that He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know
that His hand is in it. If He has a place and work for me--and I think
He has--I believe I am ready. I am nothing, but truth is everything. I
know I am right because I know that liberty is right, for Christ
teaches it, and Christ is God. I have told them that a house divided
against itself cannot stand, and Christ and reason say the same; and
they will find it so. Douglas doesn't care whether slavery is voted up
or voted down, but God cares, and humanity cares, and I care; and with
God's help I shall not fail. I may not see the end; but it will come
and I shall be vindicated; and these men will find that they have not
read their Bibles aright."

After another pause: "Doesn't it appear strange that men can ignore the
moral aspects of this contest? A revelation could not make it plainer
to me that slavery or the government must be destroyed. The future
would be something awful, as I look at it, but for this rock [the
Testament which he was holding] on which I stand,--especially with the
knowledge of how these ministers are going to vote. It seems as if God
had borne with this thing [slavery] until the very teachers of religion
had come to defend it from the Bible, and to claim for it a divine
character and sanction; and now the cup of iniquity is full, and the
vials of wrath will be poured out."

Lincoln did not wear his heart upon his sleeve. On the subject of
religion, he was reticent to a degree. Peter Cartwright had called him
an atheist. There was a wide, if not general, impression, that he was
not a religious man. This did him great injustice. It is for this
reason that his remarks to Mr. Bateman are here quoted at length. From
his early boyhood, from before the time when he was at great pains to
have a memorial sermon for his mother, he was profoundly, intensely