A NOBLE LETTER

EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, Nov. 21, 1864. TO MRS. BIXBY, BOSTON, MASS.:

DEAR MADAM: I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours very sincerely and respectfully,

A. LINCOLN.

LINCOLN'S ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG FOURSCORE and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.. We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion

of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate-we cannot consecratewe cannot hallow-this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

O, CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

O, CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is

won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and

daring;

But, O, heart! heart! heart!

O, the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O, Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up for you the flag is flung - for you the bugle

trills,

For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths for you the shores a-crowding,

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here, Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head!

It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
His ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and

done,

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object

won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

WALT WHITMAN.

ON ABRAHAM LINCOLN

LINCOLN was not a type. He stands alone

no ances

tors, no fellows, and no successors. He had the advantage of living in a new country, of social equality, of personal freedom, of seeing in the horizon of his future the perpetual star of hope. In a new country, a man must possess at least three virtues - honesty, courage, and generosity. In a new country, character is essential; in the old, reputation is sufficient. In the new, they find what a man really is; in the old, he generally passes for what he resembles. Lincoln never finished his education. So to the night of his death he was a pupil, a learner, an inquirer, seeker after knowledge. Lincoln was a many-sided man, acquainted with smiles and tears, complex in brain, single in heart. He was never afraid to ask - never too dignified to admit that he did not know. No man had keener wit or kinder humor. He had intellect without arrogance, genius without pride, and religion without cant — that is to say, without bigotry and without deceit.

a

He was an orator - clear, sincere, natural. If you wish to know the difference between an orator and an elocutionist between what is felt and what is said between what the heart and brain can do together and what the brain can do alone read Lincoln's wondrous words at Gettysburg, and then the speech of Edward Everett. The oration of Lincoln will never be forgotten. It will live until languages are dead and lips are dust.

Wealth could not purchase, power could not awe this divine, this loving man. He knew no fear except the fear of doing wrong. Hating slavery, pitying the masterseeking to conquer. not persons, but prejudices - he was the embodiment of the self-denial, the courage, the hope, and the nobility of a nation. He spoke. not to inflame. not to upbraid, but to convince. He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction. He longed to pardon. He loved to see the pearls of joy on the cheeks of a wife whose husband he had rescued from death. Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. gentlest memory of our world.

He is the

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.

THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH

"Now give us lands where the olives

grow,

Cried the North to the South.
“Where the sun, with a golden mouth, can blow
Blue bubbles of grapes down a vineyard row!"
Cried the North to the South.

"Now give us men from the sunless plain."
Cried the South to the North.

"By need of work in the snow and the rain
Made strong and brave by familiar pain!"
Cried the South to the North.