The writer cannot bid farewell to the reader, and to the illustrious subject of this biography, without a closing tribute to a character unique in history, and an administration that stands alone in the annals of the nation. We have seen one of the humblest of American citizens struggling through personal trials and national turmoils, into the light of universal fame, and an assured immortality of renown. We have seen him become the object of warm and devoted affection to a whole nation. We have witnessed such manifestations of grief at his loss as the death of no ruler has called forth, within the memory of man. We have seen a great popular government, poisoned in every department by the virus of treason, and blindly and feebly tottering to its death, restored to health and soundness through the beneficent ministry of this true man, who left it with vigor in its veins, irresistible strength in its arms, the fire of exultation and hope in its eyes, and with such power and majesty in its step, that the earth shook beneath its stately goings. We have seen four millions of African bondmen who, groaning in helpless slavery when he received the crown of power, became freemen by his word before death struck that crown from his brow. We have seen the enemies of his country vanquished and suing for pardon; and the sneering nations of the world, whose incontinent contempt and spite were poured in upon him during the first years of his administration, becoming first silent, then respectful, and then unstinted in their admiration and approbation.

These marvelous changes in public feeling, and the revolutions imbodied in these wonderful results, were not the work of a mighty genius, sitting above the nation, and ordering its affairs. That Mr. Lincoln was much more than an ordinary man, in intellectual power, is sufficiently evident; but it was not by intellectual power that he wrought out the grand results of his life. These were rather the work of the heart, than the head. With no wish to depreciate the motives or undervalue the names of Mr. Lincoln's predecessors in office, it may be declared that never, in the history of the government, have the affairs of that office been administered with such di

rect reference to the will of God, and the everlasting principles of righteousness and justice, as they were during his administration. It was eminently a Christian administrationone which, in its policy and acts, expressed the convictions of a Christian people. Standing above the loose morality of party politics, standing above the maxims and conventionalisms of statesmanship, leaving aside all the indirections and insincerities of diplomacy, trusting the people, leaning upon the people, inspired by the people, who in their Christian homes and Christian sanctuaries gave it their confidence, this administration of Abraham Lincoln stands out in history as the finest exhibition of a Christian democracy the world has ever seen. The power of a true-hearted Christian man, in perfect sympathy with a true-hearted Christian people, was Mr. Lincoln's power. Open on one side of his nature to all descending influences from Him to whom he prayed, and open on the other to all ascending influences from the people whom he served, he aimed simply to do his duty, to God and men. Acting rightly, he acted greatly. While he took care of deeds, fashioned by a purely ideal standard, God took care of results. Moderate, frank, truthful, gentle, forgiving, loving, just, Mr. Lincoln will always be remembered as eminently a Christian President; and the almost immeasurably great results which he had the privilege of achieving, were due to the fact that he was a Christian President.

Conscience, and not expediency, not temporary advantage, not popular applause, not the love of power, was the ruling and guiding motive of his life. He was conscientious in his devotion to the Constitution and the laws. In this he was in advance of his people, and in advance of a multitude of his own friends. With every constitutional right, he dealt tenderly and carefully, while taunted by his own friends with subserviency to an institution which, in his inmost soul, he hated. His respect for law was as profound and sincere as his respect for God and his will. Uninfluenced by popular clamor, and unbent by his own humane and Christian desire to see all men free, he did not speak the word of

emancipation until his duty to the Constitution which he had sworn to protect and defend demanded it. There is no doubt that, if he could have saved the country without destroying slavery, he would have done it, and done it against the most ardent wishes of his heart, through his regard for the Constitution which protected the inhuman institution, and the oath by which he had been invested with power. It was not slowness, nor coldness, nor indifference, that delayed the emancipation of the slaves. It was loyal, devoted, self-denying virtue.

Mr. Lincoln was conscientious in his patience. He knew and felt the weakness of human nature, and appreciated the force of education in moulding character and opinion. Hence, he was patient with his enemies, and equally patient with equally unreasonable friends. No hasty act of his administration can be traced to his impatience. When such an act was performed, and was followed by its inevitable consequences of evil, it originated in the impatience of those whom he could not control. His steps were taken with the deliberateness of destiny; and, as these steps are retraced by the historian, he can compare them to nothing but those leisurely and irresistible proceedings by which the Great Father in whom the good President trusted had wrought out his will in creation and Providence. Step by step, hand in hand with events, he worked and waited patiently, for the great consummation to which all the efforts of his life were devoted. Maligned, misunderstood, abused, cursed, his motives the foot-balls of malice and envy and pride and foolishness, he waited patiently for history to vindicate him, and permitted no smarting sense of personal injustice to divert him from his duty to his country.

He was conscientious in his regard for human rights. His opposition to slavery, and his love of the African, were no mere matters of policy, or means for winning power. He had a tender, brotherly regard for every human being; and the thought of oppression was a torment to him. There was nothing that moved him to such indignation as a wrong committed against the helpless ones of his own kind. He believed

that negroes were men, endowed by their Creator with the rights of men; and, thus believing, there was no manly privilege which he enjoyed, that he would not have been glad to see conferred upon them. Hence, had he lived, he would logically have numbered himself among those who will agitate the right of universal loyal suffrage until that right shall be secured to every loyal man living under the American flag.

In Mr. Lincoln's life and character, the American people have received a benefaction not less in permanent importance and value, than in the revolution in opinion and policy by which he introduced them to a new national life. He has given them a statesman without a statesman's craftiness, a politician without a politician's meannesses, a great man without a great man's vices, a philanthropist without a philanthropist's impracticable dreams, a Christian without pretensions, a ruler without the pride of place and power, an ambitious man without selfishness, and a successful man without vanity. On the basis of such a manhood as this, all the coming generations of the nation will not fail to build high and beautiful ideals of human excellence, whose attractive power shall raise to a nobler level the moral sense and moral character of the nation. This true manhood-simple, unpretending, sympathetic with all humanity, and reverent toward God-is among the noblest of the nation's treasures; and through it, God has breathed, and will continue to breathe, into the nation, the elevating and purifying power of his own divine life.

Humble child of the backwoods-boatman, ax-man, hired laborer, clerk, surveyor, captain, legislator, lawyer, debater, orator, politician, statesman, President, savior of the republic, emancipator of a race, true Christian, true man—we receive thy life and its immeasurably great results, as the choicest gifts that a mortal has ever bestowed upon us; grateful to thee for thy truth to thyself, to us, and to God; and grateful to that ministry of Providence and grace which endowed thee so richly, and bestowed thee upon the nation and mankind.

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