Some are of the opinion, that had the illustrious Tribune been spared, his plans of Reconstruction would have antagonized the best men of his party, and instead of coming down to posterity as the most revered and popular President, after Washington, he would have left his name in our annals as probably that of the most unpopular Executive we have had. But such surmise is a piece of far-fetched anticipation very remotely removed from the boundary of probability. Lincoln would not have antagonized, he would have converted and brought men to the same viewpoint as himself. As it is, he towers so majestically above our horizon, that in his great and commanding national role, we are apt to quite forget his character as an individual, his personality as a man and what it represented in the domain of private life. That Lincoln was a man of strong character and tenacious purpose, rather than brilliant and intellectual, is a point conceded by all who have studied him in the calm of impartiality and in no sense indulged in hero worship. Despite the claim of his divine mission, his greatness was service in loyalty to an ideal and it was subordination of the personal self to his ideals rather than any extraordinary gifts with which nature had endowed him, which gives glory to him and the men who stood with him. He has been contrasted with Napoleon, whose star was just sinking below the horizon as his was ascending above it, but it is rather invidious to contrast two so widely divergent actors on the stage of fame. The difference between them is the difference between the iron heel and the helping hand, between tyranny and freedom, between a man living for self and glory, and a man living for the broadest kind of cosmopolitanism and the widest type of humanitarianism. Lincoln's whole career is a manifestation of his absolute integrity of purpose, of his fearless honesty in all things, of his considerate feeling for others, of his profound respect for conscience, and his reverential fear of God. WAS ABRAHAM LINCOLN A CHRISTIAN? _God give us men! A time like this demands Clean minds, pure hearts, true faith, and ready hands. Men who possess opinions and a will; Men whom desire for office does not kill; Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; Men who have honor; men who will not lie; Tall men; sun-crowned men; men who will live above the fog In public duty and in private thinking; Men who can stand before a demagogue And denounce his treacherous flatteries, and without winking. For a while base tricksters with their wornout creeds, Their large professions, and their little deeds, Wrangle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps, Wrong rules the land and waiting Justice sleeps._ --_J. G. Holland_ II WAS ABRAHAM LINCOLN A CHRISTIAN?