Lincoln the World Emancipator

THE WORLD EMANCIPATOR I LIBERTY LINCOLN, the world emancipator. It is a significant phrase, having surely an air of reality for those who know the story of the man. Among all men in the modern history of the world there is none who has so persuasively that magnetic union of mastery and sympathy that fills our minds when we think of the spiritual liberator. Intimately of the world, yet unsoiled by it vividly in contact with every emo tion of his fellows and aware always of the practical design of their lives always lonely, brooding apart from all, yet alien ated from none Abraham Lincoln, pio neer, citizen, country lawyer, astute poli 4 THE WORLD EMANCIPATOR tician, and incorruptible statesman, stands readily enough in the alert imagination as a new symbol of regenerative power. Already, half a century after his death, the mind of man perceives in this single hearted champion of a moral idea a figure to whom all sorrows and ambitions may be brought, a touchstone by which every ideal of conduct may be tried, a witness for the encouragement of the forlornest hope. Character is fate said the Greek, and character remains for us the only true inspiration. He who most com pletely realizes himself is he who most fitly assumes leadership of men, not only in the days of his life on earth, but in the story that he becomes thereafter. And for nearly two thousand years there has been no man of whom we have record who has so supremely realized himself to the very recesses of his being as this Amer ican, Lincoln. Rightly envisaged in the --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.