sity at Springfield, graduating in
the class of 1864. He was ordained to the ministry in 1865. He preached
at Sandwich, Illinois; Council Bluffs, Iowa; Beatrice, Nebraska, and
West Point. He died at West Point, May 16, 1909.

THE BIRTH OF LINCOLN

No choir celestial sang at Lincoln's birth,
No transient star illumined the midnight sky
In honor of some ancient prophecy,
No augury was given from heaven or earth.

He blossomed like a flower of wondrous worth,
A rare, sweet flower of heaven that ne'er should die,
Altho' the vase in which it grew should lie
Most rudely rent amid the darkling dearth.

There, in that humble cabin, separate
From everything the world regarded great,
Where wealth had never pressed its greedy feet,
Where honor, pomp or fame found no retreat;
E'en there was born beneath the eye of God
The noblest man His footstool ever trod.

[Illustration: Mendelssohn Darwin Lincoln]

MENDELSSOHN
DARWIN
LINCOLN

_February 12, 1809_

Clarence E. Carr, born in Enfield, New Hampshire, January 31, 1853.
Received his early education from the common schools and academies of
the State, later from Dartmouth College, from which he graduated in
1875.

Practiced law, was also a manufacturer and farmer. Was president of
the New Hampshire Unitarian Conference, director and vice-president of
the American Unitarian Association, bank trustee, president of the
United Life and Accident Insurance Company of Concord, New Hampshire,
and occasionally a wanderer in the Elysian Fields of the Muses.

_The Three Birthday Anniversaries_ is the subject of a highly
appreciative article on the subject of Mendelssohn, Darwin and Lincoln,
by President Samuel A. Eliot of the American Unitarian Association, in
the _Christian Register_ of February 4, 1909. The central thought
therein is thus expressed very beautifully by Mr. Carr.

Three lives this day unto the world were given
Into whose souls God breathed the air of heaven,--
The first He taught the music of the spheres,
The next, of worlds, the story of the years;
And, loving, wise, and just beyond our dream,
The third