were not the bishops of the Church, or the lords of the manors, or newspapers like the Times. Once the people knew that the real issue was slavery, their old-time and undying love of liberty asserted itself, and to a man they stood for the Union. The true leaders of the people were statesmen like Cobden and Bright-Gladstone had not yet shaken himself free from the entanglements of class-privilege in which he was bornand scholars like John Stuart Mill and Goldwin Smith and the most eminent preachers in the Free Churches of both England and Scotland. George Brown went over from Canada in 1862 and spent more than six months in a campaign in all sections of the United Kingdom. His influence was powerful, not only with the masses of the people, but also with the great Liberal leaders then in control in Parliament.

Let the people of the United States who rejoice to-day in Lincoln's victory never forget how much they owe to the common people of England for the final and complete triumph of Lincoln's cause. It was by no turn of eye, or wave of hand, that your kith beyond the sea joined in your issue in the conflict. Within thirty miles round about Manchester, two and a half millions suffered for your cause. The spindles and looms of Lancashire and the other cotton-mill counties were silent, and the operatives day after day were within sight of starvation. They had no work because the cotton was unshipped in the ports of the South. They and their families were without bread. But not one of them made complaint. One cry, and there might have been a riot. One riot, and public opinion might have been swung irresistibly to the side of the aristocracy, and either have stampeded the Government or driven it from office. A change of Government would have meant Britain's interference to raise the cotton blockade. And, with France eager for Britain to lead the way, the appearance of the British navy before the blockaded ports of the South at that crisis-time in the fortunes of the North would have meant-what?

And why did the people of England care so much for the success of the Union? It was because they understood the issue of the struggle to be life or death for human rights.

The democracy of Britain, that had won its own place against the heavy odds of entrenched power and privilege, was eagerly, vitally interested in the struggle of government by the people in America. They knew what was involved not for America alone, but for Britain as well. It was the life-struggle of Anglo-Saxon civilization. The common people of England had long heard the scoffs of the aristocracy against popular self-government. In those days, before the great Reform Bill of 1866, they heard the enemies of the people's rights sneer at your free Republic. They knew how much would be lost not for you alone, but for them and for the Anglo-Saxon world, were this great experiment of democracy in America to fail. That it should not fail they gladly endured suffering and loss and hunger rather than give occasion for their own Government and the European powers to interfere against the Union. In ways he knew not of, Lincoln's triumph heartened Anglo-Saxon democracy and brought one stage nearer the enfranchisement of the common people.

Think for a moment of the world-significance of Lincoln. Think what his life meant for the long, dark struggle of the people of Europe against tyranny and oppression. All down the century they had been coming by thousands from under the despotic systems of the Old World to find freedom and opportunity on this new continent. From France, from Austria, from Prussia, from Italy, from Russia, from Turkey, they came. Some of them were refugees from political tyrants. Some of them sought freedom to worship God. Here they found an open door. They learned the new language of liberty. They sent back to their suffering brethren in Europe great words of cheer from the land of the free. Brave ones among them went back, and, in secret, sowed the seeds of democracy even in the valleys of despotism. Had Lincoln failed, had the Union been destroyed, had the Republic proved unequal to the strain and burden of maintaining free rights for a free people, how the tyrant-monarchs of Europe would have laughed! How the forerunners of European liberty would have been staggered! On the

success or the frustration of Lincoln's task the fate of democracy in Europe was trembling in the balance. But Lincoln did not fail. His venture for Union and Liberty triumphed triumphed gloriously. The reflex of that triumph meant new hope for government of the people, by the people, for the people, in Germany, in Russia, even in Turkey itself. A handful of seed on the tops of the mountains, and lo! the fruit thereof shakes like Lebanon.

And not Europe alone, but Asia as well. In our day the Orient, mysterious, vast, potential, heaves into sight above the skyline. It means something for this Republic this very day that Lincoln stood for the Union, and for supremacy of national integrity over local interests. It means something for world-peace that this Republic presents a united front to the Pacific, behind it a united nation, the Stars and Stripes over every State, and to the North the Union Jack. It means much for the world-brotherhood that this Republic has not only discovered its own power, but is learning its own duty, taking its large share of the great human burden, and playing its part for peace and good-will to the world.

