The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1908-02-26
LINCOLN AND OUR DEMOC-
RACY.
A PATRIOTIC SERMON.
BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE.

BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE.
The miracles done by the sun and
the winds--two of the commonest ex-
ternal forces that act upon living things
we pass by because they are SO COM
mon. Yet the sun and the winds
fashion our habits, order our lives, di-
rect our aspirations, control our des-
tlnies and give us our gods. On the
wlnd-swept plains that slope down from
the Rocky mountains to the Missouri
river, an elm tree grows, differing from
the elm tree of the Middle States, as
one star ditf'ereth from another in
glory. The plains elm has all the In
effable grace that distinguishes the elm
from the other trees of the woods,
but 1t reaches no considerable height;
1t sprawls rather than plumes, and still
1t is an elm. 1t maintains the elm
angle of branches the elm curve and
tleXiblhty of top-the elm character.
Moreover, It preserves, in spite OF the
winds that whip it, the gregarious in
stinct of all trees, and wherever one
sees two elms, or three, or a closely
planted group, he sees the twigs and
stems and branches and trunks all
striving to simulate one tree-to imi-
tate the type. So when these groups
of elms unite with oaks and hackber-
ries and walnuts and sycamore and
cottonwood to make the fringe along a
prairie stream, again they work togeth-
er to reproduce their type and make
one prairie woods like all prairie woods.
Nowhere do the white trunks of the
syeamores predominant; always the
high caste elms and walnuts subiugatc
the low caste cottonwoods-unt they
reach pointer the rising plains
where the winds and sun seem To help
the cottonwooels, and then the type OF
woods Of the lower plain disappears,
BREAKING THE DAM.
But in its own zone and longitude
the persistence Of a type Of woodland,
the exactitude with which nature cuts
the angles of all the ravines, turns the
burrows of all the draws and arroyos,
molds the hillocks and gashes the
creek making a persistent type
of river picture different from all other
river pictures on the planet that know
different winds and other slants of sun
this is one of the "signs and woE-
ders" of life about us, SO wonted and
SO usual that we neglect II, and 50
lose one OF Gods parallels given us to
solve the mystery Of life.
Man was not idly told to consider
the lilies. For if the divine plan can
work in life before consciousness dawns
with such exactness as it works in the
balances of nature-in the grass and
the flowers add the trees--with how
much greater force and directness must
the divine plan be working through
the animate world. So in studying
any period of human existence, when
one man or one event seems to use
above the level of things and decide
and direct and dominate affairs, it may
be well to consider il, after all, it is
the man or the event that really domi-
mates or decides, or if rather the man
or the event or both were not reflec-
tons of the life about them. We
are accustomed to think of
Abraham Lincoln as our political de-
liverer from an impending calamity.
That his steadfast purpose, his clear
moral vision, his logged righteousness,
and his cheerful serene soul were need
ed to bring about the very end that
came, seems obvious. But the fact
that he rose to his power in democ-
racy, by such natural selection as the
politics OF the day provided, would
seem to prove also that he only re-
ilected these qualities as they domi-
mated his country Lincoln was the
moving finger; and "having writ"
moved on. But what he wrote was
the spirit of the times. What he did
some other must have done---perhaps
ditterently---but to the same end, if
there had been no Lincoln.
LINCOLN A REFLECTION.
There are no "ifs" in history. The
IFS are merely polemic hypothesis
This or that man, or event, or idea,
may dam the current of life for a day
or year or century or an age---"for
a thousand years are but as watch in
the nigh" but the dam does not check
the force of the current; indeed, the
current seems to lose but little time
When it overcomes the dam, it moves
that much faster.
For all any man knows it is just as
true to say that the movement which
put the word "whte" in the Federal
Constitution was a dam against the
stream of liberty, as to say that Lin
coin by his own force and initiative
sawed America" Only as Lincoln
was American could he lead Ameri-
leans; only as America was able to