God did not dwell amid the twilight of the ages and in far-away Judea, but
were reserved to a later time, and a region then undiscovered of men, and
that the American republic was ordained of God to illustrate upon the
theater of the New World the possibilities of free government in contrast
with the failures and tyrannies and corruptions of the Old, I do truly
believe. That is the first article in my confession of faith. And the
second is like unto it, that Washington was raised up by God to create it,
and that Lincoln was raised up by God to save it; else why the militia
colonel of Virginia and the rail splitter of Illinois, for no reason that
was obvious at the time, before all other men? God moves in a mysterious
way his wonders to perform. The star of the sublime destiny that hung over
the manager of our blessed Savior hung over the cradle of our blessed
Union.

Thus far it has weathered each historic danger which has gone before to
mark the decline and fall of nations; the struggle for existence; the
foreign invasion; the internecine strife; the disputed succession;
religious bigotry and racial conflict. One other peril confronts
it--the demoralization of wealth and luxury; too great prosperity; the
concentration and the abuse of power. Shall we survive the lures with which
the spirit of evil, playing upon our self-love, seeks to trip our wayward
footsteps, purse-pride and party spirit, mistaken zeal and perverted
religion, fanaticism seeking to abridge liberty and liberty running to
license, greed masquerading as a patriot and ambition making a commodity of
glory--or under the process of a divine evolution shall we be able to mount
and ride the waves which swallowed the tribes of Israel, which engulfed the
phalanxes of Greece and the legions of Rome, and which still beat the sides
and sweep the decks of Europe?

The one-party power we have escaped; the one-man power we have escaped. The