And this this service to democracy in America, to AngloSaxon civilization, to the peace and progress of the world— is what I mean by the Significance of Lincoln.

What was it in this man that gave his life so great significance? What was his secret? How came he to speak with such authority? Questions such as these have been asked by every serious student of Lincoln's career. But no answer, no final answer, has been given.

Lincoln's life does not lend itself to the ordinary processes of analysis and appreciation. A catalogue of his qualities does not explain his life. Other men even among his associates were gifted beyond him in cultured intellect and eloquence of speech. Other men touched life at a score of points where he touched it at one. The horizons of life and of history for other men were wide where for him they were near. The study of heredity does not explain Lincoln, and his environment offers no clue. Blood may tell, and

types may persist, but not with him. No one went before. No one followed after. He flourished alone, as a root out of a dry ground. In the mysterious laboratory of Nature he was touched with the magic wand. That touch gave him of the fire of fires. In the murky night of his early years there glowed that invisible flame within. In the quiet of the night-time, through the silence that is in the starry sky, there came to him that long, far call. He was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. He went out not knowing whither he went.

"A Hand is stretched to him from out the dark,
Which grasping without question, he is led
Where there is work that he must do for God."

And he went through life as one impelled, haunted by a sense of Destiny, shadowed by a Presence that would not be put by. Men did not know him who heard only his ready story and his ringing laugh. All that was but the phosphorescence playing on the surface; the depths beneath were dark and touched with gloom. He was called to go by the sorrowful way, bearing the awful burden of his people's woe, the cry of the uncomforted in his ears, the bitterness of their passion on his heart. Misunderstood, misjudged, he was the most solitary man of his time. He had to tread the winepress alone, and of the people none went with him. And he turned not back. He never faltered. As one upheld, sustained by the unseen Hand, he set his face steadfastly, undaunted, unafraid, until in Death's black minute he paid glad Life's arrears: the slaves free! the Union saved! himself immortal!

Who that reads the Lincoln story can miss the sublime significance of his life? Born in obscurity, nurtured in ignorance, he grew to the stature of national heroism. He wrote the decree of Emancipation for his own Republic, changed from war to peace the royal message of the mightiest Empire of the world, and shines to-day a peerless name the world will not let die. Lincoln rather than any other might have

stood as the original of Tennyson's master-statesman, for almost as with prophetic vision the great Laureate foresaw the rise of Abraham Lincoln,

"As some divinely gifted man,

Whose life in low estate began,
And on a simple village green;

"Who breaks his birth's invidious bar,
And grasps the skirts of happy chance,
And breasts the blows of circumstance,
And grapples with his evil star;

"Who makes by force his merit known,
And lives to clutch the golden keys,
To mould a mighty State's decrees,
And shape the whisper of the throne;

"And, moving up from high to higher,
Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope
The pillar of a people's hope,
The centre of a world's desire."

Our words of praise

We ourselves shall The tumult and the

This centennial celebration will have failed of its high purpose if it ends in eulogy of the dead. will vanish into thin air and be forgotten. turn again to the common ways of men. shouting shall die. And all this acclaim of the mighty dead shall be but a foolish boast unless there comes to us from out the Unseen where they abide the enduring strength and the victorious faith by which they went up to die.

It

It is but vanity for us to profess honor for the name of Lincoln if we refuse to give ourselves to carry on the work for which he gave his life. That work is not yet done. cries aloud for strong hands and brave hearts. Slavery, as he knew it, is no more, but the struggle of human rights and social wrongs is not yet ended. The planter autocracy is overthrown, with none to mourn for its defeat, but the sordid and selfish autocracy of wealth and privilege and power is insolent as ever. In the darkness of your terrible streets, they still languish and die, by the sweat of whose faces the privileged and the proud still eat bread. In high place and