the first who
comprehended within himself all the strength and gentleness, all the
majesty and grace of this republic--Abraham Lincoln. He was the sum of
Puritan and Cavalier, for in his ardent nature were fused the virtues of
both, and in the depths of his great soul the faults of both were lost.
He was greater than Puritan, greater than Cavalier, in that he was
American, and that in his honest form were first gathered the vast and
thrilling forces of his ideal government--charging it with such
tremendous meaning and elevating it above human suffering that
martyrdom, though infamously aimed, came as a fitting crown to a life
consecrated from the cradle to human liberty. Let us, each cherishing
the traditions and honoring his fathers, build with reverent hands to
the type of this simple but sublime life, in which all types are
honored, and in our common glory as Americans there will be plenty and
to spare for your forefathers and for mine.

Dr. Talmage has drawn for you, with a master's hand, the picture of your
returning armies. He has told you how, in the pomp and circumstance of
war, they came back to you, marching with proud and victorious tread,
reading their glory in a nation's eyes! Will you bear with me while I
tell you of another army that sought its home at the close of the late
war--an army that marched home in defeat and not in victory--in pathos
and not in splendor, but in glory that equaled yours, and to hearts as
loving as ever welcomed heroes home! Let me picture to you the footsore
Confederate soldier, as buttoning up in his faded gray jacket the parole
which was to bear testimony to his children of his fidelity and faith,
he turned his face southward from Appomattox in April, 1865. Think of
him as ragged, half-starved, heavy-hearted, enfeebled by want and
wounds. Having fought to exhaustion, he surrenders his gun, wrings the
hands of his comrades in silence, and lifting his tear-stained and
pallid face for the last time to the graves that dot old Virginia hills,
pulls his gray cap over his brow and begins the slow and painful
journey. What does he find--let me ask you who went to your homes eager
to find, in the welcome you had justly earned, full payment for four
years' sacrifice--what does he find when, having followed the
battle-stained cross against overwhelming odds, dreading death not half
so much as surrender, he reaches the home he left so prosperous and
beautiful? He finds his house in ruins,