urging
them upon his fellows with the resources of an oratory which was hardly
more impressive than it was many-sided. I see him, the preferred among
his fellows, ascend the eminence reserved for him, and him alone of all
the statesmen of the time, amid the derision of opponents and the
distrust of supporters, yet unawed and unmoved, because thoroughly
equipped to meet the emergency. The same being, from first to last; the
poor child weeping over a dead mother; the great chief sobbing amid the
cruel horrors of war; flinching not from duty, nor changing his
life-long ways of dealing with the stern realities which pressed upon
him and hurried him onward. And, last scene of all, that ends this
strange, eventful history, I see him lying dead there in the capitol of
the nation, to which he had rendered "the last, full measure of his
devotion," the flag of his country around him, the world in mourning,
and, asking myself how could any man have hated that man, I ask you, how
can any man refuse his homage to his memory? Surely, he was one of God's
elect; not in any sense a creature of circumstance, or accident.
Recurring to the doctrine of inspiration, I say again and again, he was
inspired of God, and I cannot see how any one who believes in that
doctrine can regard him as anything else.

From Caesar to Bismarck and Gladstone the world has had its statesmen and
its soldiers--men who rose to eminence and power step by step, through a
series of geometric progression as it were, each advancement following
in regular order one after the other, the whole obedient to
well-established and well-understood laws of cause and effect. They were
not what we call "men of destiny." They were "men of the time." They
were men whose careers had a beginning, a middle and an end, rounding
off lives with histories, full it may be of interesting and exciting
event, but comprehensive and comprehensible; simple, clear, complete.

The inspired ones are fewer. Whence their emanation, where and how they
got their power, by what rule they lived, moved and had their being, we
know not. There is no explication to their lives. They rose from shadow
and they went in mist. We see them, feel them, but we know them not.
They came, God's word upon their lips; they did their office, God's
mantle about them; and they vanished, God's holy light between the world
and them, leaving behind a memory, half mortal and half myth. From first
to last they were the creatio