Grande; whose soldiers numbered a million men on each side. The labor,
the thought, the responsibility, the strain of mind and anguish of soul
that he gave to his great task, who can measure? "Here was place for no
holiday magistrate, no fair-weather sailor," as Emerson justly said of
him. "The new pilot was hurried to the helm in a tornado. In four
years--four years of battle days--his endurance, his fertility of
resources, his magnanimity, were sorely tried and never found wanting."
"By his courage, his justice, his even temper, ... his humanity, he stood
a heroic figure in a heroic epoch."

[Illustration: THE LINCOLN MONUMENT AT SPRINGFIELD]

What but a lifetime's schooling in disappointment; what but the
pioneer's self-reliance and freedom from prejudice; what but the clear
mind quick to see natural right and unswerving in its purpose to follow
it; what but the steady self-control, the unwarped sympathy, the
unbounded charity of this man with spirit so humble and soul so great,
could have carried him through the labors he wrought to the victory he
attained?

With truth it could be written, "His heart was as great as the world,
but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong." So, "with
malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as
God gave him to see the right," he lived and died. We, who have never
seen him, yet feel daily the influence of his kindly life, and cherish
among our most precious possessions the heritage of his example.

[Illustration: STATUE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. BY AUGUSTUS ST. GAUDENS]