Williams news., 1910-02-19
LINCOLN: WAS HE
 INSPIRED OF GOD?
(By Henry Watterson.)

From Caesar to Bismarck and Gladstone the world has had it's soldiers and it's statesmen, who rose to eminence and power step by step through a series of arithmetical progression, as it were, each promo tion following in regular order, the whole obedient to the we'll estab | lished and we'll understood laws of cause and effect. These were not what we call linen of destiny." They were men of the time. They were men whose career had a be- ginning, middle. and an end, l rounding off a life with a history, full, it may be, of interesting and exciting events, but comprehensi- ble and comprehensive, clear, sim pie, complete.
 The inspired men are fewer. Whence their emanation. where and how they got their power, and by what rule they lived, moved and had their being, we cannot see. There is no application to their lives. They rose from shadow and went in mist. We see them, feel them, but we know them not. They arrived, Gods word upon their lips; they did their office, Gods holy i light between the world and them, leaving behind memory half nor tai and half myth. From first to last they were distinctly the crea- tions of some special providence, baff1ing the wit of man to fathom, defeating the machinations of the ! world, the flesh, and the devil. rn- til their work was done, and pass ing from the scene as mysteriously as they had come upon it; Luther, to-wit; Shakespeare, Burns, even Bonaparte, the archangel of war, havoc, and ruin; not to go back into the dark ages for example of the hand of God stretched out to raise up, to protect, and to cast down.
 Tried by this standard, and ob- served in an historic spirit, where shall we find an illustration more impressive than in Abraham Lin coin, whose life, career, and death might be chanted by Greek chorus, as at once the prelude and the epi- logue of the most imperial theme of modern times?
 Born as low as the son of God in a hovel; of what real percentage we know not; reared in penury, squal- or, with no gleam of light, nor fair surroundings; young manhood vexed by weird dreams and visions, bordering at times on madness; without a grace, natural or ac- quired, singularly awkward, un- gainly, even among the uucouth about him; grotesque in his aspects and ways-it was reserved for this strange being, late in life, without name or fame or preparation, to be snatched from the obscurity, raised to supreme command at supreme moment, and entrusted with the destiny of nation. l The great leaders of his party were made to stand aside; the most experienced and accomplished pub lie men of the day-men like Sew ard and Chase and Sumner, states men famous and trained, were sent to the rear, while this unknown and fantastic figure was brought by unseen hands to the front and given the reins of power. It is inmate. rial whether we believe in what he said or did; whether we are for him or against him; that during foul years, carrying with them such a pressure of responsibility as the world had never witnessed before he filled the measure of the vas
 space allotted to him in the actions of mankind and in the eyes of tht
 world, is to say that he was in