Page:Abraham Lincoln address (1909).djvu/12

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first and frankest to acknowledge it."—(Lamon, pp. 480-1.) * * * "He did nothing out of mere gratitude, and forgot the devotion of his warmest partizans as soon as the occasion for their services passed."—Id., p. 482. * * * "Notwithstanding his overweaning ambition., and the breathless eagerness with which he pursued the objects of it, he had not a particle of sympathy with the great mass of his fellow-citizens who were engaged in similar struggles for place."—Id., p. 483.

Now mark you, this is what Lamon, his closest friend, and most ardent admirer, has to say of the "make up" of Mr. Lincoln. Is this the stuff of which the world's great characters, heroes, martyrs, and the exemplars for our children are made? Surely it would seem not, and further comment is deemed unnecessary.

LINCOLN NOT A CHRISTIAN.

One of the commonest, and one of the most attractive, claims now asserted by the admirers of Mr. Lincoln is, that he was a pious man and a Christian. Lamon tells us after his assassination he was compared to the Saviour and Redeemer of mankind. One of his reverend admirers compares his assassination to the crucifixion of our Lord; and since both of these events occurred on Good Friday, this writer says "even the day was fit." But since Mr. Lincoln's "taking off" was in a theater, it may be noted that this fanatical divine says nothing as to the fitness of the place at which this "taking off' occurred.

Another divine, in an oration delivered this year on the centennial anniversary of Mr. Lincoln's birth, begins it with the words:

"There was a man sent from God whose name was Abraham Lincoln."

He then speaks of him as being "like unto Melchizedek," and as the "one great man, and mystery and miracle of the nineteenth century."

It seems to us that the real mystery here is the fact that any one anywhere should be so foolish in this enlightened age as to suppose he can make sensible people swallow any such twaddle, nonsense and sacrilege as this.

Herndon says of Mr. Lincoln's alleged Christianity:

"Lincoln was a deep-grounded infidel. He disliked and