lass. 
 
 Book 
 
 
 PRESENTED 1!Y 
 
Htnrnln 
 
A i'l^rmnn 
 
 Charles Parker Connolly 
 
 PASTER PLYMOUTH CHURCH 
 
 MILWAUKEE:. WIS. 
 
 A REVISED VERSION OF A SERMON PREACHED IN THE FIRST 
 
 CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. LEAVENWORTH. KANSAS. 
 
 ON THE ONE HUNDRETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 
 
 BIRTH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. DELIVERED 
 
 IN MILWAUKEE. APRIL 12th. 1911 
 
 PUBLISHED BY A FRIEND 
 
 LEAVENWORTH 
 
 1911 
 
 HARMON QUALITY PRINTING 
 
It A 
 
 Gift 
 Author 
 (Pflritn> 
 
 KOV 21 1914 
 
Abraham Cinrnlu 
 
 Abraliam T.incfiln was a q^reat author, a ^rcat writer, a great 
 orator, a j^reat statesniaii. and a great leader. 'Jdiese are lofty 
 titles hut they do not exi)ress his greatest greatness, lie wa^ a 
 great teaeher. His sehool is the I'nited States; his pupils, all 
 thoughtful citizens to the last days of the Re]nil)lic ; his lesson, 
 the life he li\ed. lie was a teacher in the great school of life, 
 one of the greatest teachers that e\er li\ed. That is his pre- 
 eminent distinction, for deeper than all the profound political 
 ])roblenis which he clarified are those fundamental issues o[ 
 character and right lixiug upon which he throws a tlood of light. 
 
 Historians. l)iogTa])hers. orators and ])(>ets have eulogized 
 him; they have ransacked his whole career to record everything; 
 they have accorded him unstinted j)raise and honor. It m<'_\' 
 seem impossible to say anything of worth after such biograi)hers 
 as Xicolav and I lay. C"ar])enter and Rothschild, after such 
 poems as those of I^ldwin Markham and Shirle\' llrooks. and 
 after the man who had ])ri)uoi.niced him ""a low cunning clown 
 had been concpiered and said, "ilere lies the most ])erfect rule: 
 of men the world has ever seen.'" Yet there is one phase of his 
 jjreatness that has not been sufficiently em])hasi/.ed though nflen 
 recognized. 1 1 is his greatness as a teacher. We discuss it tliif. 
 morning not to honnr him, but to honor ourselves, lie does not 
 need our eulogv ; we need his lesson "lest we forget" 
 
As a teacher he was an iconoclast. He shatters no physical 
 idol before which superstition l)ows the body, 1)iit that mental 
 ideal before which civilization has often unfortunately prostrated 
 and debased its intellect. I refer to the delusion that, "o^reatness 
 is." to quote the words of an orator, "on a pedestal of the cen- 
 turies." That is to say, it is hig'h above us on a pedestal for ad- 
 miration as shining- statues are. Lincoln teaches us that g-reat- 
 ness is a live thing down among us for human service. He was 
 never once on a pedestal, for no matter how we may exalt him in 
 our affections, his greatness was not of uncommon ingredients 
 to make us his hopeless admirers instead of his hopeful follow- 
 ers. His greatness was of the common clay, as Markham ])er- 
 fectly puts it, "the color of the ground was in him, the red 
 earth." His greatness was of the people and for the people aiKJ 
 hopefully reminds us that the same greatness can be by the 
 people. 
 
 No teacher of rhetoric or literature in any school or college 
 was a clearer expositor of Longfellow's "Psalm of Life' thai: 
 Abraham Lincoln, for when Longfellow says. 
 
 "Lives of great men all remind us 
 We can make our lives sul)lime." 
 
 Lincoln does not expound, he demonstrates the truth of that. 
 He makes his greatness not out of rare, inaccessible materials, 
 nut out of homespun, common virtues within the reach of every 
 mother's son of us. His greatness is a moral victorv, not a ca- 
 price of fate, not a prodigy of genius, nor a favoritism of Provi- 
 dence. 
 
