Blondin, stoop a little more; go a little faster; lean more to the south; now lean a little more to the north?" Would that be your behaviour in such an emergency? No, you would hold your breath every one of you, as well as your tongues. You would keep your hands off until he was safe on the other side. This Government, gentlemen, is carrying an immense weight. Untold treasures are in its hands. The persons managing the ship of state in this storm are doing the best they can. Don't worry them with needless warnings and complaints. Keep silence; be patient, and we will get you safe across.

The hour struck at last, and he was ready for it. In fact Emancipation had been definitely decided

weeks before Antietam was fought. Lee's army was driven back across the Potomac from Maryland into Virginia. Immediately following this victory Mr. Lincoln summoned his Cabinet to the usual meeting-place. "Gentlemen," he said, "I want your attention." He laid the historic paper down upon the table. To what he then remarked to them they all felt it would be futile to object. "Gentlemen," he declared, "I do not want your advice as to whether I shall issue this document or not, for that I have determined myself. If you have suggestions concerning minor points, when you have heard it read, I will hear them." He then added in a lower tone of voice: "I have not consulted any one; I promised myself, I told the Lord."

Secretary Seward turned to Lincoln and asked: "What did I hear you say?" Mr. Lincoln faced full upon the Secretary and replied: "Secretary Seward, I told the Lord that if He would drive the rebels out of Maryland, I would emancipate the slaves, and I will do it."

The effect of the proclamation was both more firmly to consolidate the South, and to create some division among the Unionists of the border States and among the conservatives of the North. But it also crystallized about the President all the

forces that made for victory and intensified their purpose to continue the war to a successful issue. What the administration lost in numerical support was more than compensated by the new flame of spiritual enthusiasm, which burned with a steadily increasing fervour to the very end of the struggle. No wonder Lincoln said: "God bless the churches." He now had them all with him. He had at last killed slavery without violation of his oath of office to maintain the Union.

CHAPTER XXXIV

INSPIRED UTTERANCES

PROOF of the strong vein of piety that ran like a golden thread through Lincoln's nature abounds in the utterances made during the last few years of his life. All through his trying experiences he was pondering the problem of the mysterious ways of the Almighty in dealing with human affairs. In 1862 he wrote down on a slip of paper some of his musings:

The will of God prevails. In great contests, each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present Civil War, it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party, and yet human instrumentalities working just as they do are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is probably true, that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By His mere great power on the minds of the now contestants He could have either saved or destroyed the Union, without a human contest; yet the contest began, and