THE RUGGED HONESTY OF LINCOLN'S HEART

T

HE heart of every man is a furnace of smoldering fires, which, when fanned by inspiration, bursts into flame. It is the man who can rekindle the dormant fire of humanity, and cause it to

rise from its own ashes, who becomes the leader of his people. There were hundreds of men in Lincoln's time who were more learned in the law than he; there are thousands today. It is not how much you know, but rather how much you know how to use it.

Lincoln knew more about the heart of man than he did the head. The secret of his success and his greatness was his simple humanity. All the political wisdom and legal knowledge of the great men of the times could not overcome the simple, direct words of his homely philosophy that sank deep into the understanding of every hearer.

Listen-you can hear the resonant tones echoing down through the years from the lips of the tall, gaunt orator: "When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government-that is despotism." "No man is good enough to govern another without that other's consent. "Repeal the Missouri Compromise, repeal all compromise, repeal the Declaration of Independence, repeal all past history, still you cannot repeal human nature."

You can see him as he stands in the halls of the Republican Convention in Illinois. He raises his arms and shouts: "We must make this a land of liberty, in fact as it is in name." "We will say to the Southern disunionists, we won't go out of the Union, and you shan't!" You can

see that great audience rise to its feet, and as the crowd takes up the slogan, the hall rings with the words that have ignited the hearts of his hearers and set them aflame. Twenty days later, the delegates met in the first National Republican Convention in the city of Philadelphia. Abraham Lincoln received one hundred and ten votes for the Vice-Presidency. It was the following noon that he walked into the tavern in the village where he was trying a law case on the Illinois circuit. He found an excited group discussing the news which had just arrived. The country lawyer carelessly replied that there was another Lincoln up in Massachusetts and it probably meant him. The vote for Lincoln was not sufficient to place his name on the first Republican ticket, but it saved him from the necessity of going down to political oblivion in the election that followed. This is another instance in a man's life where defeat is good fortune.

brotype taken at Pittsfield, Illinois, October 1, 1858, immediately after Lincoln had made his speech on the public square-age 49-Original Dy C. Jackson, owned by Miss Hattie Gilmer of Pittsfield, Illinois.

THE MAN WHO FIRST MADE LINCOLN KNOWN

10 a strong man opposition is a challenge that goaas him on to victory. It requires some crucial effort in a man's life to bring out his full strength. We all have what we consider our obstacles in the way of success. The strong man does not attempt to go

around them, he cuts straight through them.

Lincoln's life was filled with obstacles, but the last and greatest of them was a man of political strength even greater than his own; a man, who, like himself, had come to the wilderness to fight his way to success—the "Little Giant," Stephen A. Douglas.

You possibly can remember in your own experience some one individual who has had more effect upon your life than all the others that you have ever known. Friends are frequently milestones and occasionally one of them is a turning point.

Douglas was this and more to Lincoln. The roads of the two men had been similar in early life. Douglas knew the school of hard work and poverty, for he had come from the hills of Vermont to the Western plains with but thirty-seven cents in his pocket. He had worked on a farm and taught school. He first appeared in Lincoln's life as a suitor for the hand of the same woman. In this first conflict Lincoln won. They both studied law; they both entered politics; they both entered the legislative halls.

Here their roads seemed to part. Douglas, allying himself with Democratic powers, plunged ahead toward the goal of his ambition. He became Secretary of State in Illinois, and Judge of the Supreme Court; he was sent to Washington as a Congressman; he was elected to the United States. Senate. The name of Douglas stood for statesmanship; his strong hand could be seen in all the great political movements; he favored the acquisition of new territory to extend the principles of American self-government; he advocated the compromise of 1850; he formulated the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, and the famous Kansas-Nebraska Bill.

In this heyday of fame he had almost forgotten the country lawyer back on the Illinois circuit, who had been left so far behind. It did not occur to him that this gaunt youth was now literally walking on his shadow, until suddenly he turned about and found himself once more looking into the strong, homely face of his first opponent-Abraham Lincoln.

The "Little Giant's" career was now brought to a halt for the first time; not by a man who wished to obstruct him, but by one who heard the cry of humanity ahead, and challenged him for the right of way.

PHOTOGRAPH OF STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS TAKEN DURING HIS DEBATES WITH LINCOLN IN 1858 Lincoln was now 49 years of age; Douglas was 45 years-This negative was taken after Douglas defeated Lincoln for the United States Senate, which was followed two years later by Lincoln's defeat of Douglas for President of United States

THE CHALLENGE THAT TESTED LINCOLN'S STRENGTH

EARLY every man must be weighed in the balance sooner or later, but it is not often that the scales of justice are to be the crucial test. Lincoln knew when he challenged Douglas for his seat in the United States Senate that he was challenging destiny, that he was inviting an irrepressible conflict in which both his life and his nation were at stake.

The problem of Slavery, which had been suppressed by politicians for a generation, now demanded the judgment of the American people. Lincoln, now forty-nine years of age, brought it to its first crisis.

"I know there is a God, and He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming. I know His hand is in it. If He has a place and work for me and I think He has-I believe I am ready. I am nothing, but truth is everything."

Like every man who undertakes to follow his conscience at the risk of his material gain, Lincoln was advised by his friends that he was ruining himself and his party; that he was not only unwise, but a fool; that while he was only a country lawyer, without money, and struggling to make a living, he was courting destruction at the hands of the strongest political leader of the day; a man who was now of independent fortune, whose home in Washington was the gathering place of the distinguished men of the world, and who had been honored in the capitals of Europe.

Lincoln fully realized the difference between himself and his opponent. "With me," he said sadly, "the race of ambition has been a failure—a flat failure; with him it has been one of splendid success." "I affect no contempt for the high eminence he has reached. So reached that the oppressed of my species might have shared with me in the elevation, I would rather stand on that eminence than wear the richest crown that ever pressed a monarch's brow." "I shall try to conduct myself as a gentleman in substance at least, if not in outward polish. The latter I shall never be, but that which constitutes the inside of a gentleman, I hope I understand."

With full conviction of this inequality, Lincoln declared: "We have to fight this battle upon principle, and principle alone." It was now that he sounded the trumpet call to patriotism: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." "I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the union to be dissolvedI do not expect the house to fall-but I do expect that it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other."