The Holly chieftain., 1922-02-09

JM&XIM lions as Abraham Lincoln. The
M|MXSsS words of him who neverrhad year
<EAN In school are used in teaching col
lege students the highest posslbil
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 with nature; there is heard
His voice In all her music. from the
or thunder to the song of nights sweet bird:
He is presence to be felt and known
In darkness and in light from herb and
Spreading itself where'er that Power may move
Which has withdrawn his being to its own;
Which wieds the world with never -wearied love.
Sustains 1t from beneath and kindles 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 thousand Boswells but no great
one. Some 1900 books 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 Lincolns own words, the letters and ad-
dresses hold first place. He can be trusted as the
best witness In his own case. His word was rs
good as his bond, and his life was as good MS his
word. Speech was the water from living we'll
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.
cipe falls in the trial by combat the cause suffers
I'm his defeat.
Abraham Lincoln was not speculative phlos
opier, an originator of systems of thought But
he one of the greatest exponents ana defend
ers of truth in Its applications and illustrations
In human experience that the world has ever seen
Ito ia sind, ,nrlc ,I,fnI,,
fectly teach the balance between thought and act
principle and practice, general truth and particu
lar fact
The same is true of the letters which are fuu
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 more nearly complete and sntisfyinp
expression of the man In his letters than in his
addresses In them he confounds the enemies of
people. and comforts the broken-hearted with
tenderness that had blossomed upon the graves of
Nancy Hanks and Ann Rutledge and upon those of
his children.
For In this man and emotion vera
Joined like form and color in n flower He re-
joiced in the exercise of his mind but he bad none
of that intellectual arrogance that denies all II
cannot comprehend prove The charge of ntbe
Ism Is the most futile of all that have been brought
against him. AS an inquirlng 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
Gen. Daniel Sickles was hardly the man to invent
pous tale. He has repeated to many witnesses
the story Of Lincoln's prayer before Gettysburg