Lincoln; and now through four years of unsurpassed trial his capacity had steadily grown, and his delicate fairness, his pitifulness, his patience, his modesty had grown therewith.  Here is one of the few speeches ever delivered by a great man at the crisis of his fate on the sort of occasion which a tragedian telling his story would have devised for him.  This man had stood alone in the dark.  He had done justice; he had loved mercy; he had walked humbly with his God.  The reader to whom religious utterance makes little appeal will not suppose that his imaginative words stand for no real experience.  The reader whose piety knows no questions will not be pained to think that this man had professed no faith.

He said, “Fellow Countrymen:  At this second appearance 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 energies and engrosses the attention 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 and encouraging to all.  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 coloured slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localised 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 expected 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