e could better judge what to do and how to do
it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with
the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to the slavery
agitation. Under the operation of that policy this agitation has not
only not ceased but has constantly augmented. In my opinion it will not
cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house
divided against itself cannot stand." I believe that this Government
cannot permanently endure half slave and half free. I do not expect the
Union to be dissolved--I do not expect the house to fall--but I do
expect that it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or
all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further
spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the
belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates
will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the
States, old as well as new, North as well as South.' Take this statement
as a whole, and it does not furnish a text for the homily to which this
audience has listened."

As Lincoln concluded, he was turning away, when another member of the
delegation, a woman, requested permission to detain him with a few
words. Somewhat impatiently he said, "I will hear the Friend." Her
remarks were a plea for the emancipation of the slaves, urging that he
was the appointed minister of the Lord to do the work, and enforcing her
argument by many Scriptural citations. At the close he asked, "Has the
Friend finished?" and receiving an affirmative answer, he said: "I have
neither time nor disposition to enter into discussion with the Friend,
and end this occasion by suggesting for her consideration the question
whether, if it be true that the Lord has appointed me to do the work she
has indicated, it is not probable that He would have communicated
knowledge of the fact to me as well as to her?"

Something like the same views were expressed by Lincoln, on another
occasion, when, in response to a memorial presented by a delegation
representing most of the religious organizations of Chicago, he said,
respectfully but pointedly: "I am approached with the most opposite
opinions and advice, and by religious men who are certain they represent
the Divine Will.... I hope it will not be irreverent in me to say that
if it be probable that God would reveal His will to others, on a point
so closely connected with