It is a far cry from Oliver Cromwell to Abraham Lincoln--far in years, far in deeds, far in methods, but not far in spirit.Great men are kindred, generations over.We pass from the Old Testament into the New when we pass from Cromwell to Lincoln; but we still feel the spirit of liberty.From the days of the Puritans, the Quakers and the Dutch, history had been preparing for this time.Benjamin Franklin had done his great work for human liberty; he had summed up his hope for the nation in his memorable address in 1787, when he stood eighty- one years old, before the convention assembled to frame a constitution for the new government.He reminded them that at the beginning of the contest with the British they had had daily prayers in that room in Philadelphia for the Divine protection, and said: "I have lived for a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proof I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men.And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that 'Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this, and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall proceed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.I therefore beg leave to move that, henceforth,prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessing on our deliberation be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service."George Washington sounded a familiar note in his farewell address: "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.A volume could not trace all their connection with private and public felicity.Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles." Thomas Jefferson, of whom it is sometimes said that he was indifferent to religion, had yet done his great work under inspiration, which he himself acknowledges in his inaugural address, when he speaks of the nation as "enlightened by a benign religion, professed indeed, and practised in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensation proves that it results in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter." Greater than Jefferson had appeared John Marshall, greatest of our Chief Justices, like in spirit to that John Marshall Harlan, whose death marked the year which has just closed, of whom his colleagues said that he went to his rest each night with one hand on the Bible and the other on the Constitution of the United States, a description which could almost be transferred to his great predecessor in that court.Moreover, when Lincoln came, Joseph Story, the greatest teacher of law which our country had produced, had only just died from his place on the Supreme Bench, In his Phi Beta Kappa address at Harvard (1826), in a brilliant and masterful analysis of "The Characteristics of the Age," he had paid tribute after tribute to the power of religion and the Bible.He had declared his belief that the religion of the Bible had "established itself in the hearts of men by all which genius could bring to illumine or eloquence to grace its sublime truths." Of the same period with Lincoln was also Webster, who was called the "concordance ofthe House." Many of his stately periods and great ideas came from the Bible.Indeed, there is no oratory of our history, which has survived the waste of the years, which does not feel and show the power of the Scriptures.The English Bible has given our finest eloquence its ideas, its ideals, its illustrations, its phrases.
The line is unbroken.And it leads to this tall figure, crowned with a noble head, his face the saddest in American history, who knew Gethsemane in all its paths.The heart of the American people has always been touched by his early years of abject poverty.But there were compensations.He had few books, and they entered his blood and fiber.In his earliest formative years there were six books which he read and re-read.Nicolay and Hay name the Bible first in the list, with Pilgrim's Progress as the fourth.Mr.Morse calls it a small library, but nourishing, and says that Lincoln absorbed into his own nature all the strong juice of the books.[1] How much he drew from the pages of the Holy Book let any reader of his speeches say.Quotation, reference, illustration crowd each other.The phrases are familiar.The man is full of the Book.And what the man does is part of the work of the Book.
[1] American Statesman Series, Abraham Lincoln, i, 12, 13.
