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."

This centennial celebration will have failed of its high pur

Our words of praise
We ourselves shall

pose if it ends in eulogy of the dead. will vanish into thin air and be forgotten. turn again to the common ways of men. The tumult and the 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 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. It 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

in low, in this nation and in all nations, there is still the bondage to ignorance and selfishness and sin. Out of the silence there comes back to us this day the voice of him who being dead yet speaketh: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." If indeed we would do honor to the memory of Lincoln, let us hear his great appeal, learn his great language of truth, catch his clear accents of love; and here and now let us, the living, consecrate ourselves to the unfinished work of the dead,

"It is for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they 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 of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

TH

(A Speech of Introduction)

HON. CHARLES H. WACKER

HE call to preside at this meeting I consider a great honor; and I was particularly gratified to be assigned to this part of the city in which I was born and reared. I remember well when this district was barren of houses, and I remember well the gallant soldiers returning from the battlefields of the Civil War, footsore, weary, and careworn, with uniforms tattered and torn, marching north in Clark Street to Camp Fry, between Fullerton and Diversey Avenues, west of Clark Street-a locality to-day solidly built up. Well do I remember, also, the old Court House in which the remains of Abraham Lincoln lay in state, in order to give the people, dumb with sorrow, an opportunity of paying his mortal remains a last tribute of love, gratitude, and respect.

No one, able to recall vividly to his mind the stirring events of those days, can feel otherwise than I do; happy and proud to be permitted to assist in rendering tribute to the man who so firmly held the rudder of the Ship of State in those troublous times.

I was deeply impressed by a cartoon which recently appeared in a morning paper, entitled: "The Lincoln Forty Years from Now," showing a boy deeply absorbed in reading the story of Lincoln; with an inscription: "There is somewhere in this country to-day an unknown boy who will be the country's greatest man forty years from now." May not that boy be in this audience; may he not be inspired by the knowledge that ours is a patriotic people, and that we, as a people, honor and revere those who serve us well?

Therefore I believe it to be the duty of every good American man and woman to do honor to those who have set lofty examples of high patriotism, sterling citizenship, and conscientious discharge of every public and private duty-examples which will serve as guiding stars for the aspirations of generations to come.