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If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there is still no single reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patrotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulties.

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You can have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the Government while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect, and defend” it.

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

YOUR MISSION.

[May be sung to the tune, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.”]

If you cannot on the ocean
Sail among the swiftest fleet.
Rocking on the highest billows,
Laughing at the storms you meet.
You can stand among the sailors.
Anchored yet within the bay,
You can lend a hand to help them.
As they launch their boats away.

If you are too weak to journey,
Up the mountain steep and high,
You can stand within the valley,
While the multitudes go by.
You can chant in happy measure,
As they slowly pass along,—
Though they may forget the singer,
They will not forget the song.

If you have not gold and silver,
Every ready to command,
If you cannot to the needy
Reach an ever open hand.
You can visit the afflicted,
O’er the erring you can weep,
You can be a true disciple.
Sitting at the Savior's feet.

If you cannot in the conflict
Prove yourself a soldier true.
If where fire and smoke are thickest,
There’s no work for you to do,
When the battlefield is silent.
You can go with careful tread,
You can bear away the wounded,
You can cover up the dead.

Do not then stand idly waiting
For some greater work to do;
Fortune is a lazy goddess,
She will never come to you.
Go and toil in any vineyard.
Do not fear to do or dare;
If you want a field of labor.
You can find it everywhere.