Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1909-02-18
THE TYPICAL American.
Sermon Delivered BY Rev. Chas. De-
Woody in Central Baptist Church,
Woodbury., n. j., Feb. IA, 1903.

day anything like an adequate picture
of him whose memory we celebrate
There have been ten thousand. at
tempts at the life of Abraham Lincoln,
whereof that of Wilkes Booth was
the most atrocious, yet it stands by
no means alone. Orators have
i spoken; preachers have sermonized;
editors have written; countless bio
graphies have been issued, yet none
of these have been able to portray
the complete man.
Abraham Lincoln was born in Ken
lucky on February II, 1909; that me-
morable year that gave birth to Ten
nyson, Darwin, Mendellssohn, oliver
/ Wendell Holmes, Edgar Allen Poe and
/ VIM. e. Gladstone.
His father, Thomas Lincoln, and his
/ mother, Nancy Hanks, were natives
of Virginia.
| When Lincoln was eight years old,
! his father moved to Indiana. The re-
gion was wilderness, and the boy
grew up in pioneer life, dwelling in a
rude log cabin, in the primitive man
ners of a backwoodsman. He had
little or no opportunity for schooling,
! so he chopped wood, and split rails,
and hoed corn, learning to read as
best he could and SO growing up to
be six feet four inches tall by the
time he was twenty years of age.
About this time his father took a
fresh plunge into the wilderness-this
time into the heart of Illinois, halting
for a year near the present city of
Springfield, and then striking East
ward seventy miles, whittier the son
did not see fit to follow him. He had
already, at the age of nineteen, made
trip down the Mississippi to New
Orleans on a fiat boat, laden with pro-
duce. A little later he helped build
another boat and made a second trip
to- the Crescent City On his return,
he served a year as clerk in a store.
Then he was elected captain of a
company of volunteers for the Black
Hawk war of 1882. Then he became
a law student. and a candidate for
the les'isiata &. lie failed aNEsiRrs ion.
but received an almost unanimous
vote in his own precinct. He studied
surveying, and at twenty-three years
of age, inthe same season, became a
captain of volunteers, a candidate for
representative and a student at law.
the frequent changes of occupation
were not the marks of an unstable
mind; they were undertaken that he
might keep from starving, and at the
same time help himself to a place in
the Republic of knowledge.
In 1884, when 25 years of age, he
was elected to the legislature, the
youngest but one, and probably the
tallest member of that body. Thrice
he was reelected, and in 1910 received
the vote of his fellow Wings for speak
er. Thus at thirty-one, he was the
recognized leader of his party in Hli-
nois.
His legislative experience was still
further enlargedby his service of one
term as Representative to Congress
to which he was elected in 184S. He
had become an eloquent and infiuen-
tial public speaker, and in several
campaigns was on his party ticket as
presidential elector.
Though still mingling in politics to
some extent, for a period of five years,
he devoted himself to the study and
practice of law, his repeated success
drawing him into the most important
cases.
With Lincoln's two years in Con-
gress at forty years of age, closes the
firstperiod of his life. He had now
risen from laborer to student; from
clerk to lawyer; from politician to
legislator. Thus by healthy am
bition, his industry lifted him from a
farm hand to a place in the Nations
Capitol, where he had a voice in
framing the laws of his country.
The second period of his life in
cludes the ten years from 1865 to
his presidential nomination in 1860.
In this period he devoted much time
to the study of law. He saw the Whig
party swept away, and assisted in the
formation of the New Republican
party. He met his lifelong opponent,
Stephen A. Douglas, in those famous
joint debates held all over Illinois.
He saw his rival win the coveted prize
from him-a seat in the U. S. Senate.
Then in 1860 Lincoln received the far
greater honor, the nomination for the
Presidency, by the Republican party,
while Douglas was the choice of one
of the factions of the Democratic
party.
The third period of his life begins
with his inauguration on March 4,
1861, and ends with his tragic death
in 1865, after having guided the des-
TIMES of the nation through the might
lest civil war the world has ever
seen, and his reelection to the Presi-
Dental chair in 1864.
So much for the bare outline of his
eventful life. Let us look more close
ly now at the man himself and the
part he took in that memorable drama
of the nations hisotry.
l. In the first place, he stands be-
fore us as the First American, and the
ideal product of the new American
civilization. Shall we place him above
Washington? He, too, was an Amer
lean. He was born, lived and died
here. He carved out our independ-
ence with his splendid sword. But for
all that, the Father of our Country
was English in his nature, habits and
social theories. The genuine Amer
ican Of the Lincoln type came later,
Continued on page Two)