Jr-K^.k^^f^^ 
 
 LINCOLN 
 
 AMERICA'S GREAT COMMONER 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 PREACHED AT THE LINCOLN CENTENARY SERVICE 
 
 FIRST METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 
 SYRACUSE, NEW YORK 
 
 FEBRUARY SEVENTH, NINETEEN HUNDRED AND NINE 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. FREDERICK T. KEENEY, D. D. 
 
 PASTOR 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE CONGREGATION 
 
 Syracuse. N. Y.: 
 press of e. m. grover 
 
 iQog
 
 This book has been 
 digitized through 
 the generosity of 
 
 Robert O. Blissard 
 Class of 1957 
 
 
 
 University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign
 
 
 LINCOLN 
 
 AMERICA'S GREAT COMMONER 
 
 There was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he ; 
 from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people. 
 
 I Samuel, 9-2. 
 
 Full grown men are scarce. Pygmies are ever^'where. Men 
 who stand from their shoulders up higher than the rest, attract 
 attention in any crowd. For the most part great men, like 
 stars of the first magnitude, stand apart in a fellowless firma- 
 ment. And then again they group themselves together in a 
 constellation which sets all the sky aflame with splendor. The 
 year 1809 was a constellation year of new lights; not in the 
 heavens, but on the earth. For the most wondrous work of an 
 Almighty hand is not to make stars, but to make men ; men of 
 noble impulse; men who shall match his mountains and his 
 plains; men who shall live and shine when sun and moon and 
 stars have faded out. It was that year which gave England 
 and America their poet laureates, Tennyson and Holmes ; which 
 gave to all the earth the laureates of harmon\% Chopin and 
 Mendelssohn ; to science her Darwin, and to England her Great 
 Commoner, Gladstone. As though this were not enough, it 
 gave to the New World an infant voice whose song should thrill 
 more hearts than any other since that which the angels sang 
 over Bethlehem's plains: 
 
 My country 'tis of thee, 
 Sweet land of liberty, 
 Of thee I sing. 
 
 For Samuel F. Smith, the author of ".\nierica," was born in 
 this same eventful year. But tallest, noblest, best, the chiefest 
 
 3
 
 among giants, was he of the Kentucky home, who from his 
 shoulders upward towered high above the rest ; God's greatest 
 gift to the greatest Republic of the earth, Abraham Lincoln, 
 America's Great Commoner. 
 
 We would not have thought to find such treasure in such a 
 by-way spot. But Lincoln was born, not in a forlorn cabin in 
 the wilderness, but in the richly furnished heartof Nancy Hanks, 
 his mother. That mother, rich in heart, though poor in all 
 things else, looked into the face of her newborn child, and gave 
 him his name and the queenly qualities of her noble spirit as her 
 only legacy. She taught him to pray and love the Bible, and 
 then went home to Qod in the morning of her young woman- 
 hood, having done more for the race and for her country than 
 any other mother since the glad day when bells and bonfires 
 announced the birth of the Republic. It was years before the 
 world knew of that Kentucky home; of the coming of the lad or 
 the going of the mother; but God knew. Down the broadening 
 highway of the future he saw the stress and strain of a half 
 century to come ; he heard the cry of the oppressed, as three 
 thousand j^cars before he had heard the cry of Israel's sons and 
 the lash of the oppressor. As then he watched over Moses, a 
 slave child in the rushes, who should lead a race from the land 
 of bondage to the Land of Promise; so in our day he watched 
 over the Moses of our Israel, that in the fulness of time he 
 might have a leader with faith to follow the pillar of cloud by day 
 and the pillar of fire by night; until at last, with the Promised 
 Land in sight, God should take him up from the mountain top 
 of triumph to his coronation. 
 
 God, doubtless, might make full grown men in a minute; but he 
 never does. Moses did not attain full stature until he was four 
 score. A half century is none too long to send a lad to school, 
 if you have great tasks for him to do at the end of the fifty 
 3'ears. God, therefore, sent this unknown Kentucky lad to school. 
 There was no other master, so he became his teacher. There 
 was no other schoolhouse, so he took him into his schoolhouse 
 — his great out-of-doors. There was no other text book, so he 
 gave him his text book of the ages, the Bible; with Aesop's 
 4
 
 Fables, Fox's Martvrs and Bun van's Pilgrim's Progress, as 
 books of reference, for variety. lie did not hurry him; there 
 was time enough. To modern school boards the methods and 
 the books might have seemed quite out of date. But we will 
 not condemn them until we examine our scholar. That same 
 old schoolhouse of God's out-of-doors has many an alumnus 
 for whom the world needs to make no apologv. 
 
 God needed a man with four supreme gifts, heart and honor, 
 good sense and faith. It is so rare to find these four supreme 
 gifts combined in any one man that God could well afibrd to 
 keep this country lad in school for a half centur}^ if need be, 
 before giving him his final test; if, as a result, he might attain 
 first honor in each one. 
 
 Scholars are good. The United States and the present cen- 
 tury have the most improved methods of producing them. We 
 spend millions of dollars a year to avail ourselves of the latest 
 improvements to the machinery. We employ hundreds of thous- 
 ands of skilled mechanics to operate the machines. We start 
 the raw material in at five \'ears of age; the machine begins its 
 work and never stops. At twenty the raw material has been 
 worked up into scholars, ready for delivery to the markets 
 of the world; mathematicians, philosophers, scientists; what- 
 ever you may happen to want. You may have first qualit\^ or 
 second, according to what you can pay. Splendid machine; 
 splendid output; skilled operatives. But scholarship alone can- 
 not produce the qualities which God most needed for his Great 
 Commoner. For heart and honor, good sense and faith count 
 for more than what we call scholarship. 
 
 God's out-of-doors is a good place to grow hearts. Open 
 fields are far better for heart expansion than crowded streets. 
 The open is a good place, too, to grow good sense. For there 
 one has time to think, a privilege often denied in other school 
 rooms. The Bible is a great text book, too. It was about the 
 only one young Lincoln had. Man}' school boards rule it out. 
 But God thought it would do for Lincoln. You know the storv 
 of those fifty years at school. I have nothing new to tell. Did 
 the lad " make good ? " Was it worth while for (lod to take a
 
 half century to train a six feet four awkward country lad, the 
 rail splitter of the Sangamon bottom ? 
 
 Suppose we examine him on the four subjects which God was 
 most anxious for him to know. We will pass by chemistry and 
 trigonometry and biology ; for I am afraid that Lincoln might 
 not pass in these; and I am very sure that many other students 
 would have higher standing. The truth is, that our Great 
 Commoner had been so busy at his other tasks that he had 
 not had much chance to excel in subjects outside of his regular 
 course. 
 
 We will first examine Lincoln's heart. For it is here that so- 
 called great men sometimes fail. The man who is too great to 
 shed tears is not great at all. When as a young man he went 
 down the Mississippi to New Orleans and saw the slave pen and 
 auction block for the first time, it was his tenderness of heart 
 which caused him to say, " If ever I get a chance to hit that 
 thing, I will hit it hard, by the Eternal God." Bishop Simpson 
 loved Lincoln, and often felt his heart-throb. When about to 
 leave one Thursday evening the President said, " Stay with me. 
 Bishop." " But I must not stay longer," said Bishop Simpson, 
 "you need sleep." " To-morrow," said Lincoln, "is the day of 
 execution in the army ; when the boys who have fallen asleep 
 at their posts are shot. The oflScers tell me that I pardon so 
 many that it tends to destroy the discipline of the army, and 
 that I must be more firm ; but I never sleep on Thursday night. 
 Stay with me. Bishop." Did Lincoln have a heart? Ask the 
 soldiers at the front. Then, for answer, listen to the martial 
 song that swells up from the hearts beating loyally and 
 lovingly under the blue uniforms : 
 
 "We are coming, Father Abraham, 
 Three hundred thousand strong. ' ' 
 
 Men do not coin such titles except for those thc}^ love. Every 
 soldier boy who sung the song knew that there was a father's 
 heart at the White House that was answering back love for 
 love. Did Lincoln have a heart ? The Irish porter at the White 
 House knew. When a soldier's wife came to plead for the par- 
 6
 
