By Catherine Ulrich Brakefield
After praying with Reverend Jacques, Abraham Lincoln's Bible was his constant companion.
Self-educated, Lincoln said of ambition:
“Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men.”
Lincoln’s self-confidence was in the people themselves:
“It is upon the brave hearts and strong arms of the people of the country that our reliance has been placed in support of free government and free institutions.” (Abraham Lincoln said this on May 13,1862.)
You can imagine how Lincoln felt,
watching his beloved nation torn apart, brother fighting against brother. With hope
in God, he pushed on, often devising humorous antidotes to the challenges he
faced.
“The shepherd drives the
wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a
liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of
liberty.” (Abraham Lincoln said this on April
18,1864.)
Lincoln said of his cherished part of the Declaration of Independence, “I believe the declaration that ‘all men are created equal’ is the great fundamental principle upon which our free institutions rest.”
With faith in God, Abe continued to believe that "in giving freedom to the slaves, we assure freedom to the free." He was the Great Emancipator and freed four million slaves.
However, most importantly, Lincoln
kept the nation unified. The United States of America remained as our founding
fathers initiated.
With humor and patience, Lincoln
attempted to reason with the obstinate:
“In great contests, each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong.” (Lincoln, September 2,1862.)
Lincoln’s reliance on God was always obvious in his speeches.
“If God be with us, we will succeed; if not, we will fail.”
Lincoln knew someone would lose, and he understood the consequences.
“If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial History will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God. “(Abraham Lincoln, April 4, 1864)
With blatant common sense, he offered them a bit of humor and thoughtful contemplation:
“Both [sides in the war] read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other.” … Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.” (Lincoln, March 4, 1865.)
Before the jubilation of freedom and
the reuniting of the states could be attained, there was the war to win and the
dead to bury.
The Battle of Gettysburg was one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. Lincoln had been called to speak over the dearly departed.
His powerful voice spoke with the accent of his backwoods heritage. Humbly, earnestly, and sincerely:
“Four score and seven years ago our
fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty,
and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
“But, in a larger sense, we cannot
dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men,
living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor
power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we
say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living,
rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here
have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to
the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take
increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of
devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in
vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people,
for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” (Abraham Lincoln, November
19, 1863.)
Silence greeted his words. No applause,
just silence. Lincoln resumed his seat. He would never know the impact his
words had on those who heard, nor the nation that, in time, would grow to
respect and love him.
Over
750,000 people were killed in the Civil War. That was two-and-one-half percent
of the population and twenty-five percent of its soldiers.
Lincoln repeatedly faced impossible,
heart-wrenching trials and tribulations. With faith and perseverance, he pushed
on. Not understanding but accepting the challenges that stretched before his
lanky stride.
Today, we see the hero, President Abraham Lincoln, etched in stone at Mt. Rushmore. In marble at the Lincoln monument in Washington, D.C. But what we do not see is the struggles of that person, those inner scars of a hero's hardships and rejections he faced before he achieved his ultimate success. That culmination of God-given talent that led them to their ultimate destination.
Killed by an assassin's bullet,
Lincoln never heard the praises of men. But that was not what Lincoln cared to
hear. What he cared about most of all was what he heard upon his last breath on
earth and his first breath into his new life everlasting. "Well done, good
and faithful servant, you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you
ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord." (Matthew 25:23NKJV) However, God also bequeathed to Lincoln the esteem of his fellow men, Abe's ambition in life.
Abraham Lincoln always knew God. His devoted mother had taught him well. He went to church every Sunday. But it wasn't until this lanky backwoodsman took a leap of faith, praying to Jesus Christ to forgive his sins, and asked Jesus into his heart, that Abe became born-again. Only then was Lincoln able to fight the good fight of faith and fulfill his destiny and America’s as well. How about you? "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3NKJV) That is the faith step everyone takes to fulfill their God-given talent and destiny.
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The
Roaring Twenties dive into the Great Depression. Collina faces insurmountable
odds to rescue Shushan. Rough Rider Franklin Long loses what money couldn’t
buy. Is it too late to make right his failings?
Catherine is the award-winning author of Wilted Dandelions, Swept into Destiny, Destiny’s Whirlwind, Destiny of Heart, Waltz with Destiny and Love's Final Sunrise. She has written two pictorial history books, The Lapeer Area and Eastern Lapeer, and short stories for Guideposts Books, CrossRiver Media Group, Revell Books, Bethany House Publishers. Catherine and her husband of fifty-three years live on a ranch in Michigan and have two adult children, five grandchildren, four Arabian horses, three dogs, two cats, one bunny, and six chickens. See CatherineUlrichBrakefield.com for more information.
https://presidentlincoln.illinois.gov/lincoln-quotes/?sort=1a&pg=44&sz=10&q=
