[325] the hand and say, “ God bless you 1” It makes the dying senator grasp his brother senator and point him to God and heaven. It takes hold not only of time, but of eternity. It is the real true bond of this country. I tell you it is the fundamental law; it is the very bottom of a true reconstruction. I asserted it in another form once and was abused for it. I said that there was required in this country a little more of the spirit of Christ. I proclaim it again before this vast audience, that it requires the genuine, practical spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ to make our people agree, to reconstruct our Government, to make us what we ought to be — a united, homogeneous people, with homogeneous institutions. Carry it to the Presidential mansion and there it inspires the head and front of our Republic. It was what there animated the bosom of Abraham Lincoln. It warmed the heart of the poor negress who knelt in one of our streets in Washington after his death and weeping said that in Abraham Lincoln she had lost more than her God, because God had made her a slave and he had made her a free woman. She, it is true, did not understand that God was leading him, was inspiring him, was guiding his heart and his mind into the channels of truth, leading him to walk in the light as God gave him to see the light. Thus the great governing principle of his heart was love to his Maker, and, through that, love to mankind. Now, my friends, bring the same principle to bear upon the condition of things in our Southern States. What do we need? We need true men; we need that principle which shall lead the rough man, the untrue man, to bow before the same Maker and to show a broken and a contrite heart. He, then, will not persecute a man because he is red, because he is green, because
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
Chapter
47
: freedmen's aid societies and an act of congress creating a Bureau of refugees, freedmen and abandoned lands
Chapter
55
:
first
appropriation by congress for the bureau; the reconstruction Act,
March
2
,
1867
; increase of educational work
Chapter
60
: opposition to Bureau and reconstruction work became personal; the
Congregational Church of
Washington
Chapter
62
: life in
Washington, D. C.
,
1866
to
1874
; assigned to duty in regular army as commander,
Department of the Columbia
Chapter
63
: in the
Northwest
, among the
Indians
; trip to
Alaska
; life in
Portland, Ore.
;
1874
to
1881
Chapter
64
: superintendent of the
United States military Academy
; commanding
Department of the Platte
,
Omaha, Neb.
Chapter
68
:
French
army maneuvers,
1884
; promotion to
Major General
,
United States army
,
San Francisco
1886
-
88
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