Year: 1865

IN his policy his errors Will be found on
the side of humanity. Whenever he saw
humanity oppressed or degraded, there his
sympathy turned, there were the objects
of his care and solicitude. With him
the greater the degradation and misery he
saw, the greater was the need of his aid
and sympathy, the stronger the claim up.
on him. He could not turn away from
the appeal of the four millions of blacks
calling to him: Are we not men and
brethren =? His care with regard to them
was not only to set them free, but by the
beneficial means of education and kind
discipline to make them fit for freedom ::
not SO much to enfranchise them as to


make them fit for enfranchisement. Nor


were his sympathies of that one-idea-class


confined to the we'll being of the blacks at


the expense Of the white race. Coming


as he did from the midst Of the people,


laboring man himself, he never forgot


from whence he came. His great love for


the people cost him his life When he


went to the place where his murderer found


him, it was not for his qualification, but


that that the people should not be disap-


pointed.


He never turned away from the call of


suffering. Many are the widows and or


phans who have special reasons to bless


his name. We have such among our own


people.


Nor was the exercise of his humanity


confined to his personal friends, Those


who had most wronged him, that people


who had made his name by-word and


reproach, in him lost their best friend.


If any man ever lived since the wonder


full Nazarine, who had reason to resent


personal affront from any people, that


man was Abraham Lincoln, and that peo-
pie were they Of the southern states. For
!, four years they had heaped upon him the
bltterest calumny and most unrelenting
malignity; and yet when the day of his
triumph had come-when he held that re-
, bellious people completely in his power
and could have wreaked summary ven-
. geance for all their abuse, he remembered
not their hostility, but only saw in them
an integral portion of our common coun-
f try whose interests and prosperity it was
> his care to develop and protect. He
sought not to Cypress and trample upon


them, but to heal their annimosities and
= lead them back to their allegiance and
@ make of them as good citizens of the Re-
a public, as they had been bitter enemies.
: There is in this magnamnity of his, this
f greatness and goodness of heart, a SUBJ
| Unity which regard the crowning Of
n his greatness.


e When in later years men read the story
q of his goodness, when they see how he
q was cut off in the great work of restoring
the country, then will the very people
9 who most wronged him and took his life
most regret his untimely end; then will


they most bitterly lament the parricidal
q and suicidal madness with which they
i struck down their greatest and best tfriend.
- There are but few great men Of the
; world whose characters we can contem-
!, plate with satisfaction. While we are
. dazzled by the splendor of their genius
= while we behold with awe the immcusity
! of their talents, we still remember that


it were better for the world had they
- never lived. Their very greatness be-
. comes scourge their talents are pervert.
! ed to the ruin instead of the salvation
:, of the race. A. .i
"a Napoleon Bonaparte was greatest Of
4 these There is about his name fascina'
!. tion, glory of greatness, and hcroisu
- that kindles our enthusiasm and wins oul
of admiration in spite of his crimes, in spite
a of the disastrous failure Of his cherished
> schemes. But in his fame there is hol.


lowness We feel no love for him. 0u'
IA judgments revolt against the enthusiasm
N with which we regard him. Instead o
g desiring to see his likeness again, ou
a. prayer is, "Lord deliver us and ours from
re such men,"


bo Washington bore no comparison in gen
-. ius, in breadth Of intellect or in power
h. the great Corsican. Yet there was abou
,te him greatness, greatness of good tina
ur excels the greatness Of Napoleon. Anc