inefficiency--the gulfs which always lie one on each side of the careers
alike of man and of nation. It helps nothing to have avoided one if
shipwreck is encountered in the other. The fanatic, the well-meaning
moralist of unbalanced mind, the parlor critic who condemns others but
has no power himself to do good and but little power to do ill--all these
were as alien to Lincoln as the vicious and unpatriotic themselves. His
life teaches our people that they must act with wisdom, because otherwise
adherence to right will be mere sound and fury without substance; and
that they must also act high-mindedly, or else what seems to be wisdom
will in the end turn out to be the most destructive kind of folly.

Throughout his entire life, and especially after he rose to leadership in
his party, Lincoln was stirred to his depths by the sense of fealty to a
lofty ideal; but throughout his entire life, he also accepted human
nature as it is, and worked with keen, practical good sense to achieve
results with the instruments at hand. It is impossible to conceive of a
man farther removed from baseness, farther removed from corruption, from
mere self-seeking; but it is also impossible to conceive of a man of more
sane and healthy mind--a man less under the influence of that fantastic
and diseased morality (so fantastic and diseased as to be in reality
profoundly immoral) which makes a man in this work-a-day world refuse to
do what is possible because he cannot accomplish the impossible.

In the fifth volume of Lecky's History of England, the historian draws an
interesting distinction between the qualities needed for a successful
political career in modern society and those which lead to eminence in
the spheres of pure intellect or pure moral effort. He says:

"....the moral qualities that are required in the higher spheres of
statesmanship [are not] those of a hero or a saint. Passionate