There is an old saying, "Like king, like people," which means that the king is usually not very different from the people whose executive he is. If this is true of kings, it surely must be true of American presidents. With this in mind, contrast the German Kaiser, William II, with Abraham Lincoln. The first constantly talked of himself and God as ruling the world. Boastfully declaring that he was the greatest of all men and that he ruled by divine right, the former German emperor brought upon the world the greatest evil that has ever befallen it through selfish ambition for himself, his family, and for the German autocracy; the other claiming to be a common man, a servant of men, seeking no riches, no throne, no personal power, entirely unselfish, gave his life at last to save a united democracy. Shall we not say that Lincoln served by the right of the divine qualities in him, while the Kaiser turned the world into a hell because of the selfish aims of his nature--aims that are just the opposite of divine? During the American Civil War, Mrs. Bixby, a Massachusetts mother, lost five sons. President Lincoln wrote her the following letter:-- "I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom." During the World War, Frau Meter, a German mother, lost nine sons. Kaiser William wrote her the following letter:-- "His Majesty the Kaiser hears that you have sacrificed nine sons in defense of the Fatherland in the present war. His Majesty is immensely gratified at the fact, and in recognition is pleased to send you his photograph, with frame and autograph signature." Is it necessary to add a word to make one who reads the two letters understand the difference between the two rulers and the two ideals they represent? God is man's highest ideal of good. Which represents this ideal, Lincoln or the Kaiser? The United States or Germany? A poet says of the Kaiser's letter:-- "What bit of writing plainer tells That neither love nor mercy dwells Within his heart? What picture grim Could better paint the soul of him?"