never was any answer to it. It became a standard to which men rallied. And truth appeared the best politics. Mr. Ingersoll calls this "a victorious truth whose utterance made Lincoln the foremost man in the Republic." That sentence stated the clear principle. On that he will not compromise, but on all the minor matters he will be yielding and conciliatory-and always go ahead. He summarized the Dred Scott decision in the fierce words, "If any one man choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object!" "The central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy," was another rifle shot in his First Inaugural. At no time did he satisfy the extremists on either side. Many times he was thought to be drifting and without a policy. He was not omniscient. Only a few men are. But it is an unspeakable mercy that this man was willing to learn from current events, to use his discretion according to circumstances actually existing; that the only consistency he had was the consistency of principle, and he would find his goal by any path he could. And his own eye was so single that at last the whole body was full of light. In two crucial respects he stands nearly alone in his power to keep still, and his power to speak. We are a speaking people. Good talkers are always at a premium with us. Now here else is the right word more effective than in a Republic. And Lincoln had the national gift, as we shall see. But in certain supreme crises the final test is not only what a man says, but what he refrains from saying. A civil war does not develop careful and dainty speech. Men and women-on both sides incline to invective and vitriol. Our Abolitionists knew a lot of hard words. The South did not measure its terms by the rule of gentleness. When there was nothing else men could do, they pitched into Lincoln. Men here, who were boys then, heard him called by all the names that were bad. I have always been wanting to atone to him for the names I heard him called in my youth. Not only so, but the North and the South were abusing each other. "Rebel" and "traitor" were about the gentlest terms we used. And it was a talking time. But in all that flood of acrimonious speech, not one word of malice escaped his lips. He was reviled and slandered, but "as a sheep before her shearer is dumb, so he opened not his mouth." Other men stung and goaded him, but he replied only in some quaint story that acted like oil where others used acids. And in all the forty-four years since "the lilacs bloomed" as he died, we have not had to take back one word of bitterness toward the South, or pull out one sentence from festering sore. He won a victory over the South, and is to-day our strongest appeal to the South. "His entire administration was one protracted magnanimity. He was as great in his forbearance as in his performances." But what shall be said of his power to speak? His silence and his speech alike were golden. Men were scared when he began the debates with Douglas, for Douglas vas indeed a "Little Giant." When the debates were over, the air was cleared for a thousand years. Douglas won the sentorship, but Lincoln won the shining victory for truth. An id man said, "You always felt that Abe was right." bound to win," he said, "but I am bound to be true. So "he did not say the thing which was best for that day debate, but the thing that would stand the test of time ind square itself with eternal justice." "I m not Gladstone, born the same year as Lincoln, was the spea. marvel of England during many years. British oratory hardly ever been richer or nobler than his. He was educa at Oxford. All that culture could do had been done for hi but his supporters declare that he has left not a single m terpiece of English, and hardly one great phrase that cli to the memory of men. Lincoln has given a new mea: to oratory and a new dignity to public speech. His ter ances have the quality of finality. George William Curtis declares that there are three supreme speeches in our histor "The speech of Patrick Henry at Williamsburg, of Wendel Phillips in Faneuil Hall, of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysl -three, and there is no fourth." I think there was a fourth -Lincoln's Second Inaugural. He gave a new and embarrassing definition to the words "principal address." At Gettysburg, Edward Everett spoke magnificently through many thousand noble words-a masterly oration. Lincoln spoke three minutes, two hundred and fifty words, and this is the principal address of that day or many days. The Second Inaugural is only seven hundred and fifty words in length, but while liberty lasts, while charity survives among men, while patriotism lives under any flag, these few words will be on men's lips like prophecy, psalm or gospel. How did this man, born in poverty, reared in poverty, untrained in any schools, come to do this miracle? It is not a trick of expression, it is the miracle of supreme truth, supremely stated. "Back of the orator is the man. Behind the matchless President is the matchless personality. He had the faith that saves, without the bigotry that blights. He had insight like a prophet's, a sense of the Almighty Person like a mystic's; no theology, but the life of the spirit; an unwavering belief in the Providence that was often silent and perplexing; moral courage born of moral conviction; a sense that right is right, since God is God; e a devotion that planted a cross in his heart; a trust that kept his hands clean and his heart pure. When he called methe Cabinet to hear the Emancipation Proclamation, they found him reading a chapter from Artemus Ward. He said, ea "I made the promise to myself and to my Maker that I would ylo this. I do not wish your advice about the main matter, uctor that I have determined for myself"-and read the imbnortal document which freed the slave. His sense of deseriny was not fatalism, but faith. He thought of himself and cliche nation as in the guiding care of God. He thought more of his duties than of his rights, more of his burdens than of his honors. He incarnated the simplest and greatest virtues. He was above all a man of truth. "I am nothing, truth is everything." His life did not belie the language of his lips. "Whatever appears to be God's will, I will do it." And he put the loftiest at the service of the lowliest. I know what I am saying, and must not be betrayed into |