I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.

The Bible is not my book and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma.

I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father's child has.

I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were felt by the whole human race, there would not be one cheerful face left on earth.

You cannot have the right to do what is wrong!

The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party - and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose.

May our children and our children's children to a thousand generations, continue to enjoy the benefits conferred upon us by a united country, and have cause yet to rejoice under those glorious institutions bequeathed us by Washington and his compeers.