administration, to
friend or foe, the _sine qua non_ was Union. A house divided against
itself cannot stand.
In this he left us a great heritage; it is a lesson for both sections,
and all races of any section. White men of America, black men of
America, by the eternal God of heaven, there can be no division of
destiny on the same soil and in the bosom and in the lap of the same
natural mother. Men may attempt and accomplish discrimination in a small
way, but Almighty God and all-mothering nature are absolutely impartial.
They have woven the fabric of life so that the thread of each man's
existence is a part of the whole. He who sets fire to his neighbor's
house, endangers the existence of his own; he who degrades his
neighbor's children, undermines the future of his own. Together we rise
and together we fall is the plan of God and the rule of nature. We must
lean together in the common struggle of life: the syncline is stronger
than the anticline.
In a great nation with an increasing fame, the lesson of Lincoln's life
must grow in importance. As long as the human heart loves freedom his
name will be a word on the tongues of men. His name will be a watchword
wherever liberty in her struggles with tyranny lifts her embattled
banners. No man of the ancient or the modern world has a securer place
in the hearts and memories of men than this man Lincoln, who was born in
obscurity, who died in a halo, and who now rests in an aureole of
historic glory.
RONDEAU
JESSIE FAUSET
When April's here and meadows wide
Once more with spring's sweet growths are pied,
I close each book, drop each pursuit,
And past the brook, no longer mute,
I joyous roam the countryside.
Look, here the violets shy abide
And there the mating robins hide--
How keen my senses, how acute,
When April's here!
And list! down where the shimmering tide
Hard by that farthest hill doth glide,
Rise faint sweet strains from shepherd's flute,
Pan's pipes and Berecynthian lute.
Each sight, each sound fresh joys provide
When April's here.
HOW I ESCAPED
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
Although slavery was a delicate subject, and very cautiously talked
about among grown-up people in Maryland, I frequently talked about it,
and that very freely, with the white boys. I would sometimes say to
them, while seated on a curbstone or a cellar door, "I wish I could be
free, as
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