If you want to know the difference between an orator and a speaker read the oration of Lincoln at Gettysburg, and then read the speech of Everett at the same place. One came from the heart, the other was from out of the voice. Lincoln’s speech will be remembered forever. Everett’s no man will read. It was like plucked flowers. “If you want to find out what a man is to the bottom, give him power. Any man can stand adversity--only a great man can stand prosperity. It is the glory of Abraham Lincoln that he never abused power only on the side of mercy. When he had power he used it in mercy. He loved to see the tears of the wife whose husband he had snatched from death.” I draw near the close of my task, having given, as I hope, some fair idea of one whose memory will always remain dear to the hearts of his countrymen. In that chequered life there is much to imitate, much to admire, little to avoid or censure. Happy will be the day when our public men copy his unselfishness, his patriotic devotion to duty! Within a few months, on the eighteenth anniversary of Mr. Lincoln’s assassination, a poem was read at his grave by John H. Bryant, of Princeton, which will fitly close my story of the Backwoods Boy: Not one of all earth’s wise and great Hath earned a purer gratitude Than the great Soul whose hallowed dust This structure holds in sacred trust. How fierce the strife that rent the land, When he was summoned to command; With what wise care he led us through The fearful storms that ’round us blew. Calm, patient, hopeful, undismayed, He met the angry hosts arrayed For bloody war, and overcame Their haughty power in Freedom’s name. ’Mid taunts and doubts, the bondsman’s chain With gentle force he cleft in twain, And raised four million slaves to be The chartered sons of Liberty. No debt he owed to wealth or birth; By force of solid, honest worth He climbed the topmost height of fame And wrote thereon a spotless name. Oh! when the felon hand laid low That sacred head, what sudden woe Shot to the Nation’s farthest bound, And every bosom felt the wound. Well might the Nation bow in grief, And weep above the fallen chief, Who ever strove, by word or pen, For “peace on earth, good-will to men.” The people loved him, for they knew, Each pulse of his large heart was true To them, to Freedom, and the right, Unswayed by gain, unawed by might. This tomb, by loving hands up-piled, To him, the merciful and mild, From age to age shall carry down The glory of his great renown. As the long centuries onward flow, As generations come and go, Wide and more wide his fame shall spread, And greener laurels crown his head. And when this pile is fall’n to dust, Its bronzes crumbled into rust, Thy name, O Lincoln! still shall be Revered and loved from sea to sea.