他提到为什么南北双方读着同一本圣经，向同一位神祷告，却互相残杀， 虽然他觉得奇怪会有人一边从别人脸上的汗水收取果实，一边竟然敢向公义的神寻求帮助。但我们不要评价别人，免得我们自己被审判。
Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged.
南北双方的祷告不可能都被垂听，到现在双方的祷告都没有完全被垂听。神却有他自己的目的。“世界因着绊跌人的事有祸了；绊跌人的事是免不了的，但那绊跌人的有祸了。”
The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh."
无论我们多么迫切地希望和祷告让这场杀戮的战争过去，如果神许可，它将继续直到250年来奴隶贩子们积聚的所有财富完全沉没，奴隶主鞭打的鲜血被刺刀偿还，正如3000年前的预言 “主的审判既真实又公义”。
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
最后林肯呼吁我们与每一个为善，不对任何人行恶，在正义里站住，如同神给我们看到正义的事。让我们完成手中的工作，为战乱的国家裹伤，去关心每一个士兵和他们的孤儿寡妇，来实现我们之间和与所有国家的持久和平。With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right asGod gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne thebattle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
One of the best English writings is this letter to a mother of five (appeared in Saving Private Ryan as quoted by Gen. Marshall) .
Nov. 2I, 1864.
To MRS. BIXBY, BOSTON, MASS.
Dear Madam—I have been shown, in the files of the War Department, a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which shall attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.
I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Yours very sincerely and respectfully, A. LINCOLN.
P.S. It turned out later that 2 of the five were killed in the battlefield, one deserted or killed as POW, one discharged honorably, one deserted from army.
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