ropean wool. Railroads are to pick them up
and weave them into one great fabric. By and by we shall see the ten
million friends of America standing together as did the thousand friends
of Thebes."

"It's a great thought," said Abe.

"No man can estimate the size of that mighty phalanx of friendship all
trained in one school," Kelso went on. "Two years ago the _Encyclopedia
Britannica_ figured that the population of the United States in 1905
would be 168,000,000 people, and in 1966, 672,000,000. Wealth, power,
science, literature, all follow in the train of light and numbers. The
causes which moved the sceptre of civilization from the Euphrates to
Western Europe will carry it from the latter to the New World."

"They say that electricity and the development of the steam engine is
going to make all men think alike," said Abe. "If that's so Democracy and
Liberty will spread over the earth."

"The seed of Universal Brotherhood is falling far and wide and you can
not kill it," Kelso continued. "Last year Mazzini said: 'There is only
one sun in heaven for the whole earth, only one law for all who people
it. We are here to found fraternally the unity of the human race so that,
sometime, it may present but one fold and one Shepherd."

Then Lincoln spoke again: "I reckon we are near the greatest years in
history. It is a privilege to be alive."

"And young," Dr. Allen added.

"Young! What a God's blessed thing is that!" said Kelso and then he
quoted from Coleridge:

"'Verse, a breeze mid blossoms straying
Where Hope clung feeding like a bee,
Both were mine! Life went a maying
With Nature, Hope and Poesy
When I was young!'

"Abe, have ye learned the _Cotter's Saturday Night_?"

"Not yet. It's a heavy hog to hold but I'll get a grip on an ear and
a hind leg and lift it out o' the pen before long. You see."

"Don't fail to do that. It will be a help and joy to ye."

"Old Kirkham is a hard master," said Abe. "I hear his bell ringing every
time I get a minute's leisure. I'm nigh through with him. Now I want to
study rhetoric."

"Only schoolmasters study rhetoric," Kelso declared. "A real poet or a
real orator is born with all the rhetoric he needs. We should get our
rhetoric as we get our oxygen--unconsciously--by reading the masters.
Rhetoric is a steed for a light load under the saddle but he's too warm
blooded for the harness. He was for the day of the plumed knight--not for
these times. No man of s