Evening star., 1896-03-30
WATTERsoN ON LINCOLN
A Brilliant Picture of the Great Nartyr
President.
A Tribute From the Famous Ex.Con
Snf- sra
federate That Thrilled q Vast
and DistinEuished Audience.

and D1AttnEU1Ahed Audience.
There was a splendid audience at Lafay-
cite Square Opera Hcuse last night to hear
Henry Watterson's lecture on Abraham
Lincoln. Among those present were Vice
President Stevenson, Secretary and Mrs.
Carlisle, Secretary Herbert, Secretary La
mont and Speaker Reed. In the audience
were nc ted men in civil and military life
from north and south, from New England
and the west. Gen, Miles introduced Mr..
Watterson, who was greeted with cordial
applause as he advanced on the stage.
Personally Mr.. Watterscn is a familiar
figure in Washington. Since his last ap-
pearance here time has placed its accent
somewhat III on him, and his hair and mus
tache are passing from silver gray to white.
But in spirit and manner he is young and
brilliant as ever. His style Of speaking was
simple, and, ii not oratorical, was neither
strained nor tense. His eloquence lay
rather in the inspiring conception Of his
him, his hearers. Sketching picturesquely
the men who strobe the stage of public af-
fairs in the first half century of the re-
of refinement, polish and
breeding-he reached the period when the
began over the question Of slavery,
and told the stcry of Lincoln's appearance
on the scene.
Webster and Clay believed in compro-
missing the question which would come for
ward, but their eloquence was to no pur-
csc; it was but a delay of the inevitable
The still small voice of emancipation broke
out; there became less and less middle
ground; the Senate had its Gettysburg, and
a Shiloh waged on the floor of the House"
Then there came one day into camp a
man not of Hogarth's line of beauty, but
Ole whose sentences were pregnant with
thought, who exclaimed: "A house divided
against itself cannot stand"
That man." said Col. Watterson, was
Abraham Lincoln"
Lincoln Was Inspired.
Ono of the most impressive features of
the lecture was Mr.. Watterson's eloquent
claim that Lincoln was inspired.
From Caesar to Bismarck and Glad
stone,'' said Mr.. Wattersoh, tine world has
had it's soldiers and it's statesmen, who
rose to eminence and power, step by step
through series of geometrical progress
sion. as 1t were, each promotion following
in regular order. the whole obedient to well
established and we'll understood laws Of
cause and effect. These were not what we
call men of destiny They were men of
the tirle. They were men whose career
had begir ming. middle and an end,
rounding off life with history, full, it
may be, of interesting and exciting events,
but comprehensive and comprehensive,
simple, clear, complete.
The inspired men are fewer. Whence
their emaaation. where and how they got
their power, and by what rule they lived.
moved and had their being, we cannot see.
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 arrived, Gods word upon their
lips; Trey did their office, Gods mantle
about them, and they passed away, Gods
holy light between the world and them,
leaving behind memory half-mortal and
half-myth. From the first to last they were
the creations of scme special
battling .the wit of man to
fathom, defeating the Vaccinations of the
world, the flesh and the devil until their
work was done, and passing from the
upon it; Luther, to wit: Shakespeare.
Burns; even Bonaparte, the arch angel Of
war, havoc and ruin; not to go back into
the dark ages for examples of the hand of
God stretched out to raise up to protect
and to cast down.
Tried by this standard, and observed in
an historic spirit. where shall we find an
Illustration more impressive than in Abra-
ram ircoln, whose life, career and death,
might be chanted by a Greek chorus as
at once the prelude and the epilogue of the
most imperial theme Of modern times?
His LOwly Birth.
Born as 1owly as the Son of God in a
>-S'SA' "a "hoS ACd4 pdFSuCdS0 we KNOW
not; reared in penury, squalor, with no
gieam OF light nor fair surrounding;
young manhood vexed by weird dreams
and visions bordering at times on madness:
without grace, natural or acquired: sin
gularly awkward. ungainly, even among
the uncouth about him; grotesque in his
aspects and ways. 1t was reserved for this
strange being, late in life, without name or
fame, or preparation, to be snatched from
obscurfty, raised to supreme command at a
supreme moment and intrusted with the
destiny Of nation.
The great leaders of his party were
made to stand aside; the most experienced
and accomplished public men of the day, men
like Seward and Chase and Sumner, states
men famous and trained, were sent to the
rear, whilst this unknown and fantastic
figure was brought by unseen hands to the
front and given the reins of power It is
imma terial whether we believe in
him or against him; that, during four
years, carrying with them such a pressure
OF responsibility as the world had never
witnessed before, he filled the measure of
the vast space allotted him in the actions
of mankind and in the eyes Of the world.
Is to say that he was inspired of God for
nowhere else could he have acquired the
enormous equipment indispensable to the
situation.
Raised Up by God.
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 alcne. And, as surely as these
" ere raised up by God, inspired of God, was
Abraham Lincoln; and, thousand years
hence, no story, no tragedy, no epic poem,
will be filled with greater wonder than that
which tells of his life and DEATH If Lin
coin was not inspired of God, then there is
no such thing on earth as special prov
ldence, or the interposition of Divine power
In the affairs of men
IF Lincoln was not inspired of God. then
were not Luther, Shakespeare, Burns"
The famous Lincoln-Douglas debates and
their effect on Lincoln's career were de-
scribed. The famous inaugural address of
1861, which Mr.. Watterson heard first be-
fore he linked his fortunes with the con-
federate cause, he said, showed the power
of the man as a master of affairs and of
men.
The Friend of the South.
To the death of Lincoln the speaker as
cribed the fearful decade that fell upon
the southern people succeeding the war.
Let no southerner criticise my statement"
said Mr.. Watterson. For he was the one
friend we had" The lecture closed with
a fine peroration, which thrilled the great
audience and told how great a labor of love
the edito or-statesman had made his study
OF the life of the martyr President