left ear. Major Rathbone who was with the President grappled with the assassin, but Booth succeeded in breaking away, wounding the Major with long thin knife he carried. He then boldly leaped from the box to the stage, and strutting across it before the amazed audience who did not yet realize what had occurred, brandished his bloody knife and shouted the State motto of Virginia "Sic semper tyrannis!" He made his escape from the theatre, but was pursued and twelve days later shot in a barn near Port Royal on the Rappahannock.

The assassination was a cowardly deed, repudiated by every right-thinking man in the South. It was, in truth, a severer blow to her than to the North. In a way, Lincoln's work for the North was done. He had saved the Union, that was the great task for which he had been raised up by Heaven. On the impulse given by him other and weaker men could reconstruct the government. Had he lived out his life some of his glory might have become tarnished. The repugnance of the people of the United States to a third term would doubtless have forced him to retire to private life in 1868. Out of political struggles he, however, would hardly have been able to keep and the maelström of political strife would doubtless have dragged him down somewhat. He died with his harness on, died just as the great struggle for the emancipation of the slaves closed. He died too soon, however, for he was sorely needed by the Southern States. His one hope, his one desire, was to bring them again into the Union: bring them in, not force them in, and he was even at the hour of his death no doubt reflecting how he could show his Southern friends that he could forget. During the whole war he had had no bitter words for the

Southern soldiers. In his heart was no malice for any man. The only effect of his death was to make it harder for the South.

The North shivered under the blow, it was hard to realise that the man who had carried them through the severest storm of their national career, severer even than the great revolution which had made them a nation, was no more. "It was," says W. O. Stoddard, in his Life of Lincoln, "as if there had been a death in every house throughout the land. By both North and South alike the awful news was received with a shudder and a momentary spasm of unbelief. Then followed one of the most remarkable spectacles in the history of the human race, for there is nothing else at all like it on record. Bells had tolled before at the death of a loved ruler, but never did all bells toll so mournfully as they did that day. Business ceased. Men came together in public meetings as if by a common impulse, and party lines and sectional hatred seemed to be obliterated."

Seven days after his death his body left Washington for Springfield. All along the route great crowds flocked to look with solemn reverence upon his face; villagers recognised in him a man like themselves, a man who had lived their lives and knew their needs; leaders of thought in the great centres of life had learned to look upon Lincoln as one of a different breed from themselves, a man God-inspired, a born ruler, one of the few who saw intuitively the needs of his race and who knew when and how to act.

His death inspired one of the noblest poems ever penned by any poet. Walt Whitman's tribute to

the memory of the man he followed with loving zeal will live as long as Lincoln's memory lives.

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

But, O heart! heart! heart!

Oh, the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells:
Rise up!-For you the flag is flung-for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths-for you the shores
a-crowding;

For you they call, the swaying mass their eager faces turning.

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head!

It is some dream that on the deck
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has nor pulse nor will;
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and
done

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won:

Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead."

An equally noble tribute was given at the time of his death by the ablest man America's pulpit has produced, Henry Ward Beecher, as true as it was noble.

"And now the martyr is moving in triumphal march, mightier than when alive. The nation rises up at every stage of his coming. Cities and States are his pall-bearers, and the cannon speaks the hours with solemn progression. Dead, dead, dead, he yet

speaketh. Is Washington dead? Is Hampden dead? Is any man that was ever fit to live dead? Disenthralled of flesh, risen to the unobstructed sphere where passion never comes, he begins his illimitable work. His life is now grafted upon the infinite, and will be fruitful as no earthly life can be. on, thou that hast overcome. Ye people, behold the martyr whose blood, as so many articulate words, pleads for fidelity, for law, for liberty."

Pass

The Nation, now that Lincoln was taken, recognised that as Washington had been the great American of the eighteenth century so was he the great American of the nineteenth. He had proved himself the firmest of all the presidents of the United States, and yet gentle withal. He had won his way into a million hearts by his kindly acts and his kindly words. Through his keen, discriminating mind he had forced the European Powers to recognise the greatness of the United States, and when he was taken left behind him an ideal for Americans to strive towards. His life had been shaped by integrity and duty, by trust in Providence, and an intense love for his fellow-beings.

CHAPTER X.

PRESIDENT ANDREW JOHNSON.

(ONE ADMINISTRATION, 1865-1869.)

LINCOLN was no more! His assassins had hoped. that with his death utter confusion would follow and that the government would crumble to the ground. They had, however, reckoned without their host.

His work was done; the North knew that the South could never again regain its old power, and the South itself recognised that it was in a state of utter collapse. The Secessionists had utterly failed in their purpose, which was to destroy the Union by destroying the man whose will had held the Union forces together for the past four years. There was a fierce outcry on the death of the President, but no confusion among the men who were at the helm of state. They acted promptly and at once sent the following message to the Vice-President, Andrew Johnson:

Washington City, April 15, 1865. "Andrew Johnson, Vice-President of the United States:

"Sir-Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, was shot by an assassin last evening at Ford's Theatre, in this city, and died at the hour of twenty