"I have never united myself to any church, because I found difficulty in giving my assent, without mental reservation, to the long and complicated statements of Christian doctrine which characterize their articles of belief and confessions of faith. When any church will inscribe over its altar, as its sole qualification for membership, the Saviour's condensed statement of the substance of both law and gospel (the golden rule), that church shall I join with all heart and soul." my "When," continues Mr. Arnold, "the unbeliever shall convince the people that this man, whose life was straightforward, truthful, clear, and honest, was a sham and a hypocrite, then, but not before, may he make the world doubt his Christianity." It is to be regretted that the germs of the falsehood of Mr. Lincoln's infidelity cannot be annihilated once for all. But it is difficult to destroy such a falsehood. Remains of the poison will survive and occasionally find some diseased brain where they may rest, multiply, and create an offensive local suppuration. But it cannot spread among the American people. A public service of his country and almighty God, guided by the gospels of our Saviour, which began in his letter to his sick father in 1851 and ended with his last proclamation for a national thanksgiving, has so enshrined the memory of Lincoln in the hearts of his countrymen that it can neither be clouded by falsehood nor defaced by time. The attentive reader of the letters, documents, and reported speeches of Mr. Lincoln will be impressed with the compactness, force, and beauty of his sentences. Immediately after his death the extreme rarity of his autograph notes and letters became noticeable. Except those of an official character, they are scarcer and more difficult to procure than those of any other President, not excepting Washington. The finish of his prose and the scarcity of his unofficial autographs are both evidences of the depth and thoroughness of his character. He never spoke from a manuscript, yet he never wrote, spoke, or thought extemporaneously. To remove his doubts about a word he solved all the problems of Euclid. His mastery of the whole subject of slavery was equalled by none of its votaries. It was his custom, reclining in a quiet room, to repeat the different forms of expressing the same idea. It has been said that he wrote the Gettysburg address with a lead-pencil on the cars riding to the battle-field. Possibly-and yet it would not follow that he had not expended as much time and thought over its few lines as Mr. Everett had upon his ornate oration. Abraham Lincoln was great because he was an honest, thorough, faithful Christian man. He was the man whom God raised up to save the Union and to set before the world a great example. To us who were his witnesses, he was a man called and assigned to a mighty work, thoroughly conscious that he was God's instrument to do that work; to the last hour of the republic he should serve as an example of the highest type of the statesman, patriot, citizen, in a government of the people. I have written this sketch, not as an attempt at his biography, but as a witness to the truth and to commend his life to the study of my countrymen. Was he greater Such inquiries Was he our greatest American? than Washington? I do not know. do not concern me. What I do know is that they lived at different times, under different conditions, and were endowed with different qualities. They were both great men. But they are neither rivals nor competitors in American history nor in the American heart. The noble form, majestic presence, and patriotic example of Washington have lost none of their force upon the American mind by the lapse of one hundred years. The strong face of Lincoln grows more beautiful, his rich voice more musical, his perfect sentences more powerful as they are seen and heard only in our memories. Hand in hand and side by side Washington and Lincoln will grow in influence and power as they recede into the past. One will always be known as the Father, the other as the Saviour, of his country; and so long as patriotism, integrity, and virtue are honored among men, so long shall the memories of both be venerated and that of our Lincoln be tenderly loved. THE END. INDEX. Adirondack fishing days, 148 Albemarle, the ram, Sinking of, 311 Allen, Gen. Ethan, his daugh- ter enters a convent, 79 Armstrong, Jack, his fight Artist, An American, and his Bang, a favorite Irish setter, Barber, Edward D., the poet of Barn and other swallows, 111 Bear, how I lost one in the Beckwith, Gen. Amos, Sher- man's Quartermaster, 255 Bennett, Milo L., a Vermont Bible, Mr. Lincoln's opinion Birds, Notes on, 101, 106 Auditor, Opinion of a "hold- Blair, Francis P., letter on over," 318 Lincoln's death, 243 Book chase, The, 279 Bar supper, The annual, 205, Book thieves, their work, 295 219 Book-account, Action of, 209 Barn-Burners, The New York, Boorn case, The, 330 12 96 Bradley, William C., Mr. Van Bank. swindler, How to know Bronx River, its diminution, |