ighbors he said, while grasping them by the hand,
"I go to assume a task more difficult than that which has devolved
upon any other man since the days of Washington. He never would have
succeeded except for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all
times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed without the same divine
blessing which sustained him, and on the same Almighty Being I place my
reliance for support." The profound religious feeling which pervades
this farewell speech characterized him to the close of his life.

All along the route Lincoln preached the gospel of confidence,
conciliation, and peace. Notwithstanding the ominous signs of the times,
he had such an abiding faith in the people as to believe that the
guarantees of all their rights under the Constitution, of
non-intervention with the institution of slavery where it existed, and
the assurance of a most friendly spirit on the part of the new President
would calm the heated passion of the men of the South, would reclaim
States already in secession, and would retain the rest of the cotton
States under the banner of the Union. What a striking evidence of the
lingering hope and of the tender heart of the President is afforded by
his first inaugural address!

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is
the momentous issue of civil war.

"The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without
being yourselves the aggressors; you can have no oath registered in
heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn
one,--'to preserve, protect, and defend it.'

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be
enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds
of affection.

"The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and
patriot grave to every living heart and hearth-stone all over this broad
land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as
surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

Abraham Lincoln took the helm of government in more dangerous times and
under more difficult and embarrassing circumstances than any of the
fifteen presidents who preceded him. The ship of Union was built and
launched and first commanded by Washington.

"He knew what master laid her keel,
What workmen wrought her ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In