LINCOLN

Stripped to the soul of every vain conceit,
I stand before the record of his deeds.
O mighty man, so humble and so sweet,
O heart, so quick to throb for human needs.
CHARLES EUGENE BANKS.

UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

THE blood of a man is the blood of his ancestors for generations, perhaps for æons. How far back into the dim past must we grope to find the seed blood of such a man as Abraham Lincoln?

Through what numberless selections, receiving and denying, was that process carried on? How many violations of nature's law by rebellious atoms, brought destruction to the unfit, and cleared the way for the harmonizing of the fit through these myriads upon myriads of life channels, until at last the emancipator was born? These are the thoughts which grip and hold when the character and works of America's greatest soul genius is considered. There is no answer. Deity, Who knows all laws and the working of them, is alone cognizant of such things. Yet a little knowledge of the course of the stars in their orbits compels the recognition of law in all creation, all utterance. Chance is pushed aside immediately the

realm of reason is entered. Nothing is by chance. If a grain of sand had its conception, before the mists of which the earth is made had cooled, is a Lincoln to come into being by a cast of mortal dice? Was this harmonious representative of all the best in physical, mental, moral and soul endowment of less moment to the Universal Creator than a sparrow, which does not fall to the ground without His notice? Is the genius of a Wagner, who brought together such sublime harmonies, accidental? And did the man who struck the cords of universal rights, universal justice, and universal democracy, have less care from the Father of all life, than His simpler creations?

Abraham Lincoln is the name of a combination of Nature's forces in such harmonious union, that the more they were beaten upon, the more they proved their divine metal, the brighter the effulgence they emitted. Pore over all the records of his life, which is one of the simplest and most open that this earth has ever seen, and there is no point of it that shows the least flaw when measured by the Rule of Truth.