enger until she should reach "the utmost sea-mark of her farthest
sail." When those in command treated him with injustice and brutality,
he did not mutiny or rebel; when placed before the mast as a lookout, he
did not fall asleep at his post. He has helped to keep her from being
wrecked upon the rocks of treachery; he has imperiled his life by
standing manfully to his task while she outrode the fury of a
threatening sea; when the pirate-craft of rebellion bore down upon her
and sought to place the black flag of disunion at her masthead, he was
one of the first to respond when the captain called all hands up on
deck. If the enemies of liberty should ever again attempt to wreck our
ship of state, the Negro American will stand by the guns; he will not
desert her when she is sinking, but with the principles of the
Declaration of Independence nailed to the masthead, with the flag
afloat, he would prefer rather to perish with her than to be numbered
among those who deserted her when assailed by an overwhelming foe. If
she weathers the storms that beat upon her, outsails the enemies that
pursue her, avoids the rocks that threaten her, and anchors at last in
the port of her desired haven, black Americans and white Americans,
locked together in brotherly embrace, will pledge each other to remain
aboard forever on terms of equality, because they shall have learned by
experience that neither one of them can be saved, except they thus abide
in the ship.

For the present our strivings are not in vain. The injustice that leans
upon the arm of oppression for support must fall; truth perverted or
suppressed gains in momentum while it waits; generations may perish, but
humanity will survive; out of the present conflict of opinion and the
differences of race and color that divide, once the tides of immigration
have ceased to flow to our shores, this nation will evolve a people who
shall be one in purpose, one in spirit, one in destiny--a composite
American by the co-mingling of blood.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN[37]

BY JAMES L. CURTIS, of New York

[Note 37: Speech delivered on the Centenary of his birth, February
12, 1909.]

Since the curtain rang down on the tragedy of Calvary, consummating the
vicarious sacrifice of Jesus of Nazareth, there has been no parallel in
history, sacred or profane, to the deeds of Abraham Lincoln and their
perennial aftermath.

For two hundred years this nation writhed in the pain and anguish of
travai