GOD'S providence has raised up a leader in every time of a people's exceeding need.
Moses, reared in the family of Pharaoh, initiated in the sublime mysteries of the priestcraft of Egypt, partaking of the power and splendor of royal family and favor, himself a ruler and almost a king, was so moved by the degraded and helpless condition of his enslaved brethren that for their sake he undertook what to human understanding seemed the impossible problem of deliverance....
A peasant girl, a shepherdess, dreaming on the hills of France, feels her simple heart burn with the story of her country's wrongs. Its army beaten, shattered and dispersed; its fields laid waste; its homes pillaged and burned; its people outraged and murdered; its prince fleeing for life before a triumphant and remorseless foe. Hope for France was dead. Heroes, there were none to save. What could a woman do?
Into the soul of this timid, unlettered mountain maid there swept a flood of glorious resolve. Some power, unknown to man, drew back the curtain from the glass of fate and bade her look therein. As in a vision, she sees a new French army, courageous, hopeful, victorious, invincible. A girl, sword in hand, rides at its head; before it the invaders flee. She sees France restored, her fields in bloom, her cottages in peace, her people happy, her prince crowned.
The rail-splitter of Illinois became President of the United States in the darkest hour of the nation's peril. Inexperienced and untrained in governmental affairs, he formulated national politics, overruled statesmen, directed armies, removed generals, and, when it became necessary to save the Republic, set at naught the written Constitution. He amazed the politicians and offended the leaders of his party; but the people loved him by instinct, and followed him blindly. The child leads the blind man through dangerous places, not by reason of controlling strength and intelligence, but by certainty of vision. Abraham Lincoln led the nation along its obscure pathway, for his vision was above the clouds, and he stood in the clear sunshine of God's indicated will.
So stands the mountain while the murky shadows thicken at its base, beset by the tempest, lashed by the storm, darkness and desolation on every side; no gleam of hope in the lightning's lurid lances, nor voice of safety in the crashing thunder-bolts; but high above the top-most mist, vexed by no wave of angry sound, kissed by the sun of day, wooed by the stars at night, the eternal summit lifts its snowy crest, crowned with the infinite serenity of peace.
"And God said—let there be light, and there was light." Light on the ocean, light on the land.
"And God said—let there be light, and there was light." Light from the cross of calvary, light from the souls of men.
"And God said—let there be light, and there was light'." Light from the emancipation proclamation, light on the honor of the nation, light on the Constitution of the United States, light on the black faces of patient bondmen, light on every standard of freedom throughout the world.