he did not know what to do with his hands, but they learned at last that his mind fitted him perfectly, and he used his hands for his supreme tasks.

We are obliged to go back to the Bible for the words to describe him, "He was a shepherd who had led his flock according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands." He kept in close touch with the common people, and kept ahead of them. He kept in touch and moved on. He used all the strong men in all parties, and was used by none of them. He has been called by one biographer, "The Master of Men." But never was any man less of a tyrant. His mastery was due to that gentleness which made him great. He could neither be a tyrant nor a tool, a slave driver nor a slave. He led, not because he wanted to be served, but because he wanted to serve. His secrets were few because his purposes were great. Without arrogance, without vanity, with eternal charity, and without malice, as God gave him to see the right, he held on his steady way. Men were impatient; his Cabinet was vexed; he was assailed by the radicals and by his compromisers; he endured the storms of ridicule, of slander, of scorn; insult and accusation were heaped upon him like a mountain; news from the front broke his heart, scramble for spoils cursed his days; he lived through passion and prejudice, relieving his melancholy soul with stories that brought more criticism, and at last "he heard the hisses turn to cheers" and stood alone in a glory no man could endure.

He had a genius for stating eternal matters in such a way that men felt as under a call to battle. Away yonder on the plains of Palestine, the saddest man of history declared that a "house divided against itself shall not stand." Long afterward, on the plains of Illinois, this Lincoln reached back to that other's word and said: "A house divided against itself can not stand. I believe this government can not permanently endure half slave and half free." Friends urged him not to say it. It was too clear, too plain and unmistakable. It was not good politics to say it. But Lincoln replied, "It is true, and I will deliver it as written." There

The Peterson House, in which Lincoln Died, Washington, D. C.

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. Nowhere 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 was indeed a "Little Giant." When the debates were over, the air was cleared for a thousand years. Douglas won the senatorship, but Lincoln won the shining victory for truth. An old man said, "You always felt that Abe was right." "I am not 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's debate, but the thing that would stand the test of time and square itself with eternal justice."

Gladstone, born the same year as Lincoln, was the speaking marvel of England during many years. British oratory has hardly ever been richer or nobler than his. He was educated at Oxford. All that culture could do had been done for him; but his supporters declare that he has left not a single masterpiece of English, and hardly one great phrase that clings to the memory of men. Lincoln has given a new meaning to oratory and a new dignity to public speech. His utterances have the quality of finality. George William Curtis declares that there are three supreme speeches in our history: "The speech of Patrick Henry at Williamsburg, of Wendell Phillips in Faneuil Hall, of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg -three, and there is no fourth." I think there was a fourth