He knew others, because perfectly acquainted with himself. He cared nothing for place, but everything for principle; little for money, but everything for independence. Where no principle was involved, easily swayed--willing to go slowly, if in the right direction--sometimes willing to stop; but he would not go back, and he would not go wrong. He was willing to wait. He knew that the event was not waiting, and that fate was not the fool of chance. He knew that slavery had defenders, but no defence, and that they who attack the right must wound themselves. He was neither tyrant nor slave. He neither knelt nor scorned. With him, men were neither great nor small--they were right or wrong. Through manners, clothes, titles, rags and race he saw the real--that which is. Beyond accident, policy, compromise and war he saw the end. He was patient as Destiny, whose undecipherable hieroglyphs were so deeply graven on his sad and tragic face. Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except on the side of mercy. Wealth could not purchase, power could not awe, this divine, this loving man. He knew no fear except the fear of doing wrong. Hating slavery, pitying the master--seeking to conquer, not persons, but prejudices--he was the embodiment of the self-denial, the courage, the hope and the nobility of a Nation. He spoke not to inflame, not to upbraid, but to convince. He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction. He longed to pardon. He loved to see the pearls of joy on the cheeks of a wife whose husband he had rescued from death. Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the gentlest memory of our world. VOLTAIRE. I. THE infidels of one age have often been the aureoled saints of the next. The destroyers of the old are the creators of the new. As time sweeps on the old passes away and the new in its turn becomes old. There is in the intellectual world, as in the physical, decay and growth, and ever by the grave of buried age stand youth and joy. The history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of infidels. Political rights have been preserved by traitors, the liberty of mind by heretics. To attack the king was treason; to dispute the priest was blasphemy. For many centuries the sword and cross were allies. Together they attacked the rights of man. They defended each other. The throne and altar were twins--two vultures from the same egg. James I. said: "No bishop, no king." He might have added: "No cross, no crown." The king owned the bodies of men; the priest, the souls. One lived on taxes collected by force, the other on alms collected by fear--both robbers, both beggars.