The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1909-02-10
The Nations Tribute to
"a Great White SOUL" a
"Humanized Interpreted
ton of the Golden Rule"
q HE hour when a great white
soul comes to earth should be
held in perpetual memory. The

soul comes to earth should be
held in perpetual memory. The
soil his foot first presses is
hallowed ground. Time and place are
never so sacred as when they mark
the advent of those sent of God to help
men. They form the links that bind
heaven and earth. They lend an added
luster to every time and every place,
Just as one who wears the human form
worthily confers nobility ON all of the
sons Of men.
Abraham LincolI. made every one in
human guise more precious He re-
minds us OF our better selves. He was
symbol of the homeliest and common
est, yet of the highest and rarest hui
man things. We cannot think OF him
without becoming more loving. more
charitable and more true. There is not
an element in him that does mot make
one better to contemplate. The pure In
heart can read all Of his life without a
blush, and the gentlest and most timid
can view his every deed without
shudder. Lincoln had goodness with
out self righteousness, spirituality
without cant, intellectually without
dOgmatism and power without tyran-
ny. He had most of the talents with
none of their abuses There are many
great men we can admire and respect.
but Lincoln we can love.
He was born hundred years ago
this year. 1t is fitting. therefore, that
the land for which he lived and died
should honor the event as it has hon.
Ored but one other of its sons. We
have not enough of the supreme souls
that we can spare the example of one.
1t is not for their sake that we canon
lie them, but for the sake Of all the
rest. They do not need our praise. but
we need their stimulus. BY uplifting
them we uplift ourselves. They act as
spiritual magnets to draw us to their
height By contemplating them we
unconsciously grow like them. No one
can measure the moral force of one
Lincoln centenary.
All men are in substantial agreement
as to their verdict concerning him
The only difference is in the degree of
their praise. There is no sectionaliSm
In his appreciation. The south could
not spare his gentle memory more
than the north. Never was a victor
less like a conQueror. 1t is as impossi-
BILE to feel resentment toward him as
howard a dead father.
We grow like what we love. 1t is
this fact which lends such beautiful
significance to the universal regard
for Lincoln, that makes so inspiring
the widespread celebration of the cen
tenary of his birth. A nation which
builds itself around such an ideal
will not only have a new birth of
freedom" but will have new birth
of peace, of manhood and of nobility
that will place it in the forefront of
the nations of all time.
It will be an inspiring spectacle
when at the same hour on Feb. II as
semblies in all parts of the nation
turn their faces toward the tomb at
Springfield. 1t may we'll be that this
ceremony will become worldwide and
that Americans in all parts of the
earth will join the celebrators at
Springfield In repeating certain of
Mr.. Lincoln's utterances with their
faces toward his place of rest. Among
the eminent Illinoisans who form the