d to man; he was
seventy-one years old, and, in a letter of August 22, he remarks rather
sorrowfully: "I feel that I am no longer young, that my career, whether
for good or evil, is near its end, but I wish to give the energy and
influence that remain to me to my country, to save it, if possible, to
those who come after me."

All through the year 1863 he labored to this end, with alternations of
hope and despair. On February 9, 1863, he writes to his cousin, Judge
Sidney Breese: "A movement is commenced in the formation of a society
here which promises good. It is for the purpose of Diffusing Useful
Political Knowledge. It is backed up by millionaires, so far as funds go,
who have assured us that funds shall not be wanting for this object. They
have made me its president."

Through the agency of this society he worked to bring about "Peace with
Honor," but, as one of their cardinal principles was the abandonment of
abolitionism, he worked in vain. He bitterly denounced the Emancipation
Proclamation, and President Lincoln came in for many hard words from his
pen, being considered by him weak and vacillating. Mistaken though I
think his attitude was in this, his opinions were shared by many
prominent men of the day, and we must admit that for those who believed
in a literal interpretation of the Bible there was much excuse. For
instance, in a letter of September 21, 1863, to Martin Hauser, Esq., of
Newbern, Indiana, he goes rather deeply into the subject:--

"Your letter of the 23d of last month I have just received, and I was
gratified to see the evidences of an upright, honest dependence upon the
only standard of right to which man can appeal pervading your whole
letter. There is no other standard than the Bible, but our translation,
though so excellent, is defective sometimes in giving the true meaning of
the original languages in which the two Testaments are written; the Old
Testament in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek. Therefore it is that in
words in the English translation about which there is a variety of
opinion, it is necessary to examine the original Hebrew or Greek to know
what was the meaning attached to these words by the writers of the
original Bible.... I make these observations to introduce a remark of
yours that the Bible does not contain anything like slavery in it because
the words 'slave' and 'slavery' are not used in it (except the former
twice) but that the word 'servant' is used.

"Now the w