The doubt, then, that springs from preconceived ideas is not only
unjustifiable, but may be dangerous and wrong.
Then there is another kind of doubt against which you should beware.
There are certain doubts that, if accepted and acted on, stand in the
way of the creation of the most magnificent facts in the world. Take as
an illustration of what I mean: when Napoleon, a young man in Paris,
was asked to take command of the guard of the city, suppose he had
doubted, questioned, distrusted, his own ability; suppose he had been
timid and afraid, the history of the world would have been changed by
that one doubt. Take another illustration. At the opening of our war or
in the months just preceding the beginning of active hostilities the
man then occupying the presidential chair had no faith, no faith in
himself, no faith in the perpetuity of our institutions, no faith in
the people; and so he sat doubting, while everything crumbled in pieces
around him. And then appeared a man in whom the people had little faith
at first, and who had no great faith perhaps in his own ability; but he
had infinite faith in God, faith in right, faith in the people, faith
in the possibilities of freedom trusted in the hands of the people. And
this faith created a new nation.
If there had been doubt in the heart of Abraham Lincoln, again the
history of the world would have been &hanged. He believed that "Right
is right, since God is God, And right the day must win: To doubt would
be disloyalty, To falter would be sin.
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