heart, and most magnanimous soul that ever occupied man. If at times he was sad, it might well have been in the solitude of his greatness. He was above the men of his time as the mountain is above the plain. When the great war he led to a successful conclusion shall have shriveled to a speck in the memory of the world, this man will stand in luminous transfiguration for the cause he so ably represented. His contemporaries may drop through the sieve of the ages, but the more you shake the life of Abraham Lincoln in that great screen the less danger there is that it will ever pass through. He will continue foremost among the great Americans while the Union he so anxiously saved endures.

Washington and Lincoln have been compared and contrasted, but forever will they stand side by side as the founder and preserver of the first government on earth "of the people, by the people, for the people."

History has its great characters, which, like torches, illuminate the past; but the character torch, that burns for the future as well as the past, is the one that burns best, and the one that burns the best burns longest.

Washington and Lincoln stand conspicuously upon the hill top of the best government on earth,

inviting thitherward the struggling masses of human government in all parts of the world.

If possible, Lincoln's work was greater, more important than Washington's; had he failed, may I not almost say republican liberty would have also failed.

Here can be seen the importance of the service rendered in the Civil War. The noble men who gave that service saved the Union, not only for themselves, their children, the present and coming generations of America, but for the world. They saved the Union as an abiding example of living inspiration to the cowering masses of monarchy and despotism. Their courage and valor demonstrated the cohering, selfpreserving power of free government. Had the Union cause failed, confidence in the stability of liberalized government would have been seriously shaken for many a generation. It was, then, of the utmost importance, nationally and universally, that the Union be saved from the maelstrom of secession. No one comprehended all the consequences of failure in the great struggle more clearly than the man of our thought. He rose superbly to the comprehension and performance of all the tasks of that great time. Beset with conflicting and counter currents, he steered straight for the harbor of victory, always keeping the main chance plainly in sight. Like a bird of passage, through wind and storm, cloud and night, on and on

he held his proud course, over lake, river, plain and swamp, as guided by an unseen hand; and at last with an unerring instinct he entered the summer of peace. Long live the name and memory of that plain man, the genius of honesty, who came from the West at his country's call, a living purpose to do the right, as God gave him to see it; and having nobly performed that duty was returned, in the glory of death, to the home from which he came the Republic's greatest President, Patriot, Statesman, and the World's greatest Conqueror.

Not a scholar in the University sense, yet where do we find anything in the literature of the great scholars more exhaustive, more touching, more pathetic, more eloquent, more sublime, or stronger, finer, clearer, purer, sweeter or loftier in logic, sentiment, expression, argument, appeal and thought, than in the literature he gave the world? His words should be in every schoolhouse, ever farm house, and every family of the land, teaching right, liberty, truth, honesty, and an humble reverence for God. We cannot overstudy the life, teachings, and character of Abraham Lincoln. His favorite books were the Bible and Shakespeare. The last Sunday of his life, on the steamer returning from Richmond, he read aloud

to the company with him the following prophetic lines from Macbeth, and then read them again :

"Duncan is in his grave,

After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;

Treason has done his worst; nor steel nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,

Can touch him further. This Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued against
The deep damnation of his taking-off."

CONCLUDING PARAGRAPH

In the foregoing you have the salient features of Abraham Lincoln's life from birth to Presidency. You have his presidential life as Emancipator and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy; and you have a tribute to his memory. In the following you will have a supplemental conclusion of suggestive thoughts. Thus, in twenty thousand words you have the life of Abraham Lincoln, as it came, as it developed, as it unfolded, as it executed, and as it passed on into emblazoned honor and glory. You have his life as succinctly, as clearly, as comprehensively, and completely in this little book of twenty thousand words as you find it in million-word biographies. You will not get as much lateral and collateral but you get the realities of a life made great by its simplicities.