"I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom."

Nor did he serve God in words only. Not until the books of the Recording Angel shall be opened can we know the vigils, the agonies of this sympathetic heart and tireless mind. A man is what he is when alone. And in the solemn agonies of the intervals when politicians ceased to trouble him-his "Gethsemanes" he called them-prayer and meditation strengthened the high resolves that made it possible to fulfill his destiny. The fierce light that beats upon a living ruler blinds the observer's eyes. There is a nobler splendor, the light that follows after death, when falsehoods vanish and the truth comes forth; then the noble deeds performed in secret are openly proclaimed, and the motives that guided the hero in the crises of a sublime career shine out in perfect revelation; then the walls of the inner chamber become transparent and the patriot wrestling with his God is seen upon his knees; then the clouds of criticism and of calumny are dispersed and the dawning judgment of posterity makes the path of the just to shine brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. So when Lincoln fell and shook the whole earth in his falling, that which he hoped for in his First Inaugural came to pass in larger meaning, for then indeed "the better angels of our nature" touched "the mystic chords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land" of which this martyred President was God's chosen saviour and his accepted sacrifice. Then the defeated sections even began to understand him and to embrace the form and figure of his mind. For the clouds which had obscured his image in the smoke of battle now faded away forever in the revelation of the meaning and motives of his conduct.

No wonder, therefore, that his final utterances fall upon us with such benignity; that they seem more like the solemn music of infinite wisdom, and of infinite tenderness, than like the speech of mortal man. Did some still, small voice within

him tell him that he, too, must be a victim of that partisan malignity which he had never shared and never fostered, that it would be a part of the punishment allotted to his people that he should be taken from them, even before the mighty work was done and when as yet the need of him was very great? Brother Americans, we can repair that great loss only by entering into his spirit-not by statues of marble or bronze; not, God help us, by reshaping the image of him until it dwindles into something like ourselves; but by reshaping ourselves, our own souls, until they resemble his in its expansive power and ultimate nobility.

If he could return from that bourne-from which, alas! the sages come not back to bring us wisdom-and frequent for a while the Union that he saved, how we should crowd around him! What honors and what eulogies would we not heap upon his transfigured form! But after we had told him proudly of our territorial expansion, of our enormous wealth, of our splendid cities with their monumental buildings soaring towards the skies, of our flag, the symbol everywhere of a new world-power, of our great industries and our colossal fortunes, I think I hear him ask, But what of your men? Do their "souls expand to dimensions not unworthy of their Almighty Architect?" Are they inspired by principles that enlarge them to divine proportions? What about the Declaration of Independence? Are its principles denied and evaded as they used to be, or are they cherished and lived up to and exalted? Are its ideas of free government applied, or are they being supplanted by those of class and caste and special privilege! Are you deceived by forms and sonorous phrases? By men who talk liberty and mean slavery? By men who adore the Constitution with their lips while their hearts are far from it? Do you fancy, I hear him ask, that because you call no man duke or king, you are, therefore, free and independent owners of yourselves? That because you offer no man openly a crown, you are sovereign citizens and self-governing communities? Have you not yet learned the difference between the forms and the power of self-government? What about your worship of the Constitution? There were men in my

time who adored it in their speech and who were yet doing their utmost to pervert it and to destroy its value. Have the enemies of social justice revived the old diabolical trick of interpreting it to defend oppression, or have the people mastered the divine art of reading it in the light of its sublime intention "to form a more perfect Union and to promote the general welfare?" And what about your Legislatures, State and national? Have they improved with your material progress? Are statutes carefully prepared and wisely considered? Do they enact the laws of God or the will of some powerful interest? Do they conform to immutable principles of political wisdom, or are hirelings and demagogues, misguided incompetents and ambitious leaders, all wearing the livery of freedom, still telling you that you can evade and thwart and even nullify with impunity the principles of righteousness and equity? Have your political leaders eyes, and can they see? Have they brains and can they reason? Or do they darken counsel with a multitude of words? Or shelter themselves in cowardly silence? Have they principles for which they are ready to be assassinated, or have they principles only for platforms or parade or purchase?

