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Grace and peace, Saints.
Today is the anniversary of the murder of one of America’s greatest statesmen, presidents, abolitionists, fathers, husbands, and Christians, President Abraham Lincoln. I owe a great debt of thanks to Mr. Lincoln, and, in my small way, I want to honor the man without whom I literally would not be where I am today, doing what I am today. For, were it not for “Honest Abe” Lincoln, I would not be sitting in my chair, in my “study,” in my apartment (which is not even mine), writing this on my computer (which is mine), looking at my monitor (also mine) as I write this. I would not own anything, not even the clothes on my back. In fact, I would be owned by someone else and I would be considered little more than someone else’s property. My name would be of little consequence. I would have no address of my own. I would never know what it is to receive mail, and I wouldn’t know what it is to get paid for the work I did. I wouldn’t be allowed to raise my own children, to go where I wanted, or to wear what I wanted. I wouldn’t know how to read, wouldn’t know how to write, wouldn’t know how to format this essay. The fact is that I would know little else other than what I needed to know in order to pick cotton, which ain’t much. In other words, I would be a slave.
President Abraham Lincoln lost his life because he believed that “all men are created equal” and are endowed with certain unalienable rights, among them being life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness. President Lincoln did something that few people do anymore: he walked the talk. He lived what he believed knowing full well that it would cost him his life. According to former Roman Catholic priest, Charles Chiniquy, whom Lincoln once defended when he was a young lawyer, when Chiniquy informed him that the Jesuits of Rome were conspiring to assassinate him, Lincoln said:
“You are not the first to warn me against the dangers of assassination. My ambassadors in Italy, France, and England, as well as Professor [Samuel] Morse, have many times warned me against the plots of the murderers which they have detected in those different countries. But I see no other safeguard against those murderers but to be always ready to die, as Christ advises it. As we must all dies sooner or later, it makes very little difference to me whether I die from a dagger plunged through the heart or from an inflammation of the lungs…”
“My dear Father Chiniquy…Has not He (God) taken me from my poor log cabin by the hand, as He did of Moses in the reeds of the Nile, to put me at the head of the greatest and the most blessed of modern nations, just as He put that prophet (Moses) at the head of the most blessed nation of ancient times? Has not God granted me a privilege which was not granted to any living man, when I broke the fetters of 4,000,000 of men (the slaves) and made them free? Has not our God given me the most glorious victories over our enemies?
“Now, I see the end of this terrible conflict, with the same joy of Moses, when at the end of his trying forty years in the wilderness; and I pray my God to grant me to see the days of peace, and untold prosperity, which will follow this cruel war, as Moses asked God to see the other side of the Jordan and enter into the Promised Land. But do you know that I hear in my soul, as the voice of God, giving me the rebuke which was given to Moses? (Though shalt not go over!)
“Yes! every time that my soul goes to God to ask the favour of seeing the other side of Jordan, and eating the fruits of that peace, after which I am longing with such an unspeakable desire, do you know that there is a still, but solemn voice, which tells me that I will see those things, only from a long distance, and that I will be among the dead, when the nation which God granted me to lead through those awful trials, will cross the Jordan, and dwell in that Land of Promise.” (Fifty Years in the Church of Rome, p. 50).
So much for the Jesuit lie that Lincoln was not a Christian, and so much for the Jesuit lie that Lincoln did not want to free the slaves.
Saints, I am not feeling to well today, and, for that reason I did not write the article and do the podcast I wanted to do to commemorate this great man. But I have provided a link to the podcast I did in 2014 on the anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination. I pray you will listen to it. Even if you don’t, please think on Honest Abe today and tomorrow, especially if you’re Black.
Be encouraged and look up, for your redemption draweth nigh.
TSM
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