of himself. The thought of his vast authority makes him the lowliest in the land. Lincoln was not arrogant. He made no effort after aggregated honors, however deserved, much less after honors unearned. In particular he showed no inclination to appropriate another's fame. For one thing, he knew too well the awful cost of magistracy. The right to be commander-in-chief of a Nation's resources and arms, so coveted a right in aspiring men, became transmuted in the cup which Lincoln drank into a terrible, an almost impossible responsibility. Nor was it of his nature to subtract from other men for his own increase. At the price of a brother's freedom, or happiness, or life, the gaining of ease, or wealth, or joy of any sort for himself would be far too dear. In the soul of Lincoln extortion could find no soil. His mien among men was that of indulgent ministry, not of exacting mastery. With the lower level and the lesser meed he could be well content. Morbid jealousy for his own acclaim, hungry greed for another's reward, satisfaction in plaudits that were undeserved, or comfort from robbery or extortion of any sort were sentiments for which the refined and genuine modesty of Lincoln had no appetite or taste. The honors that surrounded and invested him were up-springing, spontaneous and free; in no least measure accumulated, artificial or enforced. The native purity of Lincoln's lowliness shows best in his reverence for God. He lived in a daily consciousness of Providence. As a statesman he was thoroughly a man of God, full of a patriot's adoring and acquiescent thankfulness, as he watched and studied the wonderful unfolding of God's just and kindly government of this most favored land. This mood of humble reverence was deeply wrought. It was of the texture of his character. It was not a vesture or a posture, a gesture or a phrase, assumed here and discarded there, and often counterfeit. It was essential, like his integrity, pervading and indeed controlling all his responsible life. And it was wholly undisguised. In his most formal public documents--papers in which statesmen as a rule make scant allusion to Deity--Lincoln's allusions to God are their most imposing feature. Beyond all contradiction, Lincoln enacted his public responsibilities in the fear of God. This was the beginning of his wisdom. Just this is the secret of the sanity of this last inaugural. And it is the secret of its immortal beauty. And it is the girdle of its strength. In framing its central argument, and thereby steadying the Nation's heart in the convulsions of war, he was expounding the hidden ways of God. There grew a mighty paragraph. It reads smoothly now. But when it passed through Lincoln's lips, it was the issue of a hard-pent agony. When he voiced those words he stood before an altar, and made confession, like a very priest, for both North and South. All the land had behaved with unbecoming confidence. All alike were under discipline. God was in dominion.