Because he teaches clearly, convinc^ing-ly. charminp;-ly the real- 
 ineaniiiLi" and accessibleness of greatness, we need to review the 
 lesson of his life. It is fitting- to begin with the lesson that he 
 teaciies far l^etter than any (^ther man save Jesus. That lesson I3 
 the greatness of simplicity. Pastor Wagner's book on "The 
 Simple Life" docs not interpret it so well as does the actual life 
 of Lincoln, and that oft-(|uoted phrase, "the simple life," is to- 
 day as frequently uttered with a smile as with an air of serious- 
 ness. W'c should like to be sim|)le. or we think we should like to 
 be simple, but we do not know how. To live the simple life we 
 wonder what external adjustment is demanded; what great revo- 
 lution is recpiired. We think that to be in the midst of conven- 
 tional restraints and artiticialties. life is inevitably made arti- 
 ^lcial. \'et we do not seriously believe that a retreat to the 
 wilderness mends matters. Tluireau seems a parasite living on 
 ti-.e outside of the civilization he thought he had escaped. Then 
 we look at Lincoln and feel that he was just as great and just as 
 .-imple when he was in the turmoil of tht- ^Vhile Hcuse as when 
 sj^litting rails in the lonclv forest ; that simplicity is not a matter 
 of envirounuMU nor of career, but of the spirit. In all of the per- 
 'ple.xities and entanglements and complexities of the Presidency 
 in that strenuous administration of our history. Lincoln wa^^ 
 simple. ( )ther men around him were trying to be profound and 
 brilliant, and one of the most difficult tasks he had was trying to 
 simi)lify those artificial men. lie seemed to have said once fci 
 all. affectation get thee behind nu-. lie di<l not try to be great; 
 lie did not trv to be ])rofound : he tried to be Lincoln. I U' had 
 the courage and rectitude of selfhood. Mr. I'.merson said, "If a 
 
sing'le man plant himself undaunted on his instincts and there 
 abide, the huge world will come around to him." Mr. Lincoln 
 proved that Emerson was ri.2^ht. The world has come around Lo 
 The rail-splitter, the lie-splitter, the artificiality-splitter. One of 
 the most sweeping-, magnanimous retractions of history is that of 
 the London Punch. It had failed to understand so simple a 
 character. It wanted a gilded mask instead of an honest man. 
 But simplicity was vindicated at last for Punch printed this 
 glorious stanza : 
 
 "Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer, 
 To lame my pencil and to confute my pen. 
 To make me own this hind of princess peer. 
 This rail-splitter, a true-born king of men." 
 
 The second lesson li^ teaches is the worth of sympathy. It 
 is not necessary to dwell upon the familiar fact of his tender- 
 heartedness. The impressive thing is that he felt that the prob- 
 lems of a struggling nation were not so grave as to justify him 
 in turning aside from any lowly woman who came to him for 
 comfort. The heart-aches of loyal sufferers could not be side- 
 tracked for the grave affairs of state. The man who did not 
 leave a pig to flounder in the mud, but spoiled his clothes to re- 
 cover it, could not permit the awful din of war to silence tlie 
 faintest whisper of human need. It would be an insult to your 
 intelligence to repeat the sorrows of his history. They have be- 
 come the A B C's of American history. Some day they will ijc 
 regarded not alone as classics of history, but classics of states- 
 manship. Then we shall have more statesmen like the la- 
 
