The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1909-02-13

barefoot boy in the valleys of Ken
lucky and the forests of Indiana strug-
CLING amid poverty and discourage
ment to know and TO be; youth in
Illinois. winning his way by utmost
endeayor of body and of mind. to a
place OF honored independence and
.unchalenged leadership as lawyer
and publicist: a full-rounded man
called to national emergency great
er than the land and it's institutions
had ever faced, bearing a nation S
burdens with unconquered faith, and
courageous heroism greater than that
on any battle field; coming gradually
into his inheritance of love and conf
dence on the part of the people whom
he loved and trusted; living only to
see and be thrilled by the foregleams
Of the day of restored peace; then fall
ing, by an assassin's hand, amid the
fears and tears of nation sore be-
reft, While the rising TIE Deum of
thanksgiving suddenly changed to the
Missere of outbreaking sorrow-this
is the outline of the life which we con-
template this night, mingling our
songs and our signs with those of I'M
numbered thousands who elsewhere
gather in such assemblies as this.
I have not fifty analysed his char
acter, nor catalogued the qualities
which made him great, nor estimated
the value of his service to the cause
of human freedom and national in
tegrity and permanence. The world
will little note nor long remember
what is said here But it can never
forget what he did More and more
as the years have gone on he has
grown in the love, esteem and honor OF
our own and other peoples.
Wherever thoughtful minds shall
mediate on the advances of men and
nations in the direction of that far
off divine event toward which the
whole creation moves" Abraham Lin
coin must loom large and larger. For
his services to the world. to human
liberty and to the triumph of God and
righteousness are more and more ap
preciated as the years increase. He
has become the possession not OF
America only, but of humanity. His
name is dear not only among us. but
wherever liberty struggles for life.
AS they gathered around his bed
that gray morning of April 10, 1865
they knew that a great man and a
prince had fallen. And when the last
sigh had passed those trembling lips;
when the paleness of death stole over
his tired face and wakened it to
peace: when the eyes that had looked
with tears of pity upon the sufferings
and sorrows which he could not cure
were gently closed to every scene OF
earth: when Abraham Lincoln, great
est of Americans, passed to take his
place beyond the praise or blame OF
men beyond the smiling and the
weeping beyond his own heartache
and the burdens OF his great office, be-
yond the honors which men might give
him or deny him. beyond the ken or
care of things of time. Sec. Stanton
raised his ewes and hands to heaven
and said. with choking voice, what we
saw here tonight, Now he is with the
ages"
Abraham Lincoln. the representative
American, and the greatest, has lain in
the honored silence of his grave for
nearly half a century, but he has i'm
mortality in the love OF the nation. He
being dead yet speaks a continuing
message of patriotism and fraternity
II is for us and those who follow us
Of the North and of the South, to pre-.
serve what he won by his life and
death
BY all that he saw and suffered, by
all that he dared and did, by all that
he endeavored and accomplished, by
his triumphs and his tears, by his
hopes and his heartaches by his liy.
ing and his dying, by his speech and
by his silence. Abraham Lincoln sum
mons us to a greater love for our land
and a greater devotion to its welfare
and it's honor, so that his prayer may
be answered. and government of the
neople by the people, for the people
shall not perish from the earth.