^Washington's ^irthday

SOaWEDIR

1'

'Um.ffl,? it thy destiny -that ¦made thee greut?
21««2 -In swch heigMs can nezmr -man attain?
) ^ighs Jkopeless now -the aspirant for -thy s'late?
"^as he no choice bnt sigh for it in vain?
*j|s -Uiere such glory far beyond our reach?
1P1©}! so. To hijn who struggles for the prise
Qra-nd, is 'the lesson that thy life doth teach;
"^rwth was the Power that raised thee to the sMes,
^>» tr-m-th and honor ivas thy greatriess fmnnded.
"fl^ot else throiigyi -tin/ e // (n'l -I'hii.s -f?iy jjrmlse resounded.
.U. r/l,;;-/c:u-,t Currier, '92 O. C.

 THE

OHATIOn AHD ODES
OBERLIN COLLEGE.
 ^E^-l 8 9 1 .^^^ 

v^

C

o36 1

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

AN ORATION
DELIVERED ON WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY.^iSgx

WILLIAM G, FROST

Great Captains, with their guns and drums.
Disturb our judgment for an hour.
But at last silence comes;
These all are gone, and, standing like a tower,
Our children shall behold his fame,
The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame.
New birth of our new soil, the first American.
— Lowell.

THB OBKRI-m KBWS PSSSS

Copyrighted 1891, by Wm. G. Frost

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Mr. Presitierit, JL,adies and Gentlemen :
The best teaching is by example. Ideas are most
potent when embodied in living men, and thus invested
with personality. The s.urest way to foster any noble
sentiment is to select some event which illustrates it, or
some hero who personifies it, and to set apart for that
€vent or that hero a commemorative day. Let the arti
san lay aside his tools, the matron her household cares,
the student his Dooks, and the very children their play.
Let the pressure of routine be lifted ; let our souls ex
pand, and our best feelings assert themselves, while the
great lesson is impressed upon our hearts.
American patriotism is reenforced by four such
commemorative days. The sun of July is greeted by
€arth-shaking cannon and sky-piercing rockets, which
assert with boisterous acclaim the independence of a new
nation. The breath of May sweeps over a more quiet gath
ering. It brings flowers — as though kind nature were
a sharer of our grief — flowers for the humble grave of
the private soldier; and it reminds us ofthe million arms
that can strike as one for the defence of a righteous
cause. The dull sky of November is a fitting background
tor the festival of household cheer. Thanksgiving
teaches us to love our homes, to revere a pious ancestry,
.and to worship God,
And there is one other national day. The snows
¦of February remind us of the spotless fame of him who
was our first great national representative and leader.

This is a most important anniversary. Aristotle
reminds us that praise is an inverted precept. To say,
"Do thus and so," is a precept; to say, "He is noble*
because he hath done thus and so," is praise. It is a
worthy task therefore to praise, to eulogise such a man
as Washington. What does our country need more
than those precepts regarding public service and leader
ship which come to us from a life like his?
Doubtless we shall make the best use of this oc
casion if we interpret it broadlj'^ and liberally. We need
not confine our thoughts to a single name — although that
were amply sufficient — but may make of this a kind of
"Leader's Day." We cannot set apart a day for each
of our great m.en, — there are too many, thank God,
even in our first century- but we may group them all
with Washington who was the first.
One year ago we listened to a description of the Fa
ther of his Country which I am sure we can never for
get. It would be presumptuous for me to touch that '
theme to-day. I ask your leave, therefore, to present
a kindred subject -the Preserver of his Country,
Abraham Lincoln.
Our great representative leaders are perhaps our
chief national possession. They are not ancient land
marks, but beacon-lights for the future. They have set
a standard of public and private excellence. Aeschines,
the second orator of Greece, has left us the profound
maxim that
'¦'¦ The people becoine like to the Staicsman whom
they crown."
Happy is that people which has, in the saints, or
martyrs, or heroes whom it reveres, noble ideals.
Every nation, too, is judged largely by its great
men. We judge Rome by Julius Ca?sar, and Sweeden

by Gustavus Adolphus. If men ask what the British
Islands can produce they are pointed to Cromwell or
to Gladstone. If we inquire for the flowering of their
race the Frenchman will perhaps name Lafayette, and
the German will say, "Look at Luther."
We could scarcely be a nation without possessing
some such champions as these —without being able to
contribute one or two names at least to the world's list
of great men. How invaluable was the character of
Washington in securing our first recognition among for
eign peoples ! The toast of Benjamin Franklin had a
significance which give it a claim to be often repeated.
The embassador of England had eulogised his country
as the sun in the heavens, traversing the entire globe,
and blessing every land. Then the representative of
France arose and likened his country to the moon, tread
ing a pathway as majestic as that of the sun, and shin
ing with a more refined lustre. Franklin stood up in
his turn, and the resources of comparison seemed to be
exhausted. Will he compare the United States to some
star, or to some comet? "Gentlemen," said the Ameri
can, "I propose to you the name of George Washington,
the Joshua at whose bidding the sun and the moon stood
still." What men has America produced since the time bf
Washinfjton who have caused the sun and the moon to
stand still ? I believe that there has been at least one.
It is nigh four hundred years since the keel of Co
lumbus grated upon the. beach of San Salvador. It
would be hard to show that any event in secular history
has been more important than that. New worlds are
not found every day. The, devising of a path of com
merce from this planet to the moon could not affect the
life of man so much as did the discoverv of this new

world. It was a discovery without a precedent and
without a parallel, and we are preparing to celebrate it.'
We have been preparing through all these four hundred,
years. We have a city which sits by the inland sea,
like Venice among her marshes. Chicago, with its
million inhabitants where so recently the buffalo fed
unscared, will make itself into an epitome of America,
and send out its card of invitatioti to all the eartii.
And the whole world will come to visit us. The
Spaniard will come to see the continent which he dis
covered. The Frenchman v\4ill come to look upon ihe
vast empires which he once coveted, and then helped to
free. The Britain will come to mark the progress of
his own race in a newer clime. The German will come
claiming also a near relationship. The Russian will
come to find out what liberty is like. There will be the
Icelander with his fur, the Italian with his music, and
the Chinaman with his cue. The motley procession
will be filled out by wierd costumes from Egypt and
Labrador, and all the other highways and hedges of the
world. Those who db not come in person will come in
thought, and the attention of the world will be focussed
upon America.
We shall- have much to show them. They will sail
up the storied Hudson, stand beside the sublimity of
Niagara, visit the far Yosemite, and the Yellowstone,
and compare Lake Superior and the Mississippi with the
Mediterranean aud the Nile. They will compute our
forests and our prairies, gauge our wells of oil and of
gas, estimate our mines, and appraise all our natural re
sources. They may have the experience of Sheba's
queen when they pass through our Patent Office, inspect
our manufactories, traverse our railway systems, and
visit our cities — cities which do not stand knee-deep in

the dust of ages, but which are struggling up through
the intoxication of prosperity toward self-possession.
But while our visitors stand thus astonished at our
material glories, and acknowledge that the half was not
told them, they will still make some further inquiries.
"What are the ideas," they will ask, "which all this
wealth represents? What types of manhood does
America produce? Who are your national heroes?"
And we shall say to them : "If you would come near to
the heart of America, and feel the breath of that spirit
which has made her truly great, pass by New York with
the thunder of its commerce, pass by Washington with
the glitter of its display, and spend a thoughtful hour at
Mt. Vernon. And when you have done that, pass by
Chicago with its roar of traffic, and pause beside the
tomb at Springfield."
The career of Lincoln may reveal, more than that
of any other single individual, the genius of American
institutions and of the American people. He was all
American. The heroes of the old world are linked to
gether in one vast dynasty of greatness. The Ptolemies,
the Csesars, the Plantagenets, still bear sway among
their descendants and "rule us from their urns." But
Columbia begins a new order. The shadow of the
pyramids falls upon every European, but it does not
cross the sea. Like the Greek colonists, to be sure, we
brought the coals which were to .kindle the altar fires of
our civilization from the hearth of our mother city.
But we have received fresh fire, also. The Promethean
torch of our genius has been kindled from God's light
ning above us, and from hard blows upon the flinty rock
beneath us. We indeed revere the gracious influences
which come to us from the cradle lands, but we have at
tained our intellectual majority, and we prove it by

8
pointing to men of finest grain and most heroic mould
developed among surroundings which savor least of the
old world. So, too, the life of Lincoln is an epitome of Ameri
ca's history and aspirations. The political, constitu
tional, and moral struggles of all our annals converge
upon the few eventful years of his public life. And so
it happens that this man came to posses three kinds of
greatness : He was great for the acts which he per
formed ; the liberator of a race deserves to rank above
the founders of dynasties, or the discoverers of conti
nents. But many whose lot it has been to perform
great deeds have been themselves unworthy, while
Lincoln was in his own personality greater than any of
his achievements. The one proclamation by which he
will be remembered forever did not exhaust his powers.
It was in hira to write a hundred such proclamations.
There is a third kind of greatness which belongs es
pecially to those who serve republics, and which we
may call representative greatness. There was a time
when Napoleon had so engrossed the loyalty of his
countrymen that he could say, "/ am France." It was
a far greater triumph, because a moral one, when
Pericles enslaved the Athenians to his patriotism and
his intellect, so that when he spoke it seemed the voice
ofthe state. Such was the greatness of Lincoln. Hecame
to be the representative and embodiment of the best
sentiments, the triumphant sentiments of his nation, so
that loyal millions spoke through his lips'.
Lincoln was, first of all, God's man, raised up to
meet a great emergency. We in America believe that
"There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew
them as we will."

He might have worn some other name, but without
such a leader, it may almost be said, America could not
have fulfilled her destiny.
This continent lay fallow for a hundred years after its
discovery. The Spaniards laid hold.of it, but God said,
" I am tired of your cruelty and rapacity," and it began
to slip from their grasp. The Frenchmen seemed to do
better, but God said, "The Catholic religionis too gross
and formal for this new world," and the Frenchmen fell
back. England had her day, but in district schools,
free churches, and town meetings the colonists were
made ready for the day of independence. No more
foreign dominion ! The last sail of the retiring British
fleet melts into the horizon. America is free !
Free ! But now confronted by the problems of self-
government. And first she must make in a day what it
took the English people five hundred years to make —
a constitution. Before the constitution carne the famous "Ordinace of
1787," which marked out several great lines of policy.
This ordinance appropriated public lands for the support
of common schools. It provided that the territories
should ultimately be admitted as equal states, thus set
tling in advance for America all questions of " Home
Rule." And thirdly, it decreed that throughout the
North-west territory,
' ' There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as a
punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."
This third provision introduces us to what the impar
tial foreign historian Von Hoist has called " the pivotal
question in American history" — the question of slavery.
This was the sphinx which in Abraham Lincoln found its
Oedipus !

IO

We have now to trace the decline and revival of the
spirit of liberty in America. Our national triumph —
»like most human triumphs perhaps — consists in having
cured a great fault. The ordiance of '87 was the voice
of the revolution, expressing the aspirations of ultimate
America, but it was nearly four-score years before this
ideal was realized, and the language of the ordinance
written into the constitution as the XIII Amendment.
We must not be swift to blame the slave-holders
for not overturning their social system in a day by an
act of I'mtnediate emancipation. It is due, however, to
the truth of history to show how, byunprincipalled lead
ers, a portion of our countrymen were induced to resist
all plans for gradual emancipation, and finally to de
mand as the dearest of their rights the privilege of ex
tending slavery over the entire Union.
When our constitution was formed slavery was uni
versal, but gradual emancipation was favored by all
the colonies except Georgia and the Carolinas. Charles
Pinckney and General Davie were the men who discov
ered the value of threats against the union. By such
threats they secured certain concessions to slavery in the
Constitution itself— concessions, however, which would
never have been made had it not been for the general
belief that slavery would die out under existing
conditions. It was not until 1820 that the mistake was discover
ed, and that discovery, in the words ofthe aged Jeffer
son, startled the country "like a fire-bell in the night."
It was proposed in Congress to extend the ordinance of
'87, prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude, to the
new state of Missouri, and this proposition was opposed
by the Southern members. The country awoke to the

II

fact that the South was ready to contend for the exten
sion of slavery.
Evidently there had been a great change since the
revolution. The Northern states had nearly completed
the i^ork of gradual emancipation, but in the South the
putting together of a few rods and wheels and pinions to
form ,the cotjton-gin had made slavery the source of vast
wealth. This wealth was shared by the slave-breeders
of the border states, the slave drivers of the cotton
states, and the manufacturers of the North. And here
appeared a marvel — as slavery grew more profit
able it appeared to grow less sinful 1 So vast
was this change that the religious bodies which in 1800
denounced slavery as "the sum of all villanies" by 1840
were defending it as a scriptural institution ! With this
change came the spirit of intolerance- It became im
possible for any Virginian to follow Washington's ex
ample and emancipate his o<vn slaves. All freedom of
speech upon this subject was suppressed at the South,
and the mere discussion of the question at the North was
denounced as a crime.
The Missouri matter was settled by a solemn com
promise which became a landmark in our history. The
immediate demand of the South was granted, and
Missouri admitted as a slave state, but "slavery aud in
voluntary servitude" were prohibited in all other territory
north of 36 degrees and 30 minutes.
We cannot trace in detail the aggressions of the
slave power. Calhoun was the great advocate of "slav
ery as a positive good," but he could not silence the ab
olitionists, nor could he make the Southern states grow
in wealth and population as rapidly as those of the North.
"The peculiar institution," as they called it, forbade all
manufacture, and repelled all emigration. The slave-

12
holders were fighting against all the laws— moral, social
and economic — of God's universe, and they made a gal
lant fight. *
But at each national census God held up the scales
between the pine and the palmetto, between free labor
and the labor of chattels, and it was the Southern arm
which smote the beam. It was this fact, silently and
sullenly noted by the Southern leaders, which made
them eager to annex new territory, and then to force
slavery by law into all the states, and, when that failed,
to hasten their appeal to the sword. There was logic
back ofthe movement for secession.
They purchase Florida and Louisiana, but that is
not enough. They acquire a vast territory from Mex
ico, and vote down the proposition to exclude slavery
therefrom, but that is not enough. Proposing to in
trench themselves in constitutional interpretation they
invent the doctrine of popular sovereignty. "Congress,"
they say, "has no power to prohibit slavery in the terri
tories. That power belongs to the people of each terri-
tor}^ The Missouri Compromise is null and void.
And more than that, we must have a new, iron
clad fugitive slave law. Unless this is granted we will
destroy the Union."
By this time the moral sense of our people had been
quickened. In fact there had never been an hour when
the majorit}^ did not really regard slavery as an evil and
a sin. But it takes a long time for the people to organ
ize a political machine to carry out their will. Both of
the existing political parties contained slave-holders. If
either party, therefore, should offend the slave power it
would lose its southern supporters and meet with disas
ter. The politicians had an interested motive in desir
ing to grant the demands ofthe South. Ostensibly to

13
«ave the Union, really to save their party. Northern
men yield to the pressure. "Let us settle this exciting
question by a compromise." Both parties accede to the
Southern demand, invoke a thousand maledictions upon
any man who shall ever bring up the slavery question
again, and call this a "finality."
Let it be remembered forever that there is no finality
which is not founded upon right. They called the Mis
souri Compromise a finality in 1820. They called the
death of the Wilmot Proviso a finality. They shouted
"Finality" in 1850. In 1852 their chorus was "Finahty."
And in 1854 ^^^ fairly shieked "Finality." The con
temporary newspaper-man caught the ludicrous aspect
of the case and produced a little ode :
FINALITY.
To kill twice dead a rattlesnake,
And off his scaly skin to take,
And through his head to drive a stake,
And every bone within him break,
And of his flesh mincemeat to make.
To burn, to sear, to boil, to bake,
Then in a heap the whole to rake,
And over it the benson shake,
And sink it fathoms in the lake —
Whence after all, quite wideawake.
Comes back that very same old snake!
The finality measures were the very ones which
compelled agitation. The new law for reclaiming fugi
tives brought the horrors of slavery before the people
with a pathos which no abolition speaker could equal.
To give a crust of bread, or to point out the North Star,
was now punishable by law.
"The evil days are come, the poor
Are made a prey.
Bar up the hospitable door.
Put out the fire-lights, point no raore
The wanderer's way.
For pity now is crime . "

The moral strength of the North rose against the
Fugitive Slave law in awful majesty. Even the superl)
fame of Webster could not avail, and the Whig parly
was disintergrated almost in a day. The popular ver
dict was, " Died from the attempt to swallow the fugitive
slave law." A new party arose in its place. Public
interest flamed out in songs, and banners, and torch-light
processions, and a million votes were rolled up for
"Free Soil, Free Men, Fremont and Victory."
But the slave power marched on. It set its foot up
on "bleeding Kansas," and proclaimed through the Su
preme Court that slaves were property, and as such
might be carried without forfeiture to any part of the
Union. The Southerner's threat that he would yet call
the roll of his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill Monu
ment seemed likely to be fulfilled.
The cry went up to God for a leader. Give us a
calm, determined man; one who will not join in the de
nunciations of the ultra abolitionists, nor quail before
the bluster of the slave-driver; a man of the people; a
man who understands the situation, and can expound it
to the masses ; a man who can save the country from
the South, and the South from herself.
The man appeared. It was reported that Senator
Douglass, "the little giant" of Illinois, has met his match
in debating with an untitled lawyer in his own State.
The country was anxious to see this new man - this
stump speaker from the West, and the brains of New
York city filed into the Cooper Institute to listen to an
address from Abraham Lincoln.
He began with a deliberate historical argument,
proving to a demonstration that the framers of our Con
stitution never dreamed that slavery in the Territories
was beyond the reach of Congress, and consequently

15
ihat the recent theory of popular sovereignty and the
right to carry slave property to any part of the Union
was a sheer invention and innovation.
The threats of destroying the Union, which, as we
have seen, had thus far prevailed with Northern men
were next swept aside. He answered them in the spirit
which was becoming in a freeman.
"You will not abide the election of a Republican President. In that
supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and thSn you say, the
great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us. That is cool. A high-
lyayman holds his pistol to my ear and mutters through his teeth, 'Stand and
¦deliver, or 1 will kill you, and then you will be a murderer.' * * The
threat of death to me to extort my money, and the threat of destruction lo the
Union to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle."
And in conclusion he defined the proper course of
action. "Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion or ill-
temper. * * Let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to them if,
in our deliberate view of duty, we possibly can * * Thinking slavery right,
as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition" as being
right, but thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them?
Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it
is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence
in the nation, but can we, while our votes will prevent it,' allow it to spread
into the national territories, and to overrun us here in the free states? If
our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and
¦effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistipal contrivances
wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored, contrivances such asas
groping for some middle ground oetween the right and the wrong, vain as the
-search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man; such a
policy of 'don't care' on a question about which all true men do care; such as
union appeals beseeching true union men to yield to disunionists; reversing
the Divine rule, and calling not the sinners but the righteous to repentance;
such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washing
ton said, and undo what W^ashington did. * * Let us have faith that
right makes might, and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as
we understand it."
There was a program which met the situation.
There was a man who could grasp great principles, and

i6
explain them to the humblest voter in the nation. There
was a leader whom the workingmen of the North and
the great Northwest could look up to as their champion.
A few months after the speech in Cooper Institute,
the Republicans met in National Convention at Chicago,
and without much preparation, by the inevitabilities of
the case under Divine Providence, nominated tnis new
leader for the highest office in the nation. The same
Providence seemed to prepare the wa}'^ before him, for
his opponents were divided. The Democratic strength
was given partly to Douglas and partly to Breckenridge,
and thus it came about that, although he failed to receive
a majority ofthe votes cast by half a million, Abraham
Lincoln became the sixteenth President of the United
States. And now you will ask me, where did he come
from ? What rare ancestry gave to him the impress of
genius? What kindly stars shone upon his birth?
What favored college is enriched by his fame?
My friends, Lincoln was not that kind of a man.
He belongs to that higher order of nobility, whose
patent is conferred by the Almighty. Humanity always
takes a special pride in those great men who come di
rectly from the bosom of the people, and thus demon
strate the possibilities of our comraon clay. We cannot
claim that it is an Anglo-Saxon idea exactly — more
truly it is a Christian idea, nobly exemplified among the
peoples of our race — that man individual as well as man
collective is capable of improvement, and that under a
favoring government and proper social conditions the
humblest may cherish high desires and aspirations.
How many an Enghsh child has been thrilled by the
story ofthe penniless boy Whittington, lingering on the
outskirts of London city, and recalled by its prophetic

17
bells, in whose peals he seemed to hear the words, " Turn
again, turn again, Whittington ; thou shalt be thrice
Lord Mayor of London." It is the glory of our civili
zation that it makes the fulfillment of such words possi
ble. We all exult in the Laureate's description of
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 merits known,
And lives to clutch the golden keys.
To mould a mighty State's decrees.
And shape the whisper of the throne.
'^nd moving up from high to higher.
Becomes on fortune's crowning slope
The pillar of a people's hope,
The center of a world's desire.
That was the career of Lincoln. No noble spirit
was ever "repressed" by amore " chill penury " than
that of Lincoln's childhood. Pioneer life is a feature of
American experience which has already passed away.
Those sparsely settled communities in Kentucky, over
shadowed by the dim forests, and beset by savage beasts
and savage men, were cut off by almost impassible
mountains from even the rude and feeble civilizaticn bf
the Atlantic States. The people knew that there were
such things as learning and culture, and their lives were
adorned by many homely virtues, but their strength;
was absorbed by the bitter struggle with Nature and
with the barbarians. In a word, Lincoln was born into a
state of society much like that of England in the time of
Alfred the Great.

i8
His grandfather was a comrade of that mighty
hunter, that intrepid scout of civilization, Daniel Boone ;
and was shot by the Indians in sight of his own door.
From the body of the dead pioneer a little boy seven
years of age ran crying to the house. This was Lin
coln's father, Thomas Lincoln.
Thomas became a carpenter. He was a good man,
a man of some self-respect, but small ambition. In the
course of time he married Nancy Hanks. How much
the republic owes to that simple frontier maiden ! We
have no likeness of her face ; we can never rear up a
bust or a statue. She died all unconscious of the sig
nificance of her humble duties, but she is " blessed among
women." Nancy' could read and write, and she taught
her husband how to form the letters of his own name.
Years after, eager genealogists traced back the
great man's lineage to Virginia farmers and Pennsylva
nia IQuakers, and found one ancestor whose name was
written Mordecai Lincoln, gentleman. But Lincoln's
fame does not depend upon any such remote propping !
We may trace his humble parents from one frontier
settlement to another: Elizabethtown, Kentucky;
Hodginsyille, where Abraham was born in 1809 ; Knob
Creek ; and Little Pigeon Creek, Indiana. Here the
family lived in an open shed while their cabin was in
process of construction, and here, when Abraham was
nine years of age, his mother died. Her husband made
a rude coffin, and some months later little Abraham con
trived to have a wandering preacher deliver a sermou
overher grave.
The next winter was the most dreary of his life i
but before the second autumn his father brought a new
wife from Kentucky— the widow Johnston, and her
three children. This step-mother took the litde boy into

19
her heart at once, and gave him both sympathy and
encouragement. It is probable that she brought into the
family its first library, consisting — ip addiuon to his own
mother's bible — of a dictionary. Pilgrim's Progress,
Esop's Fables, Robinson Crusoe, a history ofthe United
States, and a life of Washington. These books the boy
mastered from beginning to end, and then resorted to
the town constable to borrow copies of the Indiana stat
utes. His sums in arithmetic were done on the smooth
surface of a board, and erased with a plane. He soon
became the letter-writer for the neighborhood.
In her old age Mrs. Lincoln was able to say, "Abe
never gave me a cross word or look, and never refused
in fact or appearance to do anything I asked him. His
mind and mine — what little I had— seemed to run to
gether. I had 'a son John, who was raised with Abe.
.B.oth were good boys, but I must say, both now being
dead, that Abe was the best boy I ever saw or expect to
see." Young Lincoln's time, however, was not all spent
at the fire-side. His athletic frame was developed by
hard work, and he celebrated his arrival at the age of
twenty-one by breaking fifteen acres of new land for his
father in Illinois, and splitting walnut rails to fence the
same. Emerging from this home life, we find the fu
ture President making voyages upon the flat-boats ofthe
Mississippi river, acting as clerk — though giving most
of his time to reading,— mastering the art of surveying,
and at last elected to the state legislature and admitted
to the bar.
The secret of this marvelous life is forever hidden.
Why did he choose to study while others were cootent
to hunt or to loaf? We professional educators may take

20
notice that, the schools cannot monopolize the making-
of men. All that can be gained by residence at Oxford
or Cambridge is a little knowledge, the habit of truthful
ness which we call accuracy, and power of thought and
of expression. These Lincoln acquired in his humble of
fice by the most severe self-discipline. Defects of teacher
or text-book were counter-balanced by the fidelity ofthe
student. It matters little that his education began com-
parativel}'^ late in life ; the important thing is that it was
continued with unwearied devotion to the day of his
death. After he had already served in Congress he ap
plied himself to the science of Logic, and spent several
weeks in acquiring a more complete mastery of Euclid's
Geometry. The principal of " rotation in office " is a vicious one,
but its application in the case of Lincoln was overruled
for good. He left Congress after a single term in order
to give other aspirants a chance, and meanwhile un
consciously prepared himself for his great mission. He
had always been a royal good fellow among his com
rades. Without " tarrying long at the wine," or touch
ing the seductive cigar, he was " the center and idol of
every spcial group." His very presence was genial,
and it was with hearty affection that his friends recog
nized his sturdy and delicate integrity and bestowed
upon him the sobriquet of " Honest Abe." But during
the time between his retirement from Congress and the
debates with Douglas it was noticed that he seemed " al
ways in haste to leave the bright circle which he was
entertaining." Narrowly escaping appointments as
Land Commissioner, and as Governor of Oregon terri
tory, he gave these precious years to the practice of his
profession, and to reflection and study.
His political career previous to his election had

21
shown two things : his rare practical sagacity ; and his
readiness to sacrifice his personal interests to the inter
ests of his friends, or to the interests ofthe cause to
which he was devoted. He had joined the Whigs when
they were in a minority in Illinois, and had done much
toward bringing that party into power in the state. He
had taken the unpopular side upon the slavery question
in the state legislature and in Congress. He had
beaten Douglas, the ablest Democratic leader of his day,
in his own state.
And this victory^was significant. Douglas was
trying to perform the regular political feat of riding two
horses. He was attempting to lead, the slave-holding
DemoCTacy of the South, and at the same time to be"
elected to the Senate by the liberty-loving Democrats of
Illinois. Lincoln forced him to cut loose from the
-South in order to hold his own at home. " Honest Abe"
thus lost his own chance of election to the Senate, but
he disrupted tlie Democratic party !
Lincoln entered upon his great office at one of the
darkest hours in all our history. With thirty-three states
instead of thirteen the imperilled interests were far great
er, while the saving forces to be relied upon were uncer
tain. The troubles of seventy years had come to ahead.
The opponents ofthe government were united and ready,
while its friends were taken by surprise, irresolute. The
I (prestige of both state-craft and war was with the new Con
federacy already organized at Montgomery, Alabama.
.He had been elected by far less than a majority of the
whole people, and he looked out upon a united South
and a divided North. Under his predecessor treason
I thad been suffered to mature its plots in the very capital,
and high officials had used their power in preparing to
.subvert the government they had sworn to defend. The

22
new president knew not on whom he could depend. Eveii
Republican leaders like Greeley counseled that the
North should say to the seceding states "Erring sisters,
depart in peace." His w.ay was hedged by assasins, so
that he was forced to make a secret night journey froiiS
Harrisburg to the Capital. It seemed as though the gov
ernment committed to him was already a wreck.
History confirms his own judgment that he had be
fore him a task greater than that of Washington. This
thought was expressed in his address to his neighbor's
on leaving Springfield, as they stdod with their heads
bared to the falling snow-flakes.
"My friends, no one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling
bf sadness at this parting. To this place and to the kindness of these people,
I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have
passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and
One is buried, I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may re
turn', with a task before me greater than that of Washington. Without th*
assistance of that Divine being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed.
With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me,
and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope
that all will yet be well. To his care commending you, as I hope in your
prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell."
And with this speech his task was already begun.
We are now to mark the career of the rail-splitter as
Statesman, wai'rior, and diplomatist. His remarks at
the various stopping places on the route, together with
his inaugural, constitute a single oratorical eflbrt which
I shall venture to say is unmatched in history. Itwas
one long speech, delivered to the American people a
paragraph at a time, and perused in telegram and news
paper with anxious attention. If the office of oratory is
to persuade, this oratory was successful. The ultra
secessionists no appeal could reach, but they were
treated so fairly that none of their adherents were pro-'
-Voked to fresh zeal. But the people who were unde-'

23
dded — slow-thinking people, whose prerogative it is to
Come in at tbe end and settle a matter — these were in
structed and convinced. Many such men had voted
against Lincoln through attachment to old parties, or the
fear that he would introduce revolutionary measures.
They were now led to see that revolutionary measiares
came from the other side. The simple speech at Spring
field showed that the President-elect was not a hot-head
ed radical, not a trifler, and not a coward. Men were
teminded that he was the constitutionally elected ruler,
who might be replaced by another in four years, but
whose forcible overthrow would open the flood-gate for
they knew not what of anarchy. The}^ were convinced
that he meditated no invasion of the rights of the States,
but proposed simply to defend government property and
the Constitution. The old feelings of reverence for the
Union, planted in their hearts by the fathers ofthe Rev
olution, and watered by tha eloquence of Daniel Web
ster, were enlisted against the Southern Confederacy.
Thirty yeai-s ago, on Washington's birthday,
Lincoln wjas speaking in Independence Hall at tbis very
hour. The genius of the place rose within him, the
spirit of the Lord came upon him, and his words were
inspired and prophetic.
"All the political views I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have
been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated in and were
given to the worid from this Hall. * « I have often inquired of myself
what great principle or idea it was that sustained these colonies. It was not
the mere matter of separation from the mother-land, but that sentiment in
the Declaration of Independance which not only gave liberty to the people of
this country, but hope to all the worid, for all future time. It was that which
gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders
of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. Now, my friends, can
this country be saved on that basis? * * If this country cannot be saved
without giving Up that principle, I was abbut to say I had rather be assass-i
%MeA on this spot than surrender it."

