Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1915-02-16
SERMON ON "SP|R.
IT OF LINCOLN
Rev. H. L. Haywood Delivers Very
Fine Address in Memory of
Anniversary of Great
Emancipator.
FEW EXTRACTS REPRODUCED
Discourse Equalled Theme in Beauty
Of Conception-Well Filled
Church.
FEW EXTRACTS REPRODUCED

The audience room of the Univer-
salist church was well filed Sum
day morning to hear Rev. H. l.. Hay
woods sermon upon "The Spirit OF
Lincoln" The hearers were not dis
appointed for the discourse equalled
the theme in beauty of conception
as we'll as phrasing and delivery.
Space will not admit publishing the
entire sermon, but few extracts
are set forth with apologies for the
curtailing of so fine thing:
Lincoln was the greatest comman-
der, chief, orator, ruler of men that
the world has ever seen; but it is
not his achievements, great as they
may be. that we are called to medi-
tate upon. There is something
greater than observation-disclosures
own soul, deep, divine, multiform, it
will take wiser minds than ours to
scale it's depths.
sion; when he was a young man he
felt himself separate from men. He
felt that he was called of God to do
something in the world. This was
the secret of his long, strenuous
thorough efforts of self-education
This self-education was not for the
purpose of achieving fame.
Jesus also had a wonderful sense
of a mission which he was to do. 1t
was this very thing that led Lincoln
to educate himself. He had but one
brief year in school-his school was
life's' school-a perpetual school and
in the college-as Ebert Hubbard
has said-of Hard Knocks. Lii
coins library was six or seven books
Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrims Prog
ress, the history of the United States,
the Bible and a few others. The
small armful Of hooks which COM
prised the book-knowledge Of so
great man puts to shame the pos
SCISSOR of sixteen hundred volumes.
Lincoln was not an uneducated man;
he was one of the most completely
educated men in history. Lincoln
was neither an uncouth, uncultured
man, as one frequently reads. He
was a cultured mana completely
cultured man, for culture is the MAX
ing of knowledge part of ourselves
Any pedant can gather lot of in
formation and peddle it about, but
culture is another thing. 1t is &C
curate to say that Lincoln, Who
walked six miles for a grammar, was
a cultured man.
We can recall many persons who
made their mark in history, and the
greatest of these DID little or no pub
lie work until after thirty years. Our
Master spent thirty years in privacy
and seclusion, and three years in
public life. Mohammed, st. Paul, st.
Teresa, Rodger Bacon, Walt Whit
man and others-all achieved moth
ing until after they had spent long
years in seclusion or meditation. No
lucky accident made these person
ages great; it was not divine cap
rice, but the silent years-the OBJ
scure years were the root out of
which the rest came. In the last sew
en- years of Lincoln's life, he accom-
plished what has been given to his
tory. If he had no candle, he read
by the light of the open fire, of the
Pickering logs; he knew no obstacle.
He had absolutely no advantages.
His early home was poor-poverty
haunted; buried away on the from
labor of mind. They called him old
while he was yet young. His APP
pearance was that of repose, but his
brain was working away all
the time like an engine.
In his great debates with Douglas,
he made "The Little Giant" appear
like a pigmy. Why? Because his !
mighty brain never rested. In 1858
he made his great speech in the
House and no one was able to trip
him up on the slave question because
of hours of toll of the mind.
In Lincolns soul was an equal
passion of true democracy. The
word had its birth long years ago.
500 years before Jesus, in Athens,
where lived a man, shaped like a
toad, uncouth, twisted, Socrates who
welded together the word meaning
'ule, and that meaning mastership
If the people. Lincoln believed in
he common man. With our lips We
sometimes say we believe in the peo-