me command, and entrusted with the destiny of a nation.

The great leaders of his party were made to stand aside; the most
experienced and accomplished men of the day, men like Seward and Chase
and Sumner, statesmen famous and trained, were sent to the rear; while
this comparatively unknown and fantastic figure was brought by unseen
hands to the front and given the reins of power. It is entirely
immaterial whether we believe in what he said or did, whether we are
for him or against him; but for us to admit that during four years,
carrying with them such a pressure of responsibility as the world has
never witnessed before, he filled the measure of the vast space
allotted him in the actions of mankind and in the eyes of the world,
is to say that he was inspired of God, for nowhere else could he have
acquired the enormous equipment indispensable to the situation.

Where did Shakespeare get his genius? Where did Mozart get his music?
Whose hand smote the lyre of the Scottish plowman? and stayed the life
of the German priest? God alone; and, so surely as these were raised
up by God, inspired by God was Abraham Lincoln, and, a thousand years
hence, no story, no tragedy, no epic poem will be filled with greater
wonder than that which tells of his life and death. If Lincoln was not
inspired of God, then were not Luther, or Shakespeare, or Burns. If
Lincoln was not inspired by God, then there is no such thing on earth
as special providence or the interposition of divine power in the
affairs of men.

THE CRISIS AND THE HERO

BY FREDERIC HARRISON

The great struggle which has for ever decided the cause of slavery of
man to man, is, beyond all question, the most critical which the world
has seen since the great revolutionary outburst. If ever there was a
question which was to test political capacity and honesty it was this.
A true statesman, here if ever, was bound to forecast truly the issue,
and to judge faithfully that cause at stake. We know now, it is beyond
dispute, that the cause which won was certain to win in the end, that
its reserve force was absolutely without limit, that its triumph was
one of the turning-points in modern civilization. It was morally
certain to succeed, and it did succeed with an overwhelming and mighty
success. From first to last both might and right went all one way. The
people of England went wholly that way. The official classes went
wholly some other way.

One of the great key-notes of En