Part 24

BY RICHARD WATSON GILDER

This bronze doth keep the very form and mold Of our great martyr's face. Yes, this is he: That brow all wisdom, all benignity; That human, humorous mouth; those cheeks that hold Like some harsh landscape all the summer's gold; That spirit fit for sorrow, as the sea For storms to beat on; the lone agony Those silent, patient lips too well foretold. Yes, this is he who ruled a world of men As might some prophet of the elder day-- Brooding above the tempest and the fray With deep-eyed thought and more than mortal ken. A power was his beyond the touch of art Or armed strength--his pure and mighty heart.

By permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Company.

TRIBUTES

To him belongs the credit of having worked his way up from the humblest position an American freeman can occupy to the highest and most powerful, without losing, in the least, the simplicity and sincerity of nature which endeared him alike to the plantation slave and the metropolitan millionaire.

The most malignant party opposition has never been able to call in question the patriotism of his motives, or tarnish with the breath of suspicion the brightness of his spotless fidelity. Ambition did not warp, power corrupt, nor glory dazzle him.

Warren H. Cudworth.

By his steady, enduring confidence in God, and in the complete ultimate success of the cause of God which is the cause of humanity, more than in any other way does he now speak to us, and to the nation he loved and served so well.

P. D. Gurley.

Chieftain, farewell! The nation mourns thee. Mothers shall teach thy name to their lisping children. The youth of our land shall emulate thy virtues. Statesmen shall study thy record, and learn lessons of wisdom. Mute though thy lips be, yet they still speak. Hushed is thy voice, but its echoes of liberty are ringing through the world, and the sons of bondage listen with joy.

Matthew Simpson.

LINCOLN

BY GEORGE HENRY BOKER.

Crown we our heroes with a holier wreath Than man e'er wore upon this side of death; Mix with their laurels deathless asphodels, And chime their paeans from the sacred bells! Nor in your prayers forget the martyred Chief, Fallen for the gospel of your own belief, Who, ere he mounted to the people's throne, Asked for your prayers, and joined in them his own. I knew the man. I see him, as he stands With gifts of mercy in his outstretched hands; A kindly light within his gentle eyes, Sad as the toil in which his heart grew wise; His lips half-parted with the constant smile That kindled truth, but foiled the deepest guile; His head bent forward, and his willing ear Divinely patient right and wrong to hear: Great in his goodness, humble in his state, Firm in his purpose, yet not passionate, He led his people with a tender hand, And won by love a sway beyond command, Summoned by lot to mitigate a time Frenzied with rage, unscrupulous with crime, He bore his mission with so meek a heart That Heaven itself took up his people's part; And when he faltered, helped him ere he fell, Eking his efforts out by miracle. No king this man, by grace of God's intent; No, something better, freeman,--President! A nature, modeled on a higher plan, Lord of himself, an inborn gentleman!

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

JAMES A. GARFIELD

In the great drama of the rebellion there were two acts. The first was the war, with its battles and sieges, its victories and defeats, its sufferings and tears. Just as the curtain was lifting on the second and final act, the restoration of peace and liberty, the evil spirit of the rebellion, in the fury of despair, nerved and directed the hand of an assassin to strike down the chief character in both. It was no one man who killed Abraham Lincoln; it was the embodied spirit of treason and slavery, inspired with fearful and despairing hate, that struck him down in the moment of the nation's supremest joy.

Sir, there are times in the history of men and nations when they stand so near the veil that separates mortals from the immortals, time from eternity, and men from God that they can almost hear the beatings and pulsations of the heart of the Infinite. Through such a time has this nation passed.

When two hundred and fifty thousand brave spirits passed from the field of honor, through that thin veil, to the presence of God, and when at last its parting folds admitted the martyr President to the company of those dead heroes of the Republic, the nation stood so near the veil that the whispers of God were heard by the children of men. Awe-stricken by his voice, the American people knelt in tearful reverence and made a solemn covenant with him and with each other that this nation should be saved from its enemies, that all its glories should be restored, and, on the ruins of slavery and treason, the temples of freedom and justice should be built, and should survive forever.

It remains for us, consecrated by that great event and under a covenant with God, to keep that faith, to go forward in the great work until it shall be completed. Following the lead of that great man, and obeying the high behests of God, let us remember that:

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat; Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer him! be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on.

AN HORATIAN ODE

BY RICHARD HENRY STODDARD

Not as when some great captain falls In battle, where his country calls, Beyond the struggling lines That push his dread designs

To doom, by some stray ball struck dead: Or in the last charge, at the head Of his determined men, Who must be victors then!

Nor as when sink the civic great, The safer pillars of the State, Whose calm, mature, wise words Suppress the need of swords!--

With no such tears as e'er were shed Above the noblest of our dead Do we to-day deplore The man that is no more!

Our sorrow hath a wider scope, Too strange for fear, too vast for hope,-- A wonder, blind and dumb, That waits--what is to come!