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Be these four qualities unveiled before the face of sin, that sin may be defined.
When in the presence of some noble majesty or of some courtly modesty a free and conscious soul is arrogant or insolent; when a being born for endless life in freedom, light and purity, exchanges God and immortality for idol forms and baseness and decay; when recipients of God's unnumbered benefits, and participants in the joys and sorrows of a teeming world of brothermen remain ungrateful and unpitiful; when beings destined to be sons of light prefer hypocrisy and unbelief; then, irreverent, corrupt, ungracious, and untrue, sin shows all its horridness and iniquity.
And when in the presence of pure grace and truth all such perverseness stands revealed; then the beauty of a quiet modesty, as it respects all worthy majesty, will make supremely plain the ugliness of every form of insolence; then the life that opens towards perpetual dawn will most mightily and forevermore reproach the life that feasts upon corroding food, fattening and hardening towards decay; then outpouring, patient love will visit on ingratitude and hate their most unbearable rebuke; and then the radiant light of simple truth and pure sincerity will set all falsity and unbelief in uttermost disgrace. In such an awful penalty, supreme and unavoidable, will sin incur its doom.
But in the very penalty it stands proclaimed how sinful souls may be transformed, and hostile hearts be reconciled.
When pride, subdued by majesty, rejoices in humility; when grossness, shamed by purity, welcomes purging fires; when malice, melted by forbearance, partakes the sacrifice and becomes itself compassionate; when falsity, unveiled by verity, submits to its rebuke and welcomes truth with deep docility and faith; then within the sinner's penitence is every penalty absolved, and between embittered souls comes perfect reconciliation.
Be these four qualities addressed to that supreme transaction named atonement.
When, in perfect loyalty and in perfect lowliness, with a perfect charity and with an utter trust in immortality, one like a Son of Man consents to bear the dark affront of insolence and perfidy from base and deadly men, enduring meekly what his soul abhors, then to all the sons of men is published equally, and with supreme assurance, that sins of men must be indeed avenged, and that sinful men may be indeed redeemed.
In that transaction malice faces patience, and patience faces malice for a final strife. There candor bears the lying taunt of acting in disguise. Humility endures the shameful charge of shameless arrogance. Compassion bows as though a thief to all the brutal rudeness of a mob. The soul of immortal purity is bartered for by traders greedy after silver coins, and driving through their trade with lamps and clubs.
But in the measure and in the manner of that transcendent patience malice is preparing for itself the manner and the measure of its own just doom. And in the measure and the manner of that same transcendent patience contrition may discern the manner and the measure of its release. In that mighty mingling of aversion and endurance sin must behold alike its omnipotent redemption and its omnipotent rebuke. Thus love, in perfect sympathy, and truth, in perfect equity set forth in heavenly purity the sovereign majesty of an atonement for the world.
Be these four radiant qualities applied to him we call alike the son of Mary and the Son of God. In him, the Son of God, shines such a plenitude of grace and truth as becomes the glory of the very God, revealed in such immortal purity as proves him heir and very Lord of all eternity, and wearing such a dignity as belongs at once to heaven's majesty and our most genuine humility; while deep within his open life as son of Mary there shines such a full and genial truth and grace as proves his true humanity, so free from mortal taint through all our transient scenes as proves his spirit's immortality, and manifesting everywhere to all the sons of man their own ideal lowliness. These are all his beauty. In him they fully blend. They blend in him indeed. But they do not dissolve. And so may we with souls akin to him whom Mary bore behold in him the proper image of our complete humanity; and still with eyes and vision all unchanged, behold within those same fair traits the very image and the unbounded fulness of the glory of the infinite God.
Be these same radiant qualities our proper medium for beholding Deity. Conceive of One in whose being the only light and glory reside in the pure majesty of a perfect grace and truth. Conceive how these free living qualities permit a unison in fellowship, a fellowship in unison. Conceive how such a unison permits to each participant complete equality and a full infinity. Conceive thus how perfect constancy and perfect kindliness, revealed in perfect purity, and clad in perfect majesty may manifest eternally in mystic unison the blessedness of a perfect personality. Conceive how such a partnership in unison, and unison in partnership will be evermore containing and enjoying within itself an evermore unsullied Spirit life, engendering and completing all the finite forms of being of the created universe; an evermore unfolding Love that is the one original of every fatherhood in heaven and earth; and an evermore Responding Love that is the primal inspiration of the admiring and adoring thankfulness of every child of God; while evermore displaying in a loyal self-respect the eternal archetype and origin of every verity and every equity enthroned in any earnest upright mind. And so conceive in terms as vivid as our own intelligence and liberty how true transcendent Deity may wield no other energy and know no other blessedness than unfolds forever in a free and conscious unison and partnership in pure transcendent love and truth.
Transcendent thoughts and ventures these. But abounding other thoughts and ventures no less transcendent wait and urge for utterance. They all assume no less, and nothing more, than that in the living vision of a living personality hides and shines the harmony that may unite the mysteries and the certainties of this universe. Let Truth, as personal self-respect; and Love, as self-devoting life; and Purity, that fears no death; and Dignity, that crowns all worth – let these be clearly seen, each one apart; and clearly seen again when fully unified – and human thought holds categories in hand whereby the problems of our mental and ethical and religious life may be resolved.
Of all of this what goes before is but a brief and bare suggestive hint. Its development and vindication call for the completed exposition of such a balanced round of thought as may be found in a prophet like Isaiah, an apostle like Paul, or an evangelist like John.
LINCOLN'S SECOND INAUGURAL
Fellow-Countrymen:
At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the Nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it – all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war – seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. 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.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered – that of neither has been answered fully.
The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the Providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope – fervently do we pray – that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
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 all which may achieve a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all Nations.
