man, the friend of the black man; the man whose
heart, like the Christ's, was large enough to bring within the range of
its sensibilities every human being beneath the stars. The man who, when
God's clock struck the hour, swung back on its creaking hinges the door
of opportunity that the slaves might walk over its portals into the army
and into new fields of usefulness in civil life.

One hundred years have rolled into eternity since freedom's greatest
devotee made his advent on this earth. One hundred years, as but a
moment compared with the life of nations; yet, changes in our form of
government, in the interpretation of our laws, in the relation between
the North and the South, in the status of the Negro, have been wrought,
that were beyond the wildest dreams of Lincoln. And wonderful as have
been these changes to our advantage, in the acquisition of property, in
moral and mental development, in the cultivation of sturdy manhood and
womanhood, yet, all these have come to us as a direct result of the
labors of Lincoln, who, with the ken of a prophet and the vision of a
seer, in those dark and turbulent days, wrought more nobly than he knew.

From these prodigious tasks so well performed, I adjure you, my friends,
that you catch inspiration; that you take no backward step in the
future; that you prove worthy heirs and joint heirs to the heritage of
golden opportunities bequeathed you; that you demand every right with
which his labors have endowed you; and that the righteous sentiment of
"Equal and Exact Justice" be emblazoned on a banner and flaunted in the
breezes till every foe of justice is vanquished and right rules supreme.

That you will do this, I doubt not, for in my heart of hearts, I believe
with Henry Clay that "Before you can repress the tendencies to liberty,
or the tendencies to absolute emancipation from every form of serfdom,
you must go back to the era of our independence and muzzle the cannon
which thunders its joyous return; you must penetrate the human soul and
eradicate there the love of liberty." Then, and not till then, can you
stifle the ennobling aspiration of the American Negro for the unabridged
enjoyment of every right guaranteed under the Constitution and the
laws.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND FIFTY YEARS OF FREEDOM[38]

BY ALEXANDER WALTERS, D. D.,

_Bishop of A. M. E. Zion Church_

[Note 38: Extract from address given at Carnegie Hall, New York,
February 12, 1909.]

The distingu