before. It brought bewildering confusion, and overwhelming amazement to those who had been esteemed the wisest among their kind, and who in the folly of their wisdom had been most certain that such a thing could never happen. And in the very face of havoc wrought, of the utter futility of it all, we still wonder that it could have been. But the sobering and destroying realization has come at last, that in its eagerness to harness and dominate the material forces of the world, humanity had lost its anchorage to the ultimate things of the higher, the nobler, the spiritual universe. Turning now, in the midst of the wreckage, to seek for whatever can be trusted as safe and strong and lasting, it is not to be wondered that people turn anew the pages of Lincoln's story. In very truth, his soul is marching on. To him it has been given to leave a living heritage of vital power and supreme inspiration to the race. Out of Lincoln came the proof that lofty achievement is not in ideals alone, but in that spiritual and material justice which is the wholesome blending of infinite purpose and man's capacity for fulfillment. I spoke a moment ago of the multiplicity of present day writings about Lincoln. They embrace everything from the genealogist's delvings into his ancestry, to the psychologist's and the moralist's searchings into his innermost motives and objectives. Nothing that might possibly reveal any phase of his life and work has been accounted trivial. We are coming year by year to a more truthful and understanding appraisal of him. But all the researches of scholars and efforts of students have brought us little store of real understanding, have taught us well nigh nothing concerning the supreme providential purpose which permits such a light to shine now and then upon a generation of men. We know not whence come such great souls, such simple wisdom, such capacity for sacrifice and service. But we do know that as men contemplate this strange career and study its wonders and its lessons, they are at least planting in their minds and hearts a certain vague realization of what Lincoln was and meant; a consciousness of his personal significance to them; and with all this, a keen aspiration for some little participation in such a bestowal of selflessness, sacrifice and service as was the life of Lincoln. That aspiration, I firmly believe, is fixed in a greater number of human hearts to-day than it ever was before. It may be somewhat vague and unformed, yet we readily recognize that it represents something like the aspirations of a race for a new incarnation of the spirit and the leadership of Lincoln. Doubtless it is vain to hope that another such as he will be given to us and to our time. But to the extent that we shall prove ourselves worthy of such a leader, to that extent we shall be the better able to save ourselves without him. The task which men face throughout the world now is one with which they must cope as God intended. Their hope, their salvation, their destiny, must at last be in their own hands. They will save themselves if they will forget themselves. Probably the task would be less difficult if humanity would get a little nearer to God. In times like these, the fullest, truest service that any nation or any society can render to itself, will be the service which is conceived in unselfishness and rendered without thought of immediate gain, or even of ultimate personal advantage. We drink from memory, we find inspiration in example, we are exalted by the eternal truths which Lincoln saw and proclaimed, but the highest usefulness in these things is their practical preservation, so as to reveal to all the people a true understanding of Lincoln's transcending eminence. His supreme gift was not in construction, his was the mastery of preservation. And the call of the world to-day is for preservation, for the preserved civilization which is the best judgment of human intelligence since the world began. |