"Friends, no one who has never been placed in a like position, can understand my feelings at this hour, nor the oppressive sadness I feel at this parting. For more than a quarter of a century I have lived among you, and during all that time I have received nothing but kindness at your hands. Here I have lived from my youth until now I am an old man. Here the most sacred ties of earth were assumed; here all of my children were born, and here one of them lies buried. To you, dear friends, I owe all that I have, all that I am. All the strange, checkered past seems now to crowd upon my mind. Today I leave you: I go to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon General Washington. Unless the great God who assisted him shall be with me and aid me, I must fail. But if the same Omniscient Mind and the same Almighty Arm that directed and protected him shall guide and support me, I shall not fail; I shall succeed. Let us all pray that the God of our fathers may not forsake us now. To Him I commend you all; permit me to ask that with equal sincerity [the word is printed security but corrected with pen] and faith, you all will invoke His wisdom and guidance for me. With these few words I must leave you--for how long I know not. Friends, one and all, I must now bid you an affectionate farewell." _The So-called Shorthand Report_ The so-called shorthand report appears on close examination not to be a shorthand report, but is that which appeared in the Chicago and other papers from the Hay and Lincoln revision, more or less garbled in telegraphic transmission. _The Lincoln-Hay Version of the Farewell Address_ "This address was correctly printed for the first time in the Century Magazine for December, 1887, from the original manuscript, having been written down after the train started, partly by Mr. Lincoln's own hand and partly by that of his private secretary from his dictation."--NICOLAY AND HAY, _Life of Lincoln_, II, 291. It is thus apparent that we do not have any verbatim report of the precise words which Lincoln uttered; but the Illinois Historical Society has accepted this as the accredited version. It is certainly that which Lincoln wished to be remembered as having said; but it is quite possible that in one or two of the variant words Bateman may have recalled it more accurately than Lincoln himself: