 | Ronald Wells - United States - 1991 - 288 pages
...accompanied by great pain and agony. In the last months of the war, the president expressed it succinctly: The purposes of the Almighty are perfect and must prevail, though we er6tPaludan, "American Civil War," 247-50; Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. WARS OF AMERICA CHRISTIAN VIEWS ring... | |
 | David Herbert Donald - Biography & Autobiography - 1995 - 724 pages
...September to Mrs. Eliza P. Gurney, who extended the sympathy and prayers of the Society of Friends: "The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must...but God knows best, and has ruled otherwise. ... we must work earnestly in the best light He gives us, trusting that so working still conduces to the great... | |
 | Randall M. Miller, Harry S. Stout, Charles Reagan Wilson - Religion - 1998 - 437 pages
...This time, Lincoln's letter foreshadows some of the language of the Second Inaugural by six months. "The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must...this; but God knows best, and has ruled otherwise." Lincoln again strains to understand, from the standpoint of divine purpose, what good can come from... | |
 | Lucas E. Morel - Biography & Autobiography - 2000 - 272 pages
...or at least can be known only with His assistance. In a letter to Mrs. Eliza P. Gurney, he states: "We hoped for a happy termination of this terrible...therein. Meanwhile we must work earnestly in the best light He gives us, trusting that so working still conduces to the great end He ordains.""4 This is... | |
 | J. G. Randall, Richard N. Current, Richard Nelson Current - Biography & Autobiography - 1999 - 460 pages
...directly on myself, I thought others might afford for me to tell it." 5 Once he wrote to Eliza P. Gurney: "The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must...hoped for a happy termination of this terrible war before this; but God knows best, and has ruled otherwise." 8 In conversation at the White House he... | |
 | Allen C. Guelzo - Biography & Autobiography - 1999 - 532 pages
...Quaker Eliza P. Gurney in September, 1864. And lest this sound too much like cheap piety, he added, "The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must...fail to accurately perceive them in advance. . . . We shall yet acknowledge His wisdom and our own error therein." He was aware that less temperate voices... | |
 | Charles M. Hubbard - Biography & Autobiography - 2003 - 270 pages
...God has given to man."54 On another occasion in September the president wrote Eliza P. Gurney that: The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must...fail to accurately perceive them in advance.... We [should] acknowledge His wisdom and our own error therein. Meanwhile we must work earnestly in the... | |
 | William Charles Harris - Biography & Autobiography - 2004 - 332 pages
...could not always be known. On September 4, 1864, he wrote to a Quaker correspondent, Eliza Gurney: "The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must prevail, though we erring mortals may fail to perceive them in advance . . . Meanwhile we must work earnestly in the best light He gives us, trusting... | |
 | Ward McAfee - Biography & Autobiography - 2004 - 258 pages
...prayed for him in the past: "The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must prevail," Lincoln wrote, "though we erring mortals may fail to accurately perceive them in advance." John Nicolay reported 37 Fehrenbacher, cotnp., Lincoln, Speeches and Writings, 1859-1865, 624. 38 Fehrenbacher... | |
 | William Eleazar Barton - Biography & Autobiography - 2005 - 444 pages
...it" (89). Two years later, in September 1864, Lincoln sounded a similar theme in a letter to Gurney: "The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must...this; but God knows best, and has ruled otherwise. . .. Surely He intends some great good to follow this mighty convulsion, which no mortal could make,... | |
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The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must prevail, though we erring mortals may fail to accurately perceive them in advance. We hoped for a happy termination of this terrible war long before this; but God knows best, and has ruled otherwise. 