Fixing upon us those piercing and melancholy eyes, he would warn us to learn wisdom in the time of our power and our wealth and our opportunity, lest we, too, provoke the righteous judgment of God upon ourselves and our posterity. He would remind us with pathetic solemnity that all the miseries of those terrible years in which he suffered for us came from judicial blindness, from the sacrifice of conscience and truth and freedom of speech, to avarice and ambition and the lust of power; and, lifting his hand to the "Almighty Architect" of his own expanded and transfigured soul, he would call upon us all "to here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

THE LITERARY SIDE OF LINCOLN

DR. BERNARD J. CIGRAND

WHEN the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of

Abraham Lincoln's birth was brought to the attention of our citizens, the idea of having other than a mere one-day celebration was thought impossible; experience had taught the great dailies that a week's festival would result in failure. Some ventured to suggest that two days, if carefully planned, might meet with hearty response, and others referred to the hundredth anniversary of the inauguration of Washington as a safe guide in the Lincoln memorial occasion-the Washington exercises lasting two days and only then having received impetus from exhibition of tokens and relics of the Revolution. Your presence here attests, after seven days' and nights' celebration, that the editors, too, can be mistaken and fail to accurately judge the public feeling. Hundreds of exercises during these hours have been rendered, and this august assemblage, crowding every available space, standing throughout a long programme, showing no tedium after listening to a lengthy discourse-one long to be remembered for its brilliant and poetic elements-all this demonstrates in a most emphatic manner that the American love of patriotism, and the reverence for her distinguished heroes, has not faltered. No! For this gathering witnesses that our regard for our founders and our esteem for our defenders grows stronger and more sturdy as the years creep on; that we of this day have awakened to a higher appreciation of him who led the citizens on to victory; that we more eagerly attest our love for the great loyalty of the adopted son of the Prairie State-Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln was so great, so noble, so grand, and so peerless a man that no man living, no matter how eloquent may be his tongue-no man living, no matter how gifted with the

pen-no artist, regardless of his dexterity with the brush-no sculptor, notwithstanding the genius of his handicraft-will be able to portray, describe, paint or chisel that life-likeness of Lincoln, which his diverse and varied features and changing countenance evolved. It is not in the power of this generation-it is not within the scope of a now living individual, to give the correct and proper face or figure of this Giant of the West. Some day in the distant future, when we of this day are all gone, a child will be born-perhaps a boy, maybe a girl— who will brush away the prejudices of to-day's history, sweep aside the severe criticisms of the press, cast to the winds the jealousies of geographical sections, and with the unfailing lamp of Truth and the unerring pen of Justice bring from out of this mingled darkness a beautiful, clear, and truly living soul, of which the world in its calm judgment will proclaim, "It is our Lincoln !"

All has not been told of Lincoln. There yet remain some few trifling elements untouched-here and there a fibre of his kindness and a stray thought of his literary evolution is left untold. While Shakespeare and the Bible were the literary treasures of his frugal home, he also possessed a copy of Robert Burns-the poetic singer of nature-the "Longfellow of the British Isles"; but the volume which contributed patriotic fervor to the youth Lincoln, a book which, while it may not be the equal of Shakespeare for English, nor of the Bible for philosophy, yet is without equal in the portrayal of our form of liberty and our understanding of government-the "Life of General George Washington." Let me relate how Lincoln came to have this splendid work. A neighboring farmer had this great treasure, and Lincoln who had early read all the books within the meagrely supplied vicinity, gathered courage and asked the privilege of reading this copy. It was a Weems's "Washington." With what eagerness he mastered its pageswith what studiousness he learned the meanings of the difficult words! Our imagination only can supply this picture. It may be of interest to know that hardly had he finished the reading when, by an unforeseen element, the book was practically destroyed. The Lincoln home, as we all know, was a mere