ho went down in the
conflict have had all their hard questions asked before the throne of
God, perhaps these heroes and heroines who now live unto God look back
upon this era as an era of sorrow overruled for justice and liberty. The
conclusion of the whole matter is this: a good house must be founded
upon a rock, and no government or civilization can be permanent that is
not based on the freedom, property and intelligence of the working
classes.

To-day the leaders of thought in the South believe that Lee and Gordon
were right in the statement that they "thanked God that they failed to
establish States' rights, and that Northern men had succeeded in
maintaining the Union." Time has cleared the air of misunderstandings.
At last the North and South understand Lincoln's last words regarding
the Civil War: "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 bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall
be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid
by another drop of blood drawn by 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 towards 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 shal