 don of her husband for some capital offense he had committed ; 
 she was about to leave her baby in the hall when she went in 
 to see the President. But the Irish porter said, " Be sure and 
 take the baby up with ye." When, a little later, the mother 
 came down stairs, smiling and happ}', the pardon granted, 
 Patrick said, "Ah, Ma'am, it was the baby that did it." Since 
 Jesus walked this earth there has never been a man with ten- 
 derer heart than our Great Commoner. He loved the South ; 
 although the South, blinded by passion, saw it not. They 
 called him "devil; " but he called them the "Sons of the Repub- 
 lic," and plead with them to "come back home and behave 
 themselves." He wanted no war; he wished no man. North or 
 South, to shed his blood. He proposed the purchase of the 
 slaves to Alexander Stephens at Fortress Monroe. But Stephens 
 would consider nothing but the recognition of the Confederacy. 
 "In that case, Stephens," said Lincoln, "I am guiltless of every 
 drop of blood that may be shed from this time onward." The 
 next da}^ he presented the matter to the Cabinet, but only Sew- 
 ard was with him. The amount, $400,000,000.00, which we 
 could not afford, to buy the slaves, we paid over and over and 
 over again, to free them; and besides, a wealth of life blood, 
 North and South, which was worth more to the Republic than 
 all its gold. Lincoln loved the South as he loved the North, and 
 when he died one of the best friends the South ever had went 
 up to God. A daughter of Jefferson Davis is now the wife of a 
 banker in Colorado Springs. Colorado. She has recently told 
 how as a little girl, on the morning after Lincoln was shot, she 
 heard the guards outside rejoicing over the fact. She ran in to 
 tell herfather of Lincoln'sdeath, thinking that he would be glad 
 to hear the startling news. His face grew sad in a moment, as 
 he took her upon his knee, he said, " My daughter, you do not un- 
 derstand. This is the hardest blow which could have befallen the 
 South. Mr. Lincoln wasthebest friend the South ever had in all 
 the North." From childhood I have been in the habit of calling the 
 President of the Confederacy "Jeff" Davis. But when, through 
 these words to his daughter, I first saw into his heart, I regis- 
 tered a vow that hereafter I would always speak of hini as
 
 " Mr." Davis, or as "Jefferson " Davis. For a man with such a 
 spirit is worthy to be honored by his proper name. 
 
 The closing paragraph of Lincohi's second Inaugural might 
 have been written by St. John ; beginning as you recall. " With 
 malice toward none, and with charity for all." Again and 
 again he declared, "I have not suffered for the South; I have 
 suffered with the South." Hear him as he says, "I have never 
 knowingly planted a thorn in any human heart. But I have 
 always endeavored to pluck a thorn and plant a rose, wher- 
 ever a rose w^ould grow." God and the nation know how well he 
 did his work. I do not wonder that President Roosevelt calls 
 Lincoln "the Great Heart of American public life." Did Lincoln 
 pass in great-hearted ness? Out of the past I hear the voice of 
 Him who spake as never man spake, saying, "Love your ene- 
 mies; bless them that curse you ; do good to them that hate you, 
 and pray for them that despitefuUy use 3'ou." From the day 
 that Jesus spoke upon the Mount, until the day on which Lin- 
 coln went up to his coronation, there never lived a man who 
 came nearer to the standard which Christ himself set up than 
 did our Great Commoner. 
 
 Examine Lincoln next as to his honesty. Many a man, 
 great in other ways, has failed to pass in this subject. Many 
 a man, too, w^io once was honest, finds that his fingers take 
 on cunning and skill in getting into other people's pockets 
 when he gets into public life. He finds also that as he goes up 
 in the social and political scale, his standards of honesty go 
 down. Lincoln began honest. He would walk a half dozen miles 
 after a hard day's work to correct an error of twenty-five cents 
 in making change with a poor woman. He was honest with 
 himself and with his conscience as well as with other people's 
 purses. In the famous Lincoln-Douglas campaign in '58, the 
 committee told Lincoln that it would not do to say, as he pro- 
 posed, that " This country cannot longerexist half slave and half 
 free; " that to advocate such a view would be to lose the elec- 
 tion. Those who were there said that Lincoln seemed to grow 
 several inches taller in a minute, as he looked the politicians 
 squarelyinthe eyes and said, "Gentlemen, it is not necessary for
 
