| Show DEEP HUMILITY a pride ot place or power never fault of the great president they tell us that lincoln s favor te poem was that familiar hymn pimple so generally neglected by the faass of mankind oh why should the spirit of mortal be proud do you know there Is something most pathetic in thata think of the position lincoln occupied the most exalted in the world surely it is that then think of the time in which lincoln filled this place of so great distinction history was being made every second of the time history so momentous in its bearings on the tu iture of the human race as to over shadow all other events in what we usually call profane history the to be performed the perplexities to be met were stupendous the fate of armies aye the fate of nations in deed the fate of the race hung in the balance and depended on whether this man should perform the tasks meet the perplexities bohe the complex problems of the hour aright or blun der and fall in his administration of his high office he must have been keenly conscious all the time of his name the name he wrote so often the name so familiar to his eye and ear the name which had been his when a child when a boy as well as when president abraham lincoln was to appear in the pages of the worlds history as long aa men sheild read history that name was to stand out uke a beacon light on the top of a mountain before all ages this was to be so whether he succeeded or tall ed in the performance of his task come what might his was to be one of those immortal names that were not born to die think of this and was it not pa that the great patient grim figure should sit there with the great events of civil war surging around him with hosts of men marching past his windows going to do or die for their country great generals dust covered and begrimed with the mud of the war bloodstained with the lash of battle cast down by defeat or flushed with victory bent before him the statesmen of the nation the greatest sons of all the soil stood to hear his commands and every wish he expressed was a command to the greatest of them or war nor whichever it might be and there that grim gaunt figure sat and in all his weary lonely hours of all that prolonged struggle the uppermost thought in his mind out side of those of bis office was embed led in the simple lines of that old i hymn oh why should the spirit ot mortal be the great strain which rested on the tired brain of the great president the awful flood ot sadness that surged through his heart with every thought of the great war and all its possibilities and uncertain ties found relief and solace in those lines they held him heart and soul bound to a higher power than earth could furnish to a reliance on a higher wisdom than statesmen have to a stronger arm than wielded any earth ly sord the battle was not his and its results did not rest at last with him to do his best to exer else all the wisdom he had to be loyal to his duty and leave results with one whom he had learned to call the god of battles the lord hosts was all he could do and play ing such a part as that not able to foresee the issue often in doubt whether he was doing the right thing at the right time in the right way 0 athy should the spirit of mortal be why should it be to be sure and it lincoln sat all through so many lonely hours of dismal doubt and anxiety of great a eds bf events that stirred the nations of itose echoes ran around the world and must re echo to the last syllable of recorded time why should the spirit of little men be proud the hu man race has done great things dut the race did them not the individual our share in any of the great achieve ments of the world is small the part of the greatest man Is in them the part of any Is small we are not so great after all that any one of us should feel undue conceit in anything accomplished by the race still less of our part in it men in his higher stages of development the highly organized human being civil iced man lived at least 6 years on the earth before he discovered the tact that a load will move more aas lly it the vehicle which carries it is placed on a steel rail and set above the mud than it sunken in the soil the baltic as fihe plows her great bulk through the seas is certainly a wonderful thing but it required a great many generations to get to it the use of the electric current is amazing but it is tut result re sult of thou sands of years of human thought and effort tennyson is right we men are but a little bacr |
