The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1914-02-11
The First American.

The First American.
It is good thing for us that tomorrow while
celebrating his birthday, we can call to MIND Inc
achievements of Abraham Llncoln-not MS trl
unphs of craftsmanship so much as his private
and personal victories. Lincoln, the President
the Commander Chief of armies, was the Chile
and product of Lincoln, the man.
Lincoln is sometimes spoken of as having
been an uneducated person. Nothing could bt
farther from the fact. He was one of the most
completely educated men in the history of this
country. Although he did not have access tt
schools and academies, he seized on the oppor
tunities at hand and like every truly masterfu
person. made his meagre opportunities yield him
a magnificent service. 1t was on three books thai
his mind was hammered into shape-the Bible
Shakespeare and Euclid. By means of the first
he achieved character as finely tempered as {
piece of steel and adequate to meet every strair
placed upon it, Shakespeare aroused anc
strengthened his imagination, enabling him tt
think in continental terms and to see conditions
in their broad sweeps and reaches. By means OF
Euclid and his stiff mathematical drills, he was
able to make of his intellect smooth running
and accurate instrumentality. Few brains have
ever received the same amount of discipline anC
training.
Another current misconception of Lincoln is
that he is often described as having been a kino
of coarse and sensual man. True enough, hac
some traveller dropped into the Illinois grocery
store where he loved to loaf, he would have seer
little in Lincoln to differentiate him from his fel
low-gosspers and story-tellers. But had this
same man been able to probe beneath the surface
he would have discovered there one of the SUI
premely spiritual characters in the whole Ions
history of mankind Not only did the Bible en-
able him to develop his consciousness of God bu
also his habit of prayer made the unseen an(
spiritual things as real to him as iron and stone
In the hard and trying days at the White House
he found two sources of relief, through hu
NOR, the other through prayer Many times HI
was discovered in the early gray of the morning
gaunt and hollow-eyed, after having lain on hi
face on the floor wrestling the night through il
prayer. It was this certainty of the reality of tn
spiritual world that enabled him to rise like
lighthouse above his darkened contemporaries
and to stand unmoved beneath the shock of tn
most terrible antagonisms that have ever beer
focused single individual
1t was this thoroughly seasoned and discip
lined character and that marvelously accurate
intellect that enable Lincoln to perform for hi
generation the supreme service. He fount
himself in the midst of bewidered people
Voices were crying every side. "Io here" ant
"Lo there" Everybody knew something was
wrong but nobody was able to say as to wha
was wrong. On this chaos of conflicting opinions
Lincoln turned the steady searchlight of his
luminous intellect and out of the tangle of diff
culties- disentangled that scarlet thread which
was Tightening on the throat of the Republic 81
that he able to convince his people that thu
tap root of all their difficulties was the nsttu
ton of slavery. We in our day. looking acros
the perspective of fifty years with the map of
generation unrolled before us, can see that grea
elementary fact standing out like a mountain
chain. But the keenest minded in his day, tn
Webster and the rest, could not see it, 1t was JUS
because he was able to lay bare the essenta
situation and to indicate the heart of the trouble
that Lincoln became the emancipation of tn
slaves and the savior of the Republic.
But there was nothing magical or super
natural about this man any more than about an,
other man. His marvellous power at the helm O
the nation was the direct fruit of his untirin,
industry, his steady perseverance in those earle
formative years, when his friends and neighbor
idled away their time at loafing or busted them
selves about their trifing affairs, that enabled
him to climb to that steep which won for hin
the poets description THE first American" H
conquered himself. 1t was because of this tina
he was able to conquer nations
Creating WILL
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