the great medicine men. The town will join in one refrain, as did the Athenians when a tyrant was gently butchered for the public good : "I'll wreath my sword in myrtle bough, The sword that laid Hipparcus low." The Republican party is positive, the Democratic party is negative. The one is advancing, leading; the other, reactionary and opposing. The one came from Plymouth Rock, the other, from the Banks of the James River. The pilgrim, like the soul of John Brown, is ever marching on. road, swings his sword, gives a rebel yell, steps aside, and then lets the sentimental, transcedental "bean-eater" march on to a higher, and still higher plane of civilization. The origin of our party was at Plymouth, but it had a new birth. Minerva sprang fully equipped for war from the brain of Jupiter. So the Republican party sprang into a new life, complete in its armor, from the brain of Abraham Lincoln. It is his mind and his great heart which we adore and celebrate to-night. Where is the fool, killer? Let him annihilate the man who says the mission of the Republican party is ended. Like Columbus, we are sailing into unknown seas. Like him, our aim, our hope, our faith cannot be changed. Our courage is equal to every emergency. We shall pass many a Scylla and Charybdis. Already we discern them upon the horizon. New questions will quickly come into view. It will soon be our duty to adjust the relations of labor and capital; to dethrone monopolies; to regulate immigration; to fortify our public schools; to determine whether women shall be only queen of hearts, or also the queen of the caucus; to restore harmony between the farmer, the railroad, and the banker; to put every voter's ballot in the box and have it counted (cries of "Good!" "Good!"); to make all equal before the law, in fact as well as in name; and to give our flag to every people which demand it, from the Isthmus to the Arctic, and the Isles of the sea. Until every wrong shall be righted, until our social ethics shall be raised to the level of unselfishness, when the eye of man can be turned from watching his fellow man, and all his energies be devoted to the glory of the ever living God, then, not until then-Oh, not until thenwill the mission of the Republican party be ended. (Great applause.) ADDRESS OF COL. ROBERT G. INGERSOLL. THE PRESIDENT: A few only of those here to night ever saw Mr. Lincoln; fewer still, ever spoke to him, but fortunately there is one at this board who knew him as an acquaintance and friend of many years; who met him in Court; spoke with him upon the stump, exchanged anecdotes; engaged with him in many a familiar discussion, and there laid the foundation of his own political faith. Let us listen while he gives evidence of his own knowledge. I have the honor to ask the Hon. Robert G. Ingersoll to respond to the first toast of the evening, "Abraham Lincoln." ABRAHAM LINCOLN: "Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. memory of our world."-INGERSOLL. He is the gentlest Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Club: Abraham Lincoln the genius of goodness, strange mingling of mirth and tears, of the tragic and grotesque, of cap and crown of Socrates and Democrities, of Aesop and Marcus Aurelius, of all that is gentle, just, humorous and honest, merciful, wise, lovable and divine (applause), and all consecrated to the use of man, while through all, and over all were an overwhelming sense of obligation, of chivalric loyalty to truth and upon all the shadow of the tragic end. Nearly all great historical characters are impossible monsters distorted by flattery, or by calumny deformed. We know nothing of their peculiarities, or nothing but their peculiarities. To these great oaks there clings but little of the soil of humanity. Washington is now only a steel engraving. About the real man who loved, and lived, and hated, and schemed, and fought, we know but little; the glass through which we look at him is of such high magnifying power that the features have grown exceedingly indistinct. Hundreds of people are now engaged in smoothing out the lines of Lincoln's face-forcing all features to the common mould-so that he may be known, not as he really was, but as they think he should have been. Lincoln was not a type. He stands alone. He had no ancestors, he had no fellows, and he has no successors. (Applause.) How can we account for this great man? First of all, he had the advantage of living in a new country, of social equality, of personal freedom, of seeing in the horizon of his future the perpetual star of hope. He preserved his individuality; his mental independence; his self respect. He knew and mingled with men of every kind-and, after all, men are the best books-he became acquainted with the ambitions and hopes of the heart, the means used to accomplish ends, the springs of action and the seeds of thought. He was familiar with nature, with actual things, with common every-day facts. He loved and appreciated nature, the poem of the year, the beautiful drama of the seasons. In a new country a man must possess at least three virtues at least three-honesty, courage and generosity. (Applause.) In cultivated society cultivation is often more important than soil (laughter), and a well executed counterfeit passes more readily than a blurred genuine. (Laughter.) It is necessary only to observe the unwritten laws of society to be honest enough to keep out of prison (laughter), and generous enough to subscribe in public where the subscription can be defended as an investment. (Laughter.) In a new country, character is essential; in the old, reputation is often sufficient. (Laughter.) In a new country they find out what a man really is; in the old he is apt to pass for what he resembles. (Laughter.) People only separated by distance are much nearer together than those divided by walls of cast. After all, it is of no advantage to live in a great city, where poverty degrades and where failure brings despair. The fields are lovlier than paved streets (applause), and the oaks and elms are more poetic than steeples and chains. In the country is the idea of home. There you see the rising and the setting sun. You become acquainted with the stars and with the clouds. The constellations become your friends. You hear the rain on the roof, and you listen to the sigh of the wind. You are thrilled by that resurrection called Spring; you are touched and saddend by Autumn, the curse and poetry of death. Every field is a picture, a landscape, every landscape is a poem ; every flower is a tender thought, and every forest is a fairyland. (Cries of "Good!" "Good!") In the country you preserve you identity, your personality. There you are an aggregation of atoms, but in the city you are only an atom of an aggregation. (Laughter.) In the country you keep your cheek close to the breast of nature. You are calmed and ennobled by the space, the amplitude and scope of earth and sky, and you are enobled by the constancy of the stars. Lincoln never finished his education. He was a learner. To the night of his death, a pupil, an inquirer after knowledge. You have no idea how many men are spoiled by what is called finishing there education. I have sometimes thought that many colleges were places where pebbles were polished and diamonds were dimmed, and I have often thought, with fear, suppose Shakespeare had graduated at Oxford, he might have been a quibbling attorney or a hypocritical parson. Lincoln was a perfectly natural man. He was also a great lawyer, and why? There is nothing shrewder in this world than intelligent honesty. Perfect candor is sword and shield. Lincoln understood the nature of man, and as a lawyer he always endeavored to get at the truth at the very heart of a case. He was not willing to deceive himself no matter what his interests said, what his passion demanded. He was great enough to find the truth and strong enough to decide and pronounce judgment against his own desire. He was a many sided man, acquainted with smiles and tears, complex in brain, single in heart, direct as light, and his words candid as the mirror gave the perfect image of his thought. (Applause.) He was never afraid to ask, never to dignified to learn, never to dignified to admit that he did not know, and no man born beneath our flag had keener wit or kinder humor. I have sometimes thought that humor is the pilot of reason. People without humor drift unconsciously into absurdity. (Laughter.) Humor sees the other side. Humor stands in the mind like a sceptre, a good natured critic and gives its opin |