Barbour County index., 1910-02-16

Rs9I kKSBT highest, hOliest note in
keykSsE1ASS the nmost native soul
'-A<1A1S-A1~7A of the American people. d Il
In the new paganism of commerce; / q
of money getting, no matter how;
OF criticism of public men who,
whatever their faults, are to be n IL,
loved because they have been hated ~ "
by those who seek to make the W
tion sinister and corrupt, there is NV
nothing sodden and sordid but NN
will in sense uncover and A
spss1 sSss,.m at the 5.a3o sound of the name of ~
The average American does not II
shout when he hears the name of c
Abraham Lincoln. Even the politi-
cal demagogue, the stock gambler
the captain Of industry, is likely to
grow silent and reverential when
the name of Lincoln is spoken
And while getting ready to honor
Lincoln it is well to add that none may un-
derstand his people who has not first discov-
cred what it is in his character and in ours
that makes us love him above comparison in
the story of the worlds great men-love
him for his poverty, his simplicity for his hui
manity, for his fidelity, for his justice. for his
planness, for his life and for his death
Sheer force of character must have been
the inherent trait which he had well cultivated
His attitude to women may have been but
an incident, but there can be question but
that the influence of various women with
whom 1t was his good fortune to be associ-
ated in his earlier days had not a little to do
with the forming of one of his most predomi-
nant traits. He was, in his later life one of
the kind of men of whom good women declare
IN all humility and honesty for their sex, that
through the tineness of his perception and his
gentility toward everyone and everything. that
he might have been a woman" 1t is high
compliment.
In the first place he was born of good
woman. Nancy Hanks his mother neglected
in the neglect of those of her social status at
the time she was born, must have in the sub
Unity of maternity engendered in the life
blood of her ilustrious offspring the nourish-
ment that made the great achievements of
Abraham Lincoln possible. Yet to her is due
but the honor of instilling, with her own blood
her own spirit the character that enabled
Abraham Lincoln to become the first Ameri.
can-the conglomerate of all that is meant
In the phrase, "the land of the free and the
home of the brave"
Nancy Hanks gave Lincoln birth She was
the daughter of supposedly illiterate and su.
perstitious people, but she was comely. intelli-
gent. knew how to read and write and taught
her husband Thomas Lincoln. father of the
president to scrawl his name.
The great Lincoln always believed that he
got his intelligence and powers from his
mother
The family moved from Kentucky to Ind,-
when Lincoln was seven years old Two
years later Nancy Hanks Lincoln succumbed
to a pestilence known as milk sickness She
died in October. Her husband sawed a coffin
out of the forest trees and buried her in a
little clearing Several months later a wan
dering frontier clergyman preached sermon
over her lonely grave. No wonder the conn
tenance OF the great emancipation moved all
who beheld it by its deep melancholy He
paced his Office in the White House all night
with white face and bowed head. sorrowine
the defeat Of Charlottesville wondering
whether he was to be the last president of the
United States and praying for the victory that
came at Gettysburg.
All that year the sensitive boy grieved for
the mother who had gone out of his life: hut
in time the father went back to Kentucky
and in Elizabethtown. near the big South Fork
OF Nolin creek, in Hardin county where Lin
coin was born, he married the widow of the
town jailer. Presently thereafter four.horse
wagon creaked up to the door Of the Lincoln
cabin in the Indiana forest and young ABE"
made his first acquaintance with Sarah Rush
Lincoln, who. next to his own mother was tn
become the second incentive of his youthful
life.
Sarah Bush Lincoln was a woman of thrift
and energy. tall. straight. fair and a kind.
hearted. motherly Christian. The American
people owe debt to this noble matron. who
did SO much to influence and develop the char
acter Of the bow who was yet to save the