The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1922-02-02


ties of language His coined phrases are worn
smooth and dateess 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
or thunder to the song of nights sweet bird;
He is a presence to be felt and known
In darkness and in light from herb and stone
Spreading itself where'er that Power may
Which has withdrawn his being to its own;
Which Yields the world with never-wearied love.
susains 1t from beneath and kindles it 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 thousand Boswells but no great
one. Some 1900 books or pamphlets have
been issued dealing with the various phases of
the subject. But If the choice must be made
between the books other men have written about
him and Lncons own words the letters and ad.
dresses hold first place. He can be trusted as the
best witness in his case. His word was as
good as his bond, and his life was as good as his
word Speech was the water from living WELL
under which the stream of character never failed.
Probably the majority of men desire to be count.
ed 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 fit champion
of truth. For when the man who is right in prin.
cple fails in the trial by combat the cause suffers
In his defeat
Abraham Lincoln was not a speculative philos-
opher an originator of systems of thought But
he was one of the greatest opponents and DEFEND.
ers of truth in its applications and illustrations
in human experience that the world has ever seem
His life and words-which are lhseparube-per-
fectly teach the balance between thought and act
principle and practice, general truth and particll.
lar fact
The same is true OF the letters which are fun
of keen and kindly applications to the life Of each
one of us and Of the whole people Even with
Gettysburg and the second inaugural in mind we
have found nearly complete and satisfying
expression of the man in his letters than I'm his
addresses In them he confounds the enemies of
the Republic, admonishes, warns and nstructs 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 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 1t
cannot comprehend or prove The charge of athe-
ism is the most futile of all that have been brought
against him. AS an inqulring 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 the very breath Of his later life
Gen. Daniel Slckles was hardly the man to invent
a pious tale lie has repeated to many witnesses
the story of Lincolns prayer before Gettysburg