Reveille in Washington, 1860 - 1865 by Margaret Leech

[David Lockmiller]

(11-25-2017 09:27 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  "Was to be" is past tense, not predictable by humans, and the Bible itself states so:
"...also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end." (Ecclesiastes 3)

I must admit at the outset that I have very little knowledge of the Bible, and especially German sayings regarding the Bible. Thank goodness for Google. I had no idea whatsoever what "he hath set the world in their heart" meant. So, I Googled the meaning of the phrase.

The German meaning apparently is: "Man is oppressed with what German thinkers have named the Welt-Schmerz, the world-sorrow, the burden of the problems of the infinite and unfathomable Universe."

But it also seems to me that there are this and other parts of Ecclesiastes 3 which have direct application to the last paragraph of President Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, to wit:

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God 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 the battle 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."

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
8 …a time of war, and a time of peace.
10 I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.
11 He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.
12 I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life.