He was uneducated, as that term goes to-day, and yet he gave statesmen
and educators things to think about for a hundred years to come.
Beneath the awkward, angular and diffident frame beat one of the
noblest, largest, tenderest hearts that ever swelled in aspiration for
truth, or longed to accomplish a freeman's duty. He might have lacked
in that acute analysis which knows the "properties of matter," but he
knew the passions, emotions, and weaknesses of men; he knew their
motives. He had the genius to mine men and strike easily the rich ore
of human nature. He was poor in this world's goods, and I prize
gratefully a fac-simile letter lying among the treasures of my study
written by Mr. Lincoln to an old friend, requesting the favor of a
small loan, as he had entered upon that campaign of his that was not
done until death released the most steadfast hero of that cruel war.
Men speculate as to his religion. It was the religion of the seer, the
hero, the patriot, and the lover of his race and time. Amid the
political idiocy of the times, the corruption in high places, the
dilettante culture, the vaporings of wild and helpless theorists, in
this swamp of political quagmire, O Lincoln, it is refreshing to think
of thee!