24
In all these addresses Lincoln uttered not one foolish
or improper word. He closed his inaugural by saying :
"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the
momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You
can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no
oafh registered in heaven to destroy the government; while I have a most
solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.
"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not
be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds
bf affection. The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battle-field
and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth-stone all over this broad
land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely
they will be, by the better angels of our nature. "
By the time these words reached the country prob
ably more than half a million men who had not voted
for Mr. Lincoln had resolved to sustain him in his office.
The same moderation characterized his conduct
toward the members of his own party. He called his
greatest rivals into the Cabinet, and none of them could
feel jealous of a man who was -so evidently devoid of
personal ambition, and who really felt that he was but
the humble instrument in the hand of Providence. It
was his good fortune to be assisted by able ministers.
Seward, Chase, Stanton, Cameron, would have given
dignity to any administration, but the back-woodsman
out-topped them all. H^e surpassed them all in his
grasp of fundamental principles, and in the ability both
to read and to lead public opinion.
The simple administration of the government has
crushed more than one President. Lincoln attended to
all this at a time when a million soldiers were supported
in the field, and the expenditure for war alone reached
the sum of $516,000,000 a year, and in addition met the
higher question of State-craft, strategy, and diplomacy
which were presented by a stupendous crisis.
The same manly policy which secured the support

25
of Douglas and the war Democrats saved the border
states from drifting into the Rebellion. It was a signal
triumph to bring the slave states of Delaware, Mary
land, Kentucky, and Missouri into line for the Union,
and to see West Virginia seceding from secession and
ranging herself with the loyal North. The line of
cleavage fell south of Mason and Dixon's line, and the
battle fields of the civil war, save one, were on slave
territory. We have next to view the self-taught man as a diplo
matist. The French occupation of Mexico would seem
to be a sufficient cause of anxiety for one administration,
but all our foreign relations were greatly strained by the
civil war. It is now admitted that France and England,
arguing, no doubt, from the feeble policy of Buchanan,
were too hasty in recognizing the Confederate States as
a belligerent power. On learning of their action Mr.
Seward wrote a dispatch to our minister at the Court oi
St. James which asserted our rights in blunt and unam
biguous terms. Seward was a more experienced states
man than Lincoln, but not so incapable of hasty action.
The President took that dispatch and drew his pen
through the harsher lines, inserted qualifying clauses,
modified the instructions, and thus averted a serious
foreign complication.
So, too, when the enterprising Captain Wilkes, ol
our navy, overhauled a British steamer and dragged
from her deck Mason and Slidell, rebel commissioners
to England, though the whole country was ringing with
exultation, the President quietly remarked, "I fear the
traitors will prove to be 'white elephants.' We fought
Great Britain in 1812 fordoing precisely what Captain
Wilkes has done. If Great Britain shall now protest
against the act, we must give them up, apologize for the

26
aict as a violation of our doctrines, and thus forever bind
her over to keep the peace in relation to neutrals." This
Was the policy actually pursiied, unpopular at the tinse,
but averting immediate calamity, and establishing an
important principle of international law.
Nor must we omit to mention the exploits of this
descendant of the Quakers as commander of the army
and navy. He had a good Cabinet, but he had, at the
beginning, a most wretched set of generals. Scott was
superannuated, and McClelland was afraid of wooden
guns, and among all the rest the President could not
find a man who possessed the qualities of a great com
mander. The first substantial Union victory was the
capture bf Forts Henry and Donaldson by a soldier who
was introduced to the country as "Unconditional Sur
render Grant."
Mr. Lincoln changed generals often, but always
with extreme consideration for the soldiers who were
displaced, and he rarely lost the service of an able mart.
He discussed all campaigns with his generals, and often
directed their plans and movements. It is the opiniofl
of competent judges that at the close ofthe war he was
as well qualified to plan a campaign as any man in
America. The crowning act of his great career was not mere
ly something which a happy chance gave him the op
portunity of performing. It was something for which
he had prepared the way, and which came, through his
sagacity, in precisely the best manner.
He failed in his attempts to induce the border
states to abolish slavery and receive compensation from
the government, but he succeeded in convincing the
Country that slavery was the cause ofthe war, and thuS
turning against it the hatred which existed agaittSt

27
secession. He had rallied the people in defence of the
Union, and he now showed them that the way to save
tbe Union was to abolish slavery. With loyal armies in
the field, and a triumphant party behind him, he had the
IJbwer fo abolish slavery in any way he pleased ; but he
stowed his conscientious regard for the Constitution, as
well as for a just expediency, by basing the measure
wholly upon the necessities of war, and confining
emancipation to territory in actual rebellion. This wise
course reduced the objections and opposition to a min
imum. And he gave the Negro an opportunity to help him
self. Treated, at first as property which was contra
band of war, "Sambo " soon made himself popular with
the soldiers, and after the proclamation he became a
soldier himself. This was the bold and finally effective
stroke of Mr. Lincoln. It strengthened the army, and
Convinced the last doubters at home. "Men who are
gpod enough to be soldiers," they said, "are too good to
be slaves." Our leader lived to see the beginnings of a triumph
proportioned to all the costs and burdens of the war.
Emancipation did break the back-bone ofthe rebellion;
and the death of the rebellion, through emancipation,
ifteant a victory for all mankind. .
This Was Mr. Lincoln's view ofthe contest from the
1)«ginning. The very fact that he was intensely Amer
ican made him sympathetic with all the world. The
tttie American needs no foreign travel to liberahze his
mind. We call Webster the great expounder of the
Constitution. But Lincoln expounded the Constitution,
atid the American idea, more profoundly, and in words
Which live in the hearts ofthe common people, as he
fttood among the graves at Gettysburg.

28
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition
that all men are created equal. We are now engaged in a great civil war,
testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can
long endure. * * It is for us 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, and for
the people, shall not perish from the earth. "
He lived to see the success of this great world-ex
periment. From the day of emancipation rebellion
waned. Gettysburg was consecrated by a great vic
tory, and wilh the fall of Vicksburg the Mississippi "ran
unvexed to the sea." Sheridan was in the saddle;
Hooker despoiled the eagle's nest at Chattanooga ; Sher
man cut a swarth sixty miles wide through Georgia,
and "captured Charlestown by ' turninig his back upon
it." He called for helpers, and again and again he was
greeted by the chorus
"We're coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand strong."
His administration was vindicated by a triumphant
reelection in which he carried every loyal state save little
Delaware and New Jersey, and Kentucky.
The Confederacy, which had started out with every
advantage, and with abundant bluster, slowly collapsed.
The blockade became absolute, and the hope of foreign
intervention failed. Confederate money became worth
less ; flour in Richmond was of poor quality, and the
price was $i,ooo a barrel ! The rank and file who had
been dogged into the rebellion by tyrannical leaders
began to desert. The end is near, fOr the rebels them
selves are over-coming their prejudices and propose to
arm the slaves in defence of the Confederacy !
Sunday morning, April 2d, 1865, Jefferson Davis
is sitting in his pew at church. Richmond is quiet, and
few people are aware that Mrs. Davis has sent her furni-

