March 3, 1861 (Sunday)

Our hearts, our prayers,
shall go up with him.
May he not disappoint
the sacred hopes of millions!

Excerpts from a sermon by Rev. Moses Tyler of the First Congregational Church in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. entitled "Our Solace and Our Duty in this Crisis."  (Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection)  This is the last night of the Buchanan administration--tomorrow Lincoln will be inaugurated as the new President of the United States. 

"And there are differences of administrations but the same Lord!"

"The time-pieces in your pockets are ticking history tonight.  The atmosphere, which wraps this young continent, is tremulous with the throb of a far-resounding crisis.  Tomorrow we wind the clock for another four years with a new Administration.

We do all need some strong, healthful, calming thought, to be our possession amid this anarchy.  We are adrift on a stormy gulf.  We need some light through the clouds:  we need the chart of some mighty, guiding truth;  we need what the old, storm-battered Puritans had, a FAITH -- a faith in something higher than earth, and better than man.  Mr friends, we all know what it was which made those Puritans so grand.  It was, that through all perils, reverses, obloquies, they believed in the living God!

God will not prosper the projects of those men who craft freedom into a gigantic slave-ship --  prowling the seas for the single purpose of defending, spreading and perpetuating this atrocious system of human bondage.  Slavery on this continent is doomed. 

We are in the midst of events, which demand seriousness on our part.  This involves gravity of character as opposed to a giddy and volatile trifling with momentous concerns.  On us -- the people of America -- rests this responsibility, with the help of God, of saving our institutions.  We must face that tremendous task.  Also, if any people ought to know the value of prayer it is the American people. 

Yes, President-Elect!  ...we, too, will try to pray for you.  At our firesides, in our closets, in our public assemblies...on the aspirations of millions of hearts shall you be upborne to the God of Presidents and Kings.

My friends, we are in the mist of a Revolution...and if the Constitution, which that struggle achieved the right of making, is to be saved from demolition, there is need of the same patriotic superiority to party feeling.  There ought to be no New England man, no New Yorker, known on the continent:  but all of us are Americans. 

The final consideration...one other duty...the duty of holding fast to principle, and of swearing anew our allegiance to the right.  Let us do what is right, and leave it with God to take care of us. 

Tomorrow another younger man goes up those same Capitol steps, to take that same solemn Sacrament.  Our hearts, our prayers, shall go up with him.  May he not disappoint the sacred hopes of millions!"