 me to win the coming election ; but it is necessary for me to 
 stand b}' my convictions." And, as the practical politicians 
 prophesied, Douglas won the election. Two years later, how- 
 ever, came the ever memorable convention of ISGO in Chicago; 
 in which more interest centered than in any other nominating- 
 convention since the birth of the Republic. Great states, repre- 
 sented by strong delegations, were present to present the names 
 of their favorite sons for the high office of President of the 
 United States. Most conspicuous of all was the great delega- 
 tion from the great Empire State, which went to Chicago, con- 
 fident that the honored name of New York's great son, William 
 H. Seward, would receive the support of the convention for the 
 Presidenc}'. Repeated roll calls, however, showed the increas- 
 ing strength of a comparatively^ unknown Westerner, Lincoln, 
 by name. At last, after a night of conference and council, on 
 the third roll call, in the midst of a whirlwind of excitement. 
 New York State was reached. Her great Governor, chairman 
 of the delegation, rose and waited for recognition. In the still- 
 ness of expectancy which followed he said, "New York came 
 to this convention to place in nommation a great statesman, 
 William H. Seward; she now withdraws the nameof her candi- 
 date, and changes her vote to Abraham Lincoln." Everyone 
 knew in an instant, as if by electric shock, that this meant 
 the nomination of Lincoln. Pandemonium was let loose. Some- 
 one leaped into a chair, and waving a newspaper to attract 
 attention, shouted "Threecheers for honest old Abe." The vot- 
 ing ceased for a season ; but the shouting went on and on and 
 on, until the wigwam shook as though in the grip of a cvclone. 
 The sound of voices was like that of heaven's jirtillerv. 
 Lincoln was the choice of the people because they believed him 
 to be honest; and because only an honest man could be trusted 
 at such an hour. Lean, gaunt, untutored, uncultured,— yes; he 
 was guilty of it all. But in the school where God is master, 
 which Lincoln had attended for some time, he had learned hon- 
 esty. Having passed 100 ])er cent, in that, the people forgave 
 him the rest. For the Republic in 1860 needed honestv in its 
 Chief Executive more th^m it needed culture and good looks. 
 
 9
 
 Shall we proceed with the examination? We have found 
 Lincoln high above the passing mark in great-heartedness and 
 in honestv. How about his good sense, — common sense. That 
 something which a college cannot produce; that which cannot 
 be made to order, or bought at any price. That indispensable 
 ingredient which needs to be mixed with other excellencies in 
 order to give them supreme value. This was Lincoln's strongest 
 point. If he is 100 per cent, in other subjects he is 100 per cent, 
 plus, in this. Fortunate for him that hchad been tutored in the 
 great schoolhouse of God's out-of-doors ; far away from the 
 hurry and press of cit}' life. For somehow common sense, of 
 which there is never any too much, is found more often along 
 the country highway than in the city street. You find it clad 
 more often in homespun than in broadcloth. It was Lincoln's 
 great good sense which stood him in hand on thousands of 
 occasions better than any other asset which he had, except his 
 faith. 
 
 There were a lot of people around Washington who knew 
 more than did Lincoln about running the government ; so they 
 thought; so a great many of their friends thought. He had 
 onlv had one term in Congress. His nomination and election 
 to the presidency was regarded by man}' as an accident. Men 
 who made a business of politics and government had never 
 counted Lincoln as in their class. In the interests of peace and 
 with a desire to stimulate loyalty and confidence, he had given 
 the men who were most prominent at Chicago as rival candi- 
 dates for the Presidenc}' a place in his Cabinet. A courtesy 
 which all did not appreciate. Seward, Chase, Fessenden, Trum- 
 bull, Simon Cameron, Zachariah Chandler; each considered 
 himself superior to his chief. Little by little Lincoln's great 
 good sense, and their ability to recognize it, lifted him high 
 above the Cabinet, great men that they were; until the House, 
 the Senate, the Republic and the world looked on in wonder at 
 the greatness of this man who for a half centurx' had been 
 thinking, thinking, thinking ; nntil the fruitage was such a har- 
 vest of good sense as the world had not seen before. 
 
 W^hat of Lincoln's faith? Some have said that he did not pass. 
 
 10
 
 But such do not know. Recall a single sentence of his farewell 
 words to his Springfield neighbors as he was leaving for Wash- 
 ington: " I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may 
 return, with a task before me greater than that which rested 
 on Washington. Without the assistance of that divine Being 
 who ever attended him I cannot succeed. W'ith that assistance 
 I cannot fail." A motto still hangs on the wall in the old Spring- 
 field home, jvist as it hung forty-nine years ago when the com- 
 mittee came to notify Lincoln of his nomination. It reads: 
 "Those who trust God need never be discouraged." After the 
 formal notification, Lincoln, pointing to the motto, said, "We 
 trust in God, and we will not be discouraged." On the table 
 nearby la3's Lincoln's Bible, as it lay that day. The leaves are 
 worn with constant use. Pick it up and it will open to the 
 Psalms; for it was to the Psalms that Lincoln turned most 
 frequenth'. The bits of ribbon and strips of paper which he 
 used as book-marks still remain where he left them ; and man}' 
 verses marked with pencil, indicate the portions which were to 
 him the greatest comfort and inspiration. Was our Great Com- 
 moner a man of faith? For answer, hear him in the campaign 
 of 1860, when, with the voice and vision of one of God's old- 
 time prophets, he declares "I know there is a God, and that He 
 hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming and know 
 His hand is in it. If He has a place and work for me, and I 
 think He has, I believe I am ready. I am nothing, but truth is 
 everything. I know that I am right, because I know that 
 liberty is right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God." 
 
