to the equilibrium of the world, the desire to see a great democratic State surmount terrible trials and continue to give an example of the most perfect liberty united with the most absolute equality, assured the cause of the North a number of friends among us.

Lin

coln was indeed an honest man, giving to the word its full meaning, or rather the sublime sense which belongs to it, when honesty was to contend with the severest trials which can agitate States and with events which have an influence on the fate of the world. Mr. Lincoln had but one object in view, from the day of his election to that of his death, namely, the fulfilment of his duty, and his imagination never carried him beyond it. He has fallen at the very foot of the altar, covering it with his blood. But his work was done, and the spectacle of a rescued Republic was what he could look upon with consolation when his eyes were closing in death. Moreover he has not lived for his country alone, since he leaves to everyone in the world to whom liberty and justice are dear, a great remembrance and a pure example."

When, in a log cabin of Kentucky, a hundred years ago this day, that child was born who was named, after his grandfather killed by the Indians-Abraham Lincoln-Napoleon I. swayed Europe, Jefferson was President of the United States, and the second War of Independence had not yet come to pass. It seems all very remote, but the memory of the great man whom we try to honor to-day is as fresh as if he had only just left us. "It is," says Plutarch, "the fortune of all good men that their virtue rises in glory after their death, and that the envy which any evil man may have conceived against them never survives the envious." Such was the fate of Lincoln.

THE ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT

THE

COMMEMORATION

HE overshadowing importance of the services which Lincoln rendered as President has caused many people to overlook, until recently, that Lincoln was prepared for that great office by a long and successful career at the bar. It was before the Illinois Supreme Court, of which Stephen A. Douglas was a member from 1841 to 1843, that he achieved many of his forensic triumphs, and that Court, following his assassination, held commemorative exercises.

On February 11, the Lincoln Centenary was observed in an impressive manner by commemorative exercises held in the Supreme Court of Illinois in the Judiciary Building at Springfield, particularly reviewing the services of Lincoln as a member of the Illinois bar. A record of these proceedings has been published in Volume 238, Illinois Supreme Court Reports. Upon this occasion the Court was addressed by Mr. MacChesney, representing the city of Chicago; Mr. Jus tice Hand, responding for the Court, and giving a scholarly review of Lincoln's place in the profession of the law, and of his work before that Court; while the Court was addressed on behalf of the Illinois State Bar Association, by Hon. James H. Matheny, and on behalf of the Sangamon County Bar Association, by Major James A. Connolly.

Upon adjournment after these exercises, the Supreme Court went in a body to attend a joint celebration under the auspices of the House and Senate of the General Assembly of Illinois, in the Chamber of that House of Representatives, of which both Lincoln and Douglas had been members, and for the Speakership of which Lincoln was twice a candidate. The exercises there were presided over by Hon. Edward D. Shurtleff, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and addresses were made by the Hon. Charles S. Deneen, Governor of Illinois; by the Hon. Frank P. Schmitt, Hon. Frank W.