There have been but four instances in history in which great deeds have been celebrated in words as immortal as themselves: the epitaph upon the dead Spartan band at Thermopylae; the words of Demosthenes on those who perished at Marathon; the speech of Webster in memory of those who laid down their lives at Bunker Hill; and these words of Lincoln on the hill at Gettysburg. As he closed, and while his listeners were still sobbing, he grasped the hand of Mr. Everett, and said. "I congratulate you on your success."--"Ah," replied the orator, gracefully, "Mr. President, how gladly would I exchange all my hundred pages to have been the author of your twenty lines!" I forbear to dwell longer on the events of the war. The tide had turned, and the end was already foreseen. Notwithstanding that Mr. Lincoln had proved the righteousness of his course, a great many people in the North--and many even in his own party--were opposed to his nomination for a second term. The disaffected nominated Gen. Fremont, upon the platform of the suppression of the Rebellion, the Monroe doctrine, and the election of President and Vice-President by the direct vote of the people, and for one term only. The Democratic party declared the war for the Union a failure, and very properly nominated McClellan. It required a long time for the General to make up his mind in regard to accepting the nomination; and, in conversations upon the subject with a friend, Lincoln suggested that perhaps he might be _entrenching_. The election was held, and Lincoln received a majority greater than was ever before given to a candidate for the presidency. The people this time were like the Dutch farmer,--they believed that "it was not best to swap horses when crossing a stream." On the 4th of March, 1865, he delivered that memorable inaugural address which is truly accounted one of the ablest state papers to be found in the archives of America. It concludes with these words:-- "With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in,--to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." Read and reread this whole address. Since the days of Christ's Sermon on the Mount, where is the speech of ruler that can compare with it? No other in American annals has so impressed the people. Said a distinguished statesman from New York, on the day of its delivery, "A century from to-day that inaugural will be read as one of the most sublime utterances ever spoken by man. Washington is the great man of the era of the Revolution. So will Lincoln be of this; but Lincoln will reach the higher position in history."