ion. But
"God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform."
And through that very mysteriousness this people was destined to attain to
the higher enjoyment of life. The country, trembling under the agitation of
the slave question, was steadily seeking a condition of equilibrium which could
be stable only in the complete downfall of slavery. Unknown to them, yet existing,
the great question of the day was gradually being solved; and in its solution
was working out the salvation of an enslaved people. Well did that noblest of
women, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, sing a few years after:
"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is tramping
out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful
lightning of his terrible swift sword; This truth is marching on.
"I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps; They
have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read his righteous
sentence by the dim and