 Lincoln believed in a God who heard jjrayer. Often when 
 Bishop Simpson called upon the President he would request him 
 to offer prayer before leaving. One day he said : " I have often 
 been driven to myknees when, under the pressure of overwhelm- 
 ing difficult}^ I felt that my own wisdom and that of others 
 around me had utterly failed, and I had nowhere else to go." 
 It was to General Rusling that the President told of the prayer 
 he offered before the battle of Gettysburg, in which he promised 
 God that if he would give victory to the Union army he would 
 free the slaves. 
 
 11 
 
 LIBRARY ■ 
 
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 Did he have faith? Aye; it was a faith which reached uj3 
 through the blackness of the battle smoke until it touched the 
 hand of the great Master who had been his teacher for fifty and 
 five vears; and touching it, he held it fast. It mattered not 
 that the earth trembled under the tread of armies. He knew 
 the pressure of that hand would fail him not; and knowing, he 
 marched unseen beside the rank and file of the boys in blue 
 through the bloody death damp of every battlefield all the wa}' 
 from Sumter to Appomattox; ever trusting the great Com- 
 mander-in-Chief to guide both him and them. 
 
 Lincoln's long school term of fift}' and six years is at last 
 finished. The examinations are over. The scholars have all 
 gone home. Not one of the generation born in 1809 is left. 
 Did Lincoln pass? Let the world make answer; let the coming 
 centuries speak. With one voice they tell me that in gentleness 
 of heart, in rugged honesty, in good sense and in sterling faith 
 he was never found wanting. I am glad to hear the Master say 
 " Well done" to my six feet four, Kentucky lad ; the awkward 
 homely youth who would have had little chance had not God 
 offered him free tuition in his school. As I gaze upon his fea- 
 tures, the ugliness which I first saw gives way to lines of beauty 
 as the soul shines through. 
 
 It is true that the scholars of a century ago have all gone ; 
 but the schoolhouse of God's out-of-doors still remains; the 
 same Master stands at the open door; the same wide open Text 
 Book welcomes the seeker after truth. The Master still offers 
 free tuition and immortal prizes to every son and daughter of 
 the Republic who, like Lincoln, will be faithful unto death. 
 
 It is fitting that we remember February 12th; let no child 
 forget the birthday of America's Great Commoner. It is fitting, 
 too, that we forget April 15th, the day of shadows. Who 
 cares to make a pilgrimage to the plain three-story brick house 
 at 516 Tenth St., N. W., Washington, where Lincoln breathed 
 his last. But the Nation will this week lay the corner-stone of 
 a shrine which will long endure upon the spot where Lincoln 
 12
 
 was born. 'Tis life not death vvliich v.iake«. us tl^T< of Lincoln. 
 Lincoln has lived one hundred years, come Friday next. The 
 four qualities of his life which we have viewed this morning are 
 the corner-stones of immortality for any soul. We crown to- 
 day the first century of Lincoln's life; to be followed by other 
 swift flving centuries as long as time shall last. The laurel 
 wreath upon his triumphant brow will never fade. Stanton 
 knew not how well he spake that night by Lincoln's bedside; 
 when, as the weary heart stopped beating, he laid the pulseless 
 hand of the Great Commoner across his quiet breast and said, 
 "He is with the ages." Lincoln is not dead. Centuries and 
 calendars have little to do with such a life. 
 
 Has any creature thought of Lincoln hid 
 
 In any vault, 'neath any coffin lid, 
 
 In all the years since that wild spring of pain ? 
 
 'Tis false, he never in the grave hath lain. 
 
 You could not bury him although you slid 
 
 Upon his clay the Cheops pyramid 
 
 Or heaped it with the Rocky Mountain chain. 
 
 They slew themselves; they but set Lincoln free. 
 
 In all the earth his great heart beats as sti'ong; 
 
 Shall beat while pulses throb to chivalry 
 
 And burn with hate of tyranny and wrong. 
 
 Whoever will may find him, anywhere 
 
 Save in the tomb. Not there — he is not there. 
 
 Our Great Commoner is with the ages and with (rod. 
 
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