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Hello, friends. Thank you for joining me here today. I’m going to offer a sliver about the most significant American who ever lived.

Now, a book reviewer I’m not, at least in the conventional sense. Regardless, I wish to tell you about “And There Was Light -Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle” by Jon Meacham. You may recall that he also wrote “The Soul of America.” If there is a better author around today than he is, I’ve yet to meet him.

Were I asked what two books we Americans need to read in these times, without hesitation it would be the aforementioned works. So.

As Lincoln left the Great Western depot in Springfield, Illinois, enroute to Washington to be inaugurated President of the United States of America, he wrote:

“For more than a quarter of a century I have lived among you, and during all that time I have received nothing but kindness at your hands. Here I have lived from my youth until now I am an old man. Here the most sacred ties of earth were assumed; here all my children were born; and here one of them lies buried. To you dear friends, I owe all that I have, all that I am. All the strange, chequered past seems to crowd now upon my mind.

“Today I leave you; I go to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon General George Washington. Unless the great God who assisted him shall be with and aid me, I must fail. But if the same omniscient mind, and Almighty arm that directed and protected him, shall guide and support me, I shall not fail, I shall succeed.

“Let us all pray that the God of our fathers may not forsake us now. To him I commend you all – permit me to ask with equal security and faith, you will invoke His wisdom and guidance for me.”

He then went to save the union; and to travel the rocky road to emancipation of, eventually, all enslaved people in the land.

Has anyone ever faced such a daunting challenge? In any era or epoch.

He never came home.

APROPOS – “May God give you that consolation which is beyond all earthly power.”

-A. Lincoln (to parents of son who was killed)