Walking with the Wise #250: Unforgettable Words
“The wise of heart is called discerning,
and sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness.”
—Proverbs 16:21
—Proverbs 16:21
On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the most poignant and touching speeches in U.S. history. It was the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. He spoke for only two and a half minutes (which was remarkable because the speaker before him, the great orator Edmund Everett, had just spoken for two hours), but he managed to capture the hope of a nation and the emotions appropriate to the moment. Lincoln said,
"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."On November 20, 1863, Everett wrote to Lincoln,
“Permit me also to express my great admiration of the thoughts expressed by you, with such eloquent simplicity and appropriateness, at the consecration of the Cemetery. I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”It is no wonder that the soul of Lincoln is embedded on the collective historical conscience of a nation. His words gave form to the achings of a nation torn in two by bloodshed and ideology. This is one of the reasons why he is remembered so fondly. He was wise of heart and discerning, which only increases the power of his words and influence over time.
May we endeavor to idealize and personify the words he spoke, that all men are created equal in the image of God. And may we learn to be wise and discerning so that God’s name might be magnified in and through us toward those who are created in His image, in the hope “that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find Him”—Acts 17:27.
The scriptures say:
“The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent, because He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He has appointed; and of this He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead”—Acts 17:30-31.It is through Jesus Christ alone that we might have life. While soldiers paid the greatest price imaginable to hallow that battlefield, Jesus' death was even greater, and made available to us that which is infinitely more valuable-forgiveness of sins and life with Him forevermore. May we seek to enter into that life, and may our lives be given in the knowledge that His life has been available to us, so that through us, others might come to know Him who is life everlasting. Amen.
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