29
ture to auction, and started for the far South. An officer
walks up the aisle and hands Mr. Davis a telegram.
Davis reads it, and then staggers out of church. Lee is
in the "last ditch." "My lines are broken in three places,"
he says, "and Richmond must be evacuated this evening."
Gradually the streets in which traffic has long been
dead or stagnant become once more as animated as in
the palmy days of Southern prosperity. There is a
treading of feet, a murmur of voices, and at last a wild
roar and rush of vehicles to the railway stations. The
archives of the Confederacy are placed in boxes. The
governor and legislature of Virginia depart in a canal
boat, Davis and his cabinet in a freight car.
It is still a slave -city. One Lumpkin, the old and
rehable keeper of the slave-traders' jail, a structure
which had witnessed as much sorrow as the Bastile, is
looking after his property. He hustles out some fifty
men, women, and children— a frightened, weeping
, throng — and chaining them two and two, cracks his whip
over the last slave-coffle which will ever tread the soil ot
America ! But he is too late. The trains have no room
for such freight. Slavery is in the last gasp. It cannot
take another step I
One after another the gun-boats in the river are
blown up, and then the flames appear in the immense
ware-houses. (Such scene as this are not common in
America.) As authority relaxes lawlessness and hunger
walk the streets. The stores are plundered, and no
effort is made to arrest the flames.
And now return, ye spirits of Pinkney and Calhoun,
to witness this scene ! Think of it, ye Northern Demo
crats who eight months ago resolved in your convention
that the war was a failure I Note it, ye Southern sym-
, pathizers across the sea, ye holders of Confederate bonds I

3°
Look back upon it, ye fugjtivel chiefs of a "lost cause I"
Here come the Federal troops to take possession, to re
store .order, to arrest the flames. Their sabers are flash
ing in the morning sun ; their banners flow as gaily as
though they had never lost acquaintances with the South
ern breezes ; their bugles sound the national airs again ;
and (there is poetic justice and every other kind of jus
tice in it) — they are black men who come riding into
Richmond !
The tramp of armies is followed by the march of
law. Congress has alreadj' submitted a new amend
ment, and before this year, 1865, has died it will be a
part of the Constitution. Read it.
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for
¦crime whereof the .party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the
Upited States, or anyplace subject to their jurisdiction.'
"How they pale, —
Ancient myth, and song, and tale, —
To this wonder of our days.
When the cruel rod of war
Blossoms white with righteous law,
And the wrath of man is praise."
And this success was graced with a great clemency.
Lee asks what terms of surrender may be hoped for. He
is talking with "Unconditional Surrender Grant," but he
is unconditional surrender Grant no longer. The
North has not been pursuing ^lave-holders^-it has been
pursuing slavery and rebellion, and now that these are
4eadGeneral Grant is readj' to feed Lee's starving troops.,
to alio V every officer to retain his side-arms, to parole
the men who have striven for four years to destroy the
goverment, and even to give them their horses that they
may the sooner reach their homes, and be better fur
nished for resuming the pursuits of peace.
There remained one thing more which the Preserv-

31
er of his country could do in her behalf. We expected
a great deal of him, but we did not expect that. He
had accomplished the task greater than that of Wash
ington; he had restored the nation, and for the first time
carried out the full intention of the fathers ; he had
trodden that long and toilsome way from the log hut at
Hodginsburg where his life began (a village which can
not be found on any map) to the head of a grateful na
tion triumphing in a great world-contest through his
Jeadership ; and finally as the high priest of the people
he had confessed the sins of the North and of the South
in the sublime words of his second inauguaral, and sum
moned all patriots to join in binding up the wounds of
the nation ; — having done all this. Providence assigned
him one thing more to do for his country — to die for her.
On the very day when we began to celebrate our
triumph, the day on which the stars and stripes were
raised again above the dismantled wall of Fort Sumter,
Lincoln was shot. The nation was weeping tears of
joy, and they were turned to tears of angui.sh in a night.
We do not need to interpret such providences as that.
We say that they are a part of an all-wise plan, and there
we stop. We know, how^ever, that God produces rare
and wonderful effects upon human hearts by such dis
pensations. They stand quite apart from ordinary
deaths, occurring as we say " in the course of nature."
We are somewhat prepared for the death ofthe aged, or
tbose who are long ill. Before they go we have propped
our hves with other supports. We look upon them as
ripe for the grand transition. But when those who are
in the midst of life's duties are snatched away we feel as
though they had been translated, while our souls, from
the wounds of separation, must bleed to death. And
such a separation, above all others, leaves the image of

the lost one ineffacable upcn our hearts. Such was the
death of Henry of Navarre in France. Such was the
death of William of Orange in the Netherlands.
So me must believe that the moral effects of Lin
coln's death were precious in God's sight. It certainly
prevented any unseemly exultation over the victory of
the North. It made treason more odious than a thous
and executions could have done. — -The assassin found
rebels who would conceal him, but none who would com
mend his act. And it has left to the world the picture
of the great Liberator as he was at the moment of his
prime and of his triumph.
Secretary Stanton broke the silence which fell in the
death chamber when the wounded man ceased to breathe,
by saying, "Now he belongs to the ages." r
He had been so self-effacing, he had so maintained
the position of a humble instrument of a great cause,
that in our eagerness to follow that cause to its triumph
we had scarcely paused to notice what a leader we
possessed, or to realize how we loved him. But now,
with the wreath of an unmatched earthly victory, and
the halo of a heavenly triumph upon it, his fame rose
colossal before the world. The tongue of detraction
was silenced forever. It is hard to believe that this gen
tle, forbearing, devoted man had been dogged with vili
fying epithets and scurrilous charicature. But he was
beyond it now. The London Punch had been foremost
in this work of slander, and here is its manlj?^ recanta
tion : "Beside this corpse that bears for winding sheet
The stars and stripes he lived to rear anew.
Between the mourners at the head and fee;,
Say, scurrile jester, is there room for you?

