ion before judgment is pronounced. Humor goes with good nature, and good nature is the climate of reason and of genius. (Applause.) In anger, reason abdicates and malice extinguishes the torch of the mind. Such was the humor of Lincoln that he could tell even unpleasant truths as charmingly as most men can tell what we wish to hear. He was not solemn. Solemnity is a mask worn by igorance and hypocracy. Solemnity is the preface, prologue and index to the cunning of a stupid.

Lincoln was natural in his life and thought. He was the master of the story teller's art; in illustrations apt; in applications perfect. Liberal in speech, shocking pharisees and prudes, using any word that wit could disinfect. (Laughter and applause.) He was a logician. His logic shed light. In its presence the obscure became luminous, and the most intricate political and metaphysical knots seemed to untie themselves. Logic is the necessary product of intelligence and sincerity. It cannot be learned. It cannot be taught. It is the child of a clear head and a good heart. (Applause.)

Lincoln was candid, and that candor often deceived the deceitful. (Laughter.)

He had intellect without arrogance, genius without pride, and religion without cant, that is to say, without biogtry and without deceit. He was an orator, clear, sincere, natural. He did not pretend. He did not say what he thought others thought, but what he thought, and if you wish to be sublime you must be natural. You must keep close to the grass. You must sit by the fireside of the heart. Above the clouds it is too cold. (Laughter.) You must be simple in your speech, too much polish suggests insincerity. The great orator idolizes the real, transfigures the common, makes even the inanimate thrill and throb, fills the gallery of the imagination with statues and pictures, perfect in form and color; brings to light the gold hoarded by memory, the miser shows the glittering coin to the spendthrift. Hope enriches the brain, ennobles the heart, quickens the conscience, between his lips words bud and blossom.

Is you wish to know the difference between an orator and an elocutionist, between what is felt and what is said, between what the heart and brain can do together, and what the brain can do alone, read Lincoln's wondrous speech at Gettysburg, and then the speech of Edward Everett. The oration of Lincoln

will never be forgotten, it will live until languages are dead and lips are dust. (Applause.) The speech of Everett will never be read.

The elocutionist believes in the virtues of voice, the sublimity of syntax; the majesty of long sentences and the genius of gesture.

The orator loves the real, the simple, the natural, and he places thought, and feeling above all. He knows that the greatest ideas should be expressed in the shortest words. He knows that a great idea is like a great statue, and he knows that the greater the statue the less drapery it needs. (Applause.)

Let me read from this beautiful souvenir a few lines of what I call sculptured speech, and these words are as applicable today in many of the states of this Union as when they were first uttered. Let me read:

And when by all these means you have succeded in humanizing the negro, when you have put him down and made it impossible for him to be but as the beast of the field; when you have extinguished his soul in this world, and placed him where the ray of hope is blown out as in the darkness of the damned, are you quite sure that the demon you have roused will not turn and rend you? What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlement, our bristling seacoast, our army and our navy.

These are not our reliance against tyrany. All of these may be turned against us without making us weaker for the struggle.

Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defence is in the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere.

Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them."

Lincoln was an immense personality. Firm, but not obstinate. Obstinacy is egotism; firmness, heroism. He influenced others without effort, unconsciously, and they submitted to him as men submit to nature, unconsciously. He was severe with himself and for that reason lenient with others. He appeared to apologize for being kinder than his fellows. He did merciful things as stealthily as others committed crimes. Almost ashamed of tenderness, he said and did the noblest words and deeds with that charming confusion, that awkwardness, that is the perfect grace of modesty. (Applause.)

As a noblemen, wishing to pay a small debt to a poor neighbor, reluctantly offers a hundred dollar bill and asks for change,

fearing that he may be suspected of making a display of wealth, of a pretence of payment. So Lincoln hesitated to show his wealth of goodness even to the best he knew, a great man stooping, not wishing to make his fellows feel that they were small or mean. By his candor, by his perfect freedom from restraint, by saying what he thought and saying it absolutely in his own way, he made it not only possible but popular to be natural to be true. (Applause.)

He was the enemy of mock solemnity, of the stupidly respectful, of the cold and formal. He wore no official robes either on his body or his soul. He never pretended to be more or less, or other, or different from what he really was. (Applause.) He had the unconscious naturalness of nature's self. He built upon a rock. It did not satisfy him to have other people think he was right. He wanted to think that he was right. He built upon a rock, and the foundation was secure and broad. The structure was a pyramid, narrowing as it rose, and through days and nights of sorrow, through years of grief and pain, with unswerving purpose, with malice towards none, and with charity for all, with infinite patience, with unclouded vision, he hoped and toiled. There was no cloud in his brain. There was no hate in his heart. Stone after stone was made, until at last the proclamation found its place, and on that the goddess now stands. He knew others because he was perfectly acquainted with himself. He cared nothing for place, everything for principle, and to the great man, place is only an opportunity for during good. He cared nothing for money, but everything for independence.

When no principle was involved, he was easily swayed, willing to go slowly if in the right direction. Sometimes willing to stop, but he would'nt go back, and he would'nt go wrong. (Applause.)

He was willing to wait. He knew slavery had defenders but no defence. (Applause.) He was neither tyrant nor slave He neither knelt nor scorned. With him men were neither great, rich, or poor, nor small. They were right or wrong. (Applause.)

Through manners, clothes, titles, rags and race he saw the real, that which is beyond accident, policy, compromise and war, he saw the end.

He was patient as destiny, whose undecipheral hieroglyphs were so deeply graven on his sad and tragic face. Nothing dis

closes real character like the use of power.

It is very easy for

the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity, but if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test.

It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it except on the side of mercy. Wealth could not purchase it, power could not awe this divine, this loving man.

He knew no fear except the fear of doing wrong. Hating slavery, pitying the master seeking to conquer, not persons, but prejudices, he was the embodiment of the self-denial, the courage, the hope and the nobility of a nation. He spoke not to inflame, not to upbraid, but to convince. He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction.

He longed to pardon. He loved to see the pearls of joy on the cheeks of a wife, whose husband he had rescued from the dead.

Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the gentlest memory of our world. (Great applause and cheers.)