The Raymer enterprise., 1922-02-09

%E9HH In school are used In teaching col.
lege students the highest possIblll.
ties of language. His coined phrases are worn
smooth and dateless In current speech. But more
than that his habit Of thought has guided the
. thinking of errand boy and President. His faith
quickens the faith Of US all. Shelley wrote Of
Keats
He Is made one with nature; there Is heard
His voice In all her music. from the moan
OF thunder to the song OF nights sweet Bird
He Ia presence to be felt and known
In darkness and In light from herb and stone
Spreading itself where'er that Power may move
Which has withdrawn his being 10 Its own:
Which Yields the world with never wearIcd love,
sustains 1t from beneath and k!nd!es 1t above
In such wise the man whose birth we celebrate
has entered into the life of his people and
Is In process Of penetrating the wider circles of the
whole worlds life. This, on its earthward side,
is the immortality of Abraham Lincoln.
The man had a thousand Boswell but no great
one Some 1900 books or pamphlets have
been issued dealing with the yfrlous phases Of
the subject. But II the choice must be made
between the books other men have written about
him and LncOln's own words the letters and nd.
dresses hold first place. He can be trusted as the
best witness In his own case His word was as
good AZ his bond, and his life was us good as his
word. Speech was the water from a living well
under which the strenm Of character never failed
Probably the majority Of men desire To be count.
I'd on the side Of truth. But few will make any
great effort to find what Is true And, Sir Thomas
browne declares not every man Is n OF champion
OF truth. For when the man who is right in prin.
clple fails In the trial by combat. the cause suffers
In his defeat
! Abraham Lincoln was not q speculative phlIos.
ppher. an originator Of systems OF thought BUT
lie was one Of the greatest exponents and defend.
srs Of truth in Its applications and Illustrations
IN human experience that the world has ever seen
His life and words-whch are Observation-Disclosures
fectly teach the balance between thought and act
principle and practice, general truth and particu.
lnr fact
[ The same Is true of the letters. which are fu
Of keen and kindly applications to the life of eacb
one of US and of the whole people. Even with
Gettysburg and the second inaugural In mind We
have found more nearly complete and satisfying
expression Of the man In his letters than in his
addresses In them he confounds the enemies of
the Republic, admonlshes, warns. and instructs his
people. and comforts the broken. hearted with a
tenderness that had bossomed upon the graves of
Nancy Hanks and Ann Rutledge and upon those OF
his children.
For In this man reason and emotion were
Joined like form and color In a flower He re.
toiced In the exercise of his mind but he had none
of that intellectual arrogance that denies all II
cannot comprehend or prove. The charge OF athe-
ism is the most futile Of all that have been brought
against him. As an inquiring boy he read Tom
Paine and wrote an essay along radical lines but
the pressure Of human need constrained him to
turn to Divinity.
Prayer was the very breath OF his later life.
ien Daniel Sickles was hardly the man to invent
il plous tale. He has repeated to many witnesses
the story OF Ilncoln's prayer before Gettysburg