deal of
both North and South, of a common country, composed not only of the
factions that once confronted each other in war's dreadful array,
but of the myriad thousands that have since found in the American
nation the hope of the future and the refuge from age-entrenched
wrong and absolutism. To them, Lincoln, his life, his history, his
character, his entire personality, with all its wondrous charm and
grace, its sobriety, patience, self-abnegation, and sweetness, has
come to be the very prototype of a rising humanity.

Carl Schurz, himself a man of large nature and wide and sympathetic
comprehension, says of Lincoln:

In the most conspicuous position of the period, Lincoln drew upon
himself the scoffs of polite society; but even then he filled the
souls of mankind with utterances of wonderful beauty and grandeur.
It was distinctly the weird mixture in him of qualities and forces,
of the lofty with the common, the ideal with the uncouth, of that
which he had become with that which he had not ceased to be, that
made him so fascinating a character among his fellow-men, that gave
him his singular power over minds and hearts, that fitted him to be
the greatest leader in the greatest crisis of our national life.

He possessed the courage to stand alone--that courage which is the
first requisite of leadership in a great cause. The charm of
Lincoln's oratory flooded all the rare depth and genuineness of his
convictions and his sympathetic feelings were the strongest element
in his nature. He was one of the greatest Americans and the best of
men.

The poet Whittier writes:

The weary form that rested not
Save in a martyr's grave;
The care-worn face that none forgot,
Turned to the kneeling slave.

We rest in peace where his sad eyes
Saw peril, strife, and pain;
His was the awful sacrifice,
And ours the priceless gain.

Says Bryant:

That task is done, the bound are free,
We bear thee to an honoured grave,
Whose noblest monument shall be
The broken fetters of the slave.

Pure was thy life; its bloody close
Hath blessed thee with the sons of light,
Among the noble host of those
Who perished in the cause of right.

Says Lowell:

Our children shall behold his fame,
The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, no