niented John [lay, the poHtical ])ui)il of Liiu-ohi. for we shall ask 
 our Prime Ministers of State to he (^ur l))reniost ministers oi 
 ehcer and comfort and ]ieaee. We little realize how much vvc 
 need sympathy, man for man, ret^ardless of all class distinctions 
 m order to he etYective patriots. We are constantly tem]:)ted to 
 do with elaborate laws and ])retentious artifices what could i)e 
 done very easily by sym])athy. \\'e fors^et that it is the atmo3- 
 ])hcre that develops the best in man and that when withdrawn, 
 men are like troj^ical plants brought to the arctiof^ The best in 
 them is stunted. Despite a thousand stoves and furnaces \\ c 
 are uncomfortable in winter, but when the June sunshine comes 
 we .e^ive up the sorry substitutes. If capitalists will sympathi/:e 
 with laborers and if laborers will sympathize with capitalists, 
 we shall be able to soKe our industrial problems, and unless we 
 do that, we shall s;et at the skin l>ui:1iot at the heart of the prob- 
 lem. Mr. Lincoln's achiexement would have been absolutely 
 impossible had he iiiiiored the tj^reat importance of sympathy, had 
 he failed to trv to understand men ; had he insisted upon his 
 own projects before i^ettinjj close to the hearts of earnest, though 
 misguided thinkers. Try to imagine it.. Think of Mr. Lincoln 
 doing what he di<l without his deep sympathy. 
 
 This man teaches also the power of |)atience. When he 
 went to Washington he found eminent men incai)al)le of get- 
 ling together, of api)reciating one another's sincerity, of preserv- 
 ing the union, because they would not patiently discuss matters. 
 The north was ini])atient of the south ; the south impatient of the 
 north and northerners were impatient with one another. Lincoln 
 then revealed, as it had never been revealed before in histor}-. 
 
the power of patience. His patience kept his mind open. Pr?- 
 ■judice crazed the best minds and made them impatient. They 
 set ont to solve proljlems before they were studied ; to lead mer. 
 before they knew men. As Brownin^^ put it. "to act the but- 
 terfly before they have played out the worm." When a thou- 
 sand impatient men were trying- to make him act Lincoln m- 
 sisted upon studying his problem. You and I can quote the 
 proverbs of nations and the wonderful statements concernmg 
 patience but nothing will make us more likely to hunger an-l 
 ^hirst for patience than to see its power in the life of Lincoln. 
 
 You mav be surprised at the fourth lesson that T insist he 
 lias taught us. Some will be disposed to deny that he teaches 
 us this lesson, but I am firmly convinced that Lincoln teaches 
 as a great religious lesson. He was an intensely religious man, 
 not religious in a dogmatic, theological, ecclesiastical sense. 
 He was perplexed concerning creeds. He was not a church mem- 
 ber. He made no public profession of Christianity so far as I 
 know, but he read his liible; read it not to make dogma out of 
 it. but to make a noble life out of it. He prayed not that lie 
 might be saved, not that he might get from earth to heaven, but 
 that earth might become more of a heaven. He loved his fel- 
 low-men. loved them with a reverence and sincerity and service 
 that was in many essential respects Christ-like. He loved his 
 enemies. It is doubtful whether the south had a truer friend 
 lhan the ])ersccuted man in the \\'hite House. 
 
 If the churches in his day had been big enough to make 
 room for a big man instead of little enough to tightly fit orthodoA 
 dogmatists, Mr. Lincoln would have been a church member. It 
 
is important that every churcli should recognize that Mr. Lincoln 
 was truly and decpl}-. if not conxentionally, religious, for it is 
 exceedingly im|)ortant that churches should recognize religion 
 when they see it. and honor it howe\'er ])erplexe(l and falsely 
 labeled. Our churches would be blessed if they would open 
 wide their doors and hearts to men of his light and leading. 
 The simplicity, the sympathy, the patience of this great man 
 would have been impossible without the rexerend humility, that 
 sacred sense of responsibilitv which belongs to true religion. It 
 is well to praise him for his deeds; it is well/fc>< ^atefully ) love 
 liim for his service; it is still more loyal to him to permit his 
 love to teach us afresh the glory of simplicity, sympathy, patience 
 and spirituality. 
 
PRINTED BY 
 
 The Harmon 
 Printing Co. 
 
 LEAVENWORTH. 
 KANSAS. 
 

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