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Show ABRAHAM IvINCQlLN j i By JOHN E. FELLERS j 'i i-i ii firV w..i'.u.L5 It was in 1S09. "The pendulum that ticks off the years has swung back to its starting point" more than a hundred times since then. Charles Darwin, known to natural science as the foremost evolutionist of his time; Mendelssohn, the musician, who has given us those delicate and beautiful fancies, "Songs Without Words;" Tennyson, once the English Eng-lish poet laureate; Oliver Wendell Holmes. "The Autocrat of the BreakfJtst Table;" Edgar Ed-gar Allan Poe, whose life story has filled more eyes with tears, perhaps, than any other In the annals of literature; William E. Gladstone, Glad-stone, who has written his name in England's history as her very greatest statesman, and our beloved Abraham Lincoln, were each born that year. T"hfl Tl !n Pt PPn th OTifnT-T7 man n In n-liinti sducation, commerce, statesmanship and Christianity found freer breath than iey had ever known before. In the entire world, no other man of that :entury so completely represented the spirit of those vast movements as did Abraham Lincoln. Notwithstanding the rude surroundings of the Kentucky hut in which he was born, he represented New England righteousness; New Jersey justice; . . , Pennsylvania sympathy, and Virginia chivalry, for all JWefJ MUCn tO these qualities mingled in the blood of his ancestors, who A i S Ancestors had emgrated from those states. In Abraham Lincoln great currents of character met and produced that rare type of American manhood, rugged honesty, quaint humor and firm purpose, which have written his name in the history of the world, not only as the eman-lipator eman-lipator of men, but of races and nations. Of his early education, or lack of education, much has been written and said, but the best information we have indicates that the principal books to which he had access in early life were the Bible, "The Pilgrim's Progress," "The Life of Washington" and "Shakespeare." Abraham Lincoln, however, even when a boy, learned deeper things than books teach, from the great school of nature, which is always in session and whose students never graduate. gradu-ate. In this school he learned those wonderful lessons which brought him closer to the heart of humanity than any man of his time, and so It came about that one day when a vast crowd had gathered and a whole nation was listening,, he thrilled the world with that simple statement: "This nation cannot can-not continue to exist half slave and half free." Those words were not very eloquent, but they found a response in the popular thought because of the stubborn fact they stated, and because a great man had spoken them. This was one secret of Mr. Lincoln's power and influence, an influence and power still widening as they answer the call of tomorrow for yesterday's record of great things and great deeds. Mr. Lincoln's tomorrow of prospect was always . . . . good because his yesterday of retrospect was well pleas-Heal pleas-Heal beCret 0T ing to himself and to those who knew him beet The LiRCOln'S POWerS eenius of this great man is diffused, but it can never be lost. There Is no American home that is not a part of Abraham Lincoln. By the side of every man who today contends for justice and equality among men, stands Abraham Lincoln, his sad face rebuking the least sign of compromise with injustice and wrong. A recent writer has given the following epitome of Abraham Lincoln's biography: Errand boy; farm-hand; flat-boatman; rail-splitter; clerk; storekeeper; store-keeper; soldier; surveyor; postmaster; congressman; country lawyer; politician; poli-tician; statesman; president; hero; martyr. Struggling up through difficulty and through the years of preparation, Mr. Lincoln began the practice of law in 1837. Viewed from today, it would seem that there was something in the general atmosphere of those times to which his nature responded. The world's thinkers were on good terms. Nations Na-tions were at peace. England was the central sun in the political skies. Queen Victoria, gentle, kind and tactful, was just coming to the throne; Napoleon Na-poleon was sleeping in the Island of St. Helena, and the duke of Wellington was still alive. Emerson was lecturing and writing in America; Carlisle in England was publishing, unhindered, the "French Revolution;" Victor Hugo was establishing in France the romantic school of the nineteenth century; . Heinrich Heine was singing his German songs; Frederika Time Was RipS Bremer was weaving into pretty romance the peasant for HIS Coming life of Sw&len and Norway; and the Irish melodies of Thomas Moore were finding their way to the universal heart. Is it any wonder that the genius of Abraham Lincoln should begin to bloom at that time? It is any wonder that even in the swish and swir- of the river on its way to the sea, he heard a song of liberty and freedom that filled his soul with enthusiasm and love? The story of his wonderful development in forensic power, and in popular and political advancement, is one of the most remarkable in history. He appears to have felt disinclined to accept the estimate which others placed on his character. Men whom God selects for great achievement soon learn that what they WANT TO DO has but little relation to what they MUST DO. He could never quite understand why he was called from time to time to greater things. There was such an absolute absence of self-confidence in his character, charac-ter, and he was so conscious of his lack of education, his homely appearance and awkward manner, that the demands laid upon him, calling him to greater achievements, seemed humorous at times to him, and in this fact perhaps lay his aptness in the matter of story telling, for which he is so well known. Abraham Lincoln, more than all others of our public men, repudiated the dictation of heredity, and lifted his ancestry from obscurity to a creditable , . - . Place in our country's history. Was he educated? His Scholar o P 0 K S life and work answer "Yes," and leave those who hold at G e 1 1 y S burQ diplomas to prove that he was not. His Gettysburg, address ad-dress bears the mint-marks of the scholar. It was the profoundest utterance of the world's spoken thought, save one the Sermon on the Mount. He stood there among the graves of the heroic dead and this is what he said: ' "Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent conti-nent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. en-dure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate dedi-cate a portion of it as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should io this. "But In a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or to detract. The. world will little note nor long remember what we may say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is fo us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion devo-tion so that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government govern-ment of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth." The winds of that chill November day bore that message to the ears of those who stood farthest, and when the last word died away the immense throng approved what he had said by a holy hush whic'a Message tO All made him feel that he had failed. That silence was a Nations Of Earth GREAT AMEN that consecrated and dedicated a sentiment senti-ment to generations yet unborn. And what shall we say of his Second Inaugural? Where among all state papers can one be found that favorably compares with that address for seerlike seer-like and sustained majesty? Chastened by war, taught by its great crises and tragedies, he was conscious that he was speaking, not only to men, but to Nations. "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right asGod gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work that we are in, to bind up the Nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish t just and a lasting peace among ourselves, and with all Nations." However far we wander; to whatever issues our lives are touched; however how-ever wide our horizon may have broadened, when friends betray and promises prom-ises fail, like tired children we long to lay our heads again in the lap of home. On the morning of the last day Mr. Lincoln lived, while out driving with his wife, among other things he said: "Mary, we have had a hard struggle since we came to Washington, but the war is over, and we may now hope for four years of peace and happiness. Then we will go back to our Springfield home and pass the rest of our lives in quiet. We have saved a little money, and during this term we will try and save up more, but we shall not have enough to support us. I will open a law office at Springfield and practice law. I am sure we shall do well." Such were the day-dreams of our lamented president on the last day of his earth-life, and with that vision of the home-coming back to his beloved stata still flooding his memory, ho slipped quietly, and without warning, into tha I lhadow, and was laid to rest In the sepulchre of a Nation's grief. |