The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-02-12

opened his great heart of charity to the people as he spoke of his thought of re- construction, and his hope of bringing back the southern states into practical relations" to the Union. Among his last words he spoke of a. some new an- nouncement which he was considering to make to the south" He was taken, and that announcement was left un- made.
 From all the eulogies which have been spoken in Lincoln's memory, find
 to-day one sentence lingering in my
 mind, not from the great and the noble, the statesmen, poets and princes who
 have added their tribute to Elis growing fame, but a sentence uttered shortly
 after his death by slave whom his emancipation proclamation had made free: Lincoln died too soons not too soon for his own enduring fame, but too soon for his country's good Sirs: We keep not worthily Lincoln's day, if we pause not for the moment to con- template his enduring fame, and bring no new conservation of his spirit for our country's present tasks On Lin coln's day the higher patriotism of the people should find it's voice and hour. In his heroic age the conflict for the physical unity of the republic was fought to the end, and forever settled.
 In our confused industrial time the con- flict for the moral integrity of the coun- try remains. It Is the present call and
 unfinished task of the American people. Not now, as of old are the lines drawn in visible array, and the battle is not
 for us wit hthe sword, amid the storm
 of balls and sound of the deep-throated guns, as once on those historic fields. But the conflict is real now, as then, and for issues vital to men. The field is in workshop and office, in the high places of power and wherever men may toll; and from this ceaseless human
 conflict of the right with the wrong no
 man can by His Maker be held exempt.
 The victory to be won ever new is the
 triumph of law over disunion; of lib-
 erty over bondage; of humanity over
 baseness; of God over mammon. Tn
 this conflict the soul-stirred ag,lator,
 the fierce denunciator, the blind parti-
 san may have his moment and his use, as did Garrison and Phillips, and rarty leaders, trimming for the storm, and impatient statesmen, calling through the darkness for swift change and sud- den strokes of politics in those fateful days long passel; but God in that hour of the country's agony had called greater prophet and a humber servant of his sovereign providence; another stood among them, one of the common people, yet solitary and apart from all other men, willing to do the right as he saw 1t. and waiting for Gods hour. Our countrys father was parted from us as in the chariots of Israel, and the tlorsenen thereof And we saw him no more.
 Would that Lincoln's mantle as the great prophets of old might fall upon the youth of the land who shall dare in their ambition to 10 the right Ito vote,'' as Lincoln said, "the truth and not d lie, to grasp this one sublime principle, whlcfl Lincoln through darkest years held fast, and which raised him to the stars. Whatever appear to be Gods will, I will do." Then may Lincoln's dream of peace find new fulflments over all our fierce competitions and in- dustriar strife, and for all who in this land become Americans these words of our country's great peacemaker once and again prove true: we are not ene- mics, but friends. We must not be ene- mics Though passion may have strain- ed, 1t cannot break our bonds of affec, ton. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad iand, will yet swell the chorus of the union, when again touched, as surely they will be, but the better angels of our na- ture:"