as perhaps in no other man of his race. Therefore, Lincoln is both admired and loved.

Was Lincoln a good man?

The word "good" seems commonplace, and yet it is but another form of the word "God." No greater tribute can be pronounced over any man than to say, "He was good!" Even the enemies of Lincoln-and he had many of them-had to admit that he was good. They may have doubted his wisdom, but never his motives. Unassuming, yet firm, as simple as a child, and yet the born leader of men, he was, indeed, one of nature's noblemen. The commander of legions, he was the most ardent lover of peace, to whom the life of the humblest soldier was precious.

Oh! how many fathers and mothers blessed him for his clemency that restored to them a convicted son! His mercy was considered a serious menace to the army. General Butler once addressed the following missive to Lincoln:

"President Lincoln, I pray you not to interfere with the court martials of the army. You will destroy all discipline among our soldiers."

But such appeals had little effect on Lincoln. "After a hard day's work," he said, "it rests me if I can find some excuse for saving a poor fellow's life." His own well-known phrase, "With malice toward none, with charity for all," expresses the charm of his lovable personality.

Was Lincoln a great man?

Because of his utmost simplicity, his modesty and unpretentiousness some have considered him an ordinary man. Nothing is further from the truth than such an estimate of Lincoln. He was great intellectually as well as morally. He possessed a marvelous capacity to know men and things, to see clearly amidst the perplexity of ways the one true path that leads to truth and justice. What sort of an intellect must his have been that enabled him under the most adverse conditions of poverty and ignorance to become the peer of the greatest rulers of history? His school was the school of life and of toil. His books were nature and humanity and his teacher was God. Had he lived in ancient times his name would have come down

to us as that of one of the great prophets. Indeed he was a seer, who better than any of his contemporaries could discern amidst the maze of bitter conflicts the far-off glory of a united Republic.

With what dexterity did he marshal the vast forces-civil and military-under his command? With what skill, faith and serenity did he pilot the ship of State out of the troublous waters of treason and rebellion? While all men were confused and discouraged in the wilderness of strife, he alone stood on the heights of Pisgah, contemplating the Promised Land of Union beyond the Jordan of civil war.

Lincoln was one of the small group of men in the history of mankind who not only dreamed of, but achieved great things. Lincoln's claim to immortality rests upon two mighty achievements, which will be remembered as long as time will endure. First, he saved the Union.

Second, he abolished slavery.

For saving the Union, and hence the Republic, America, and the millions of men and women who will settle here in years to come, owe him an everlasting debt. For having dealt slavery the death blow, not only do 4,000,000 negroes, but all liberty-loving men of all races, owe him eternal gratitude. He was the chosen instrument of Providence to break the shackles of slavery forever.

Alas! that he had to pay with his life for this most humanitarian act, that he had to seal with his blood the freedom of a race!

Thus stands before us the peerless character of Abraham Lincoln. He bore no crown, yet was he a divinely ordained king of men. In soul-qualities, in clearness of intellect, in purity of heart and in righteousness of purpose, he stood, like Saul, head and shoulders above his contemporaries. His name will live forever. The American Republic may disappear and be forgotten, but not Lincoln.

A

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

BY PROF. SOLOMON SCHECHTER

LEXANDER H. STEPHENS, in his characterization of Lincoln, says, "The Union with him in sentiment rose to the sublimity of a religious mysticism; whilst his ideas of its structure and formation in logic rested upon nothing but the subtleties of a sophism."

Stephens was, by agreement of all, the ablest historian of the Confederacy, and, some think, its greatest man; and those who read his argument for the Union contained in his address given at Milledgeville, Georgia, before the War between the States began, will further admit that he had the gift of seeing below the surface of things, for the condition of affairs as seen then by superficial observers was all in favor of secession. Stephens was also one of the few prominent men of the Thirtieth Congress for whom Lincoln conceived great admiration during his first appearance at Washington in the capacity of a member of the House of Representatives. Lincoln was present when Stephens delivered "the best speech of an hour's length" he had ever heard, which moved him so deeply that his "old, withered eyes were full of tears." At a later date, again, when Lincoln stood before the country as the Presidentelect, Stephens was, perhaps, the only Southern statesman whose opinion Lincoln solicited in reference to the coming struggle. Some historians maintain that Lincoln seriously considered the advisability of inviting Stephens to become a member of his cabinet. A characterization of Lincoln coming from such a source is worthy of our attention. It will, therefore, not be amiss if we devote this hour to this trait of religious mysticism in his character, touching also on one or two other traits which, by their seeming contrast, served either as a corrective or as an emphasis of this mystical trait.

Delivered at the Lincoln Centennial Celebration of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York City, Feb. 12, 1909.

Whether this aspect has ever been the subject of special treatment by any other writer, I am unable to say. The list of Lincolniana prepared by the Library of Congress and consisting mostly of writings relating to Lincoln, covers a large quarto volume of eighty-six pages. This list was published in 1906, and we may assume that the last two years has brought us a new harvest of Lincolniana. There you will find Lincoln as a lawyer, Lincoln as an organizer, Lincoln as an orator, Lincoln as a general, Lincoln as a debater, Lincoln as a master of men, Lincoln as a financier, and ever so many more Lincolns. For all I know, or rather do not know, the possibility is not exIcluded that in this enormous mass of literature, Lincoln may have also been treated from the point of view I intend to approach him this evening. Even in this case, it may perhaps not be entirely uninteresting to listen to one whose first acquaintance with Lincoln was made in far-distant Roumania through the medium of Hebrew newspapers some forty-five years ago. There Lincoln was described as originally a woodchopper (prose for "rail-splitter"), which fired the imagination of the boy to recognize in the President of the United States, a new Hillel, for legend described the latter as having been engaged in the same occupation before he was called by the people to the dignity of Patriarch, or President of the Sanhedrin. Years have come and years have gone, and the imagination of the boy was in many respects corrected by the reading of serious books bearing on the history of the United States, and particularly on that of the Civil War. But this in no way diminished his admiration for his hero, Abraham Lincoln, whom he was always studying, from the viewpoint of the student of Jewish literature; a literature which, in spite of its eastern origin, affords so much in the way of parallel and simile to the elucidation of many a feature in the story of the great Westerner of Westerners.

The youth of Lincoln offered little or no opportunity for the display of religious mysticism. Some historians of the high and dry kind take, as it seems, a regular pleasure in speaking of the surroundings that were about Lincoln as "coarse, ignorant and poverty-stricken." In a certain measure this is true. Lin