33
Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer,
To lame my pencil, and confute my pen,
To make me own this hind of princes peer.
This rail-splitter a true-born king of men."
Foreign nations were now prompt to recognize his
jnerits. But more significant than official acts were the
spontaneous tributes of individuals and of the common
people. Queen Victoria wrote to Mrs. Lincoln "as a
widow to a widow." The students of Paris raised a two-
cent subscription for a gold medal. It was struck in
Switzerland, for there was a despotism in Paris. Their
message was, "Tell her the heart of France is in that
little box." An Austrian deputy wrote, "Among my
people his memory has already assumed superhuman
proportions ; he has become a myth, a type of ideal
democracy." The South soon recognized him as her friend, too.
General Longstreet hails him as "the greatest man of
Rebellion times, the one matchless among fifty millions."
If the blessings of the poor can soothe one's last
slumber, his rest is sweet. Four million freedmen
mourned as a father him who had been the Moses of
their race, and who, like Moses, was forbidden to enter
with his people into the promised land of peace.
It requires no prophet to forecast his fame. It rests
upon great acts, great words, a representative position,
and a great character.
His great acts are recorded in the Constitudon, and
in the map of his country, and in the changed status of
two races. They are as wide-reaching in their
effects as any act of man. He spoke the universal
language of genius— the speech in which God's
mightiest speak to each other and to the world
across the centuries. He may never have heard
of Pittacus, but he paraphrased that wise man's saying.

34
" Victory should not be stained with blood." He was
not privileged to read the boast of Pericles, but he made
the same when he said, " I have planted a thorn in no
man'a bosom."
His character — that rare blending of Christian mod
esty, earnestness, and liberality, is reflected in his own
matchless motto : " With malice toward none, with
CHARITY FOR ALL; WITH FIRMNESS IN THE -RIGHT, AS
GoD GIVES US TO SEE THE RIGHT."
He fulfills better than any other man whom we
know so well the Athenian definition of a statesman :
"The man who understands the situation, who can ex
plain it to others, and who is above all personal consid
erations." He was the exponent of the best spirit of his coun
try and of his age. But more than that, he is a repre
sentative of humanity. We cannot monopolize him.
"He belongs to the ages"- not to America, not to the
ninteenth century, but to the ages. He has all the marks
of greatness upon him. He is canonized alike by the
scholar and by the clown, by the select few and by the
omnipotent many. And it is no fickle choice, no mis
placed idolatry. No man will ever pause to revere the
memory of Lincoln without being made better.

On page 12 after the first break add;
It was a battle of giants. Lincoln had his forerunners and coadjutors in
the piercing voice of Garrison, the silver tongue of Wendell Phillip, the
firey elocpience of Giddings, and the scholarly phrase of Charles Sinnnerf
while the verse of Whittier and LoweU crowned a distinct epoch, in Amerir
can literature. And the advocates and apologists of slavery were men who
would ha-ve graced a better cause. With them we must rank H'enry Qay,
the great compromiser, the spotless; ermine of Judge Taney, the restlesB
enthusiasm of Alexandw H. Stevens, the polished logic of JeffersDn. Davi^
and— most powerful and pathetic of all— the reluctant sword of Robert E.
Lee.

35
ODE TO WASHINGTON.

NELLIE M. SUMNER, '9 1 O. C.

Washington — thy noble name
Time has crowned with living fame;
On thy brow, serene and high,
, Never dying garlands twine.
That shall chance and change defy.
Yes — a nation's homage thine.
Gladly, on this natal day.
We our joyful tribute pay.
At thy shrine our offering lay.
Through the .vista of the past,
Through the light and shadow cast
. O'er our checkered backward view,
Bright and clear thy memory stands :
Nobly firm, thy purpose true ,
Leads .us on with beckoning hands,
By thy pure example's might.
In the narrow paths of right,
Up to God's serenest height.
Modest as the simple flower.
Nestling in its mossy bower.
From whose lite a fragrance sweet
Rises heavenward toward the skies;
Such a heart, with peace replete,
All things earthly sanctifies.
Thine a soul like flow'ret, pure,
L!ke the oak, that shall endure.
Tower of strength, erect and sure.
When deep strife our nation stirred.
When the battle cry was heard,
Down our winding, wave-beat shore
Echoed wide the hostile tread.
Thundering deep with cannon's roar,
Angry lowered the sky o'erhead.
Stars and stripes were waving high:
Independence was our cry;
Peace — no more; 'twas strike or die.

36
England's wrath we hotly fanned;
Who will dare assume command ?
In the field 'gainst British skill.
Who can gain our nation's weal ?
Who will lead, with steadfast will,
Northem strength and Southern zeal ?
Fair -Virginia's noble son
Rose supreme, — the victory won:
Rose the hero — Washington !
Mars laid by his warlike power.
'Twas our nation's childhood hour;
Then her greatness lay concealed.
Wrapped in youthful hopes and fears.
All her future, unrevealed.
Rested on those early years.
Thou with firmness, kindness, praise,
Moulded well those plastic days;
Led her through youth's devious maze.
Gifts of God to us by thee.
Union, peace, and liberty.
Words most sweet to human ears.
As we lift our hearts above,
— E'en to pure celestial spheres, —
Take a nation's loyal love.
Warrior, statesman, freedom's son.
Toil is ended; — glory won.
Rest from labor — Washington.

ODE ON AMERICA.

HENRY C. COWLES, 93 O.

God save America, home of the Pilgrims !
Land which our fathers have suffered to save;
Land which has been through all changing conditions,
"The land of the free and the home of the brave."
God save America, save, too, her Sabbath;
Save it from being devoted to sin;
Save it, protect it, guard it, defend it;
May it be still what it ever has beenl
God save America 1

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God free America, home of the Pilgrims I
Free her from all that is hated by Thee;
Free her forever from sectional hatred;
May she be one from the lakes to the sea!
God free our State from the thrall of intemp'rance,
The curse of all curses which wasteth our land;
So shall we lay an eternal foundation,
Built on the rock aivd not on the sand.
God free America!
God guide America, home of the Pilgrims!
Guide her through perils that threaten her life;
Guide her in choosing her laws and her rulers;
Guide her through dangers of partisan strife.
God guide America, guide all her churches;
Guide them in shovring the Light unto men;
Guide them in working, in watching and praying
Till all of the nations are born once again.
God guide America!
God keep America, home of the Pilgrims!
Keep her from all that would lead her astray;
Keep her from leaving the God of our fathers;
Keep her forever from drifting away.
God keep America, keep out rebelhon;
Keep her in peace, and defend from the sword;
Keep her to-day and on through the ages;
Keep her a nation whose God is the Lord.
God keep America!
God bless America, home of the Pilgrims!
Bless all her efforts to succor mankind;
Bless her in trouble, bless her in thriving;
May she in Christ her true destiny find!
God bless America, home ofthe Pilgrims!
Land which our fathers have suffered to save;
Land which has been through all changing conditions,
"The land of the free and the home of the brave."
God bless America!

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