discouraging surroundings, Abraham Lincoln made himself fit to be
nominated for and twice elected to the highest office within the gift of
his countrymen. Not only that; he so qualified himself that he brought
his country safely through the period which, next to the present one,
proved to be the most crucial in its entire history.

He accomplished that tremendous task largely by the exercise of the most
trying--and, to those who do not possess it, the most exasperating--of
all the virtues: Patience. Patience which, moreover, was coupled with a
rare sense of homely humor. When pettifogging scandal-mongers sneaked up
to him with tales that Grant, his most successful commander, was
drinking to excess, he merely smiled; said he wished he knew the brand
of whisky Grant used, so he could try it on some of his other generals;
kept Grant in command (for he had his own sources of information as to
the general's conduct), and held his peace, trusting to time to
vindicate his judgment, as it did amply.

Then, too, in his relations with the Copperheads, the pacifists of that
day, who would have, as Horace Greeley put it, "let the erring sisters
depart in peace," Lincoln practiced patience--patience mixed with a keen
appreciation of the humorous side of their frantic meanderings. Through
all the dark days of those long four years he kept his poise, kept his
head, kept his nation straight in the true course; and yet, wracked with
anxiety, battered by critics, he found time to laugh, and to show
others the way to laugh.

Every American, at home or over here, would do well to take deep
thought, on this coming anniversary, of what manner of man was "the
prairie lawyer, master of us all." In spite of reverses to his armies,
in spite of such criticism as never before or since was leveled at the
head of a President, in spite of personal bereavement, in spite of the
captiousness of his own chosen advisors, he saw his task through. To-day
a united nation, united because he made it possible to be so, stands
again in battle array to vindicate the principle which he held most
dear: "That government of the people, by the people, for the people
shall not perish from the earth."

It is our privilege, and our glory, as members of America's vanguard of
liberty, so to fight, so to strive, that we may rightly be called the
fellow countrymen of Father Abraham.

----
SQUARING THE TRIANGLE.