Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1895-02-21

tanned the fact. From the hour Abraham
Lincoln crossed the threshold of the White
House to the hour he went thence to his
tragic death there was not a moment
when he did not dominate the political
and military situation and his official
subordinates. The idea that he was over
matched at any time by anybody is con-
tradicted by all that actually happened.
Lincoln and the South.
want to say just here few words
about Mr.. Lincoln's relation to the South
and toward the people of the South.
He was himself Southern man. He
and all his tribe were Southerners. Al
though he left Kentucky when the merest
child, he was an old child; he never was
very young; he grew to manhood in
Kentucky colony; for what is Illinois,
what is Chicago, but Kentucky colony,
grown somewhat out of proportion? He
was i'm no sense what we used to call "a
poor white" Awkward, perhaps; niger
less, certainly, but aspiring; the spirit of a
hero beneath that rugged exterior; the
Imagination of poet beneath those heavy
brows; the courage of lion beneath
those patient, kindly aspects; and, long
before he was of legal age, leader His
first love was a Rutledge; his wife was
Todd.
Let the romancist tell the story of his
romance. l dare not. No sadder idyl
can be found in all the annals of the poor.
We know that he was a poet; for have
we not that immortal prose-poem recited
at Gettysburg? We know that he was
statesman; for has not time vindicated
his conclusions? But the South does not
know, except as kind of hearsay, that
he was FRIEND the one friend who had
the power and the will to save it from
itself. The direst blow that could have
been inflicted upon the South was deliv-
cred by the assassin's bullet that struck
him down.
Throughout the wild contention that
preceded the war, amid the lurid passions
that attended the war itself, not one bitter
or narrow word escaped the lips of Abra-
ham Lincoln, whilst there was hardly
day that he was not projecting bis big.
sturdy personality between some South
ern man or woman and danger.
The Laws of Inspiration.
From Caesar to Bismarck and Glad
stone the world has had its statesmen and
its soldiers--men who rose to eminence
and power step by step, through series
of geometric progression, as it were, each
advancement following in regular order
one after the other, the whole obedient to
well-established and MISUNDERSTOOD laws
of cause and effect. They were not what
we call "men of destiny" They were
''men Of the time" They were men whose
careers had q beginning, middle, and
an end, rounding of lives with histories,
full it may be of interesting and exciting
| hnt ahnn .;x
hensible; simple, clear, complete.
The inspired men are fewer. Whence
their emanation, where and how they got
their power, and by what rule they lived,
moved and had their being, we know not
| There is no explication to their lives. They
rose from shadow and they went in mist.
We see them, feel them, but we know
| them not They came, Gods word upon
their lips they did their office, Gods man
tie about them; and they passed away,
Gods holy light between the world and
them, leaving behind memory, half NOR
tai and half myth. From first to last they
were the creations of some special Provi-
dence, battling the wit of man to fathom,
defeating the Vaccinations of the world,
the flesh, and the devil, and, their work
done, passing from the scene as mystic
riously as they had come upon it.
Tried by this standard where shall we
! find an illustration more impressive than
! Abraham Lincoln, whose career might be
chanted by a Greek chorus as at once
the prelude and the epilogue of the most
| imperial theme of modern times.
Born as lowly as the Son of God, in
hovel; of what ancestry we know not and
care not reared in penury, squalor, with
no CLEAN of light or fair surroundings;
| without external graces, actual or acquir-
ed; without name or fame or Off cial train
ing; it was reserved for this strange be-
! ing, late in life, to be snatched from OBJ
| scurity, raised to supreme command at
supreme moment, and intrusted with the
destiny of a nation.
The great leaders of his party, the most
experienced and accomplished public men
| of the day, were made to stand aside;
were sent to the rear, whilst this fantas-
tic figure was led by unseen hands to the
front and given the reins of power. 1t
is immaterial whether we were for him or
against him-wholly immateriaI. That,
during four years. carrying with them
such a pressure of responsibility as the
world never witnessed before, he filed the
vast space allotted him in the eyes and
actions of mankind, is to say that he was
| inspired of God, for nowhere else could he
have acquired the wisdom and the grace
indispensable to his mission.
Where did Shakespeare get his genius :?
| Where did Mozart get his music? Whose
hand smote the Tyre of the Scottish plow-
man, and stayed the life of the German
priest? God, God, and God alone; and
as surely rs these were raised up by God,
inspired by God, was Abraham Lincoln;
and thousand years hence no story. no
tragedy, no epic poem will be filed with
greater wonder, or be followed by man
kind with deeper feeling, than that which
! tells of his life and death.