The Midnight Telegram at Tremont Temple

On the evening of December 31, 1862, three thousand people packed into Tremont Temple in Boston. Frederick Douglass stood among them, his eyes fixed on the door. They were waiting for a single piece of news — confirmation that Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

Hours crawled past. Anxiety thickened the air. Some whispered that Lincoln had lost his nerve. Others prayed aloud. Then, near midnight, a messenger burst through the doors shouting, "It is coming over the wires!" The room erupted. Strangers embraced. An elderly woman began singing, and within seconds the entire hall joined her — voices rising together in a freedom song that shook the walls.

Douglass later wrote that he had never seen joy like it — not polite applause, but the uncontainable gladness of people who had lived their whole lives under the shadow of chains and now heard the word that changed everything.

Isaiah saw this kind of moment centuries before it happened. "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who say to Zion, 'Your God reigns!'" The watchmen lift their voices together and shout for joy, because they see with their own eyes the Lord returning to Zion.

The gospel is that telegram bursting through the door. The Almighty has acted. The captives are free. And every voice that carries this news has beautiful feet.