I

THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAN


On the twelfth of February, 1909, the hundredth anniversary of the birth
of Abraham Lincoln, Americans gathered together, throughout the entire
country, to honour the memory of a great American, one who may come to
be accepted as the greatest of Americans. It was in every way fitting
that this honour should be rendered to Abraham Lincoln and that, on such
commemoration day, his fellow-citizens should not fail to bear also in
honoured memory the thousands of other good Americans who like Lincoln
gave their lives for their country and without whose loyal devotion
Lincoln's leadership would have been in vain.

The chief purpose, however, as I understand, of a memorial service is
not so much to glorify the dead as to enlighten and inspire the living.
We borrow the thought of his own Gettysburg address (so eloquent in its
exquisite simplicity) when we say that no words of ours can add any
glory to the name of Abraham Lincoln. His work is accomplished. His fame
is secure. It is for us, his fellow-citizens, for the older men who had
personal touch with the great struggle in which Lincoln was the nation's
leader, for the younger men who have grown up in the generation since
the War, and for the children by whom are to be handed down through the
new century the great traditions of the Republic, to secure from the
life and character of our great leader incentive, illumination, and