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as idle to affirm that all difficulties and dangers are no'sv 

 cleared away : that no problems of statesmanship and fi- 

 nance — of justice and humanity — are left for us to consider 

 and to settle. What these problems are — how complicate 

 and vast in themselves — how supremely interesting to us, 

 and how momentous in their relations to the rest of the 

 world — we are just beginning to understand, and shall un- 

 derstand better and better as the years roll on. With them, 

 as topics of discussion, or as themes for suggestion, I have in 

 this place, nothing to do. Far be it from me, on such an 

 occasion, to venture on debatable ground, or to meddle with 

 matters which belong, in any sense, to politicians or to party. 



But I may — and I do protest against the unmanly and un- 

 grateful spirit which is ever prone to despair of the Republic. 

 I call it ungrateful — for it is a manifest and inexcusable dis- 

 trust of that Divine Benignity, which has guided and pre- 

 served us hitherto. If ever a nation had cause to acknowledge 

 with thankful praise, an over-ruling and special Providence — 

 such obligation rests upon us to-day. 



When Israel of tlie Lord beloved, 



Out from the land of bondage came, 

 Her father's God before her moved, 



An awful guide, in smoke and flame. 



We too have had our " exodus " — we have made the red- 

 sea passage, and emerging, at last, from the crimson flood, 

 have seen our land of bondage sink from sight below the 

 Southern horizon. Forty long years it took of marching and 

 encampment — of fighting and of bivouac — to carry the chosen 

 people from the banks of tlie Nile to the banks of the Jor- 

 dan — while we have reached the promised land in a period 

 comparatively brief — a single year for each of their decades. 

 And is it not now apparent that all along an unseen Hand 

 was marshalling us the way ? Among all our magistrates and 

 generals — our senators and statesmen — our jurists and di- 

 vines — among our wisest, soundest, most judicious citizens of 



