on him, what can we say out of our full hearts but this—­“He fed them with a faithful and true heart, and ruled them prudently with all his power.”  The Shepherd of the People! that old name that the best rulers ever craved.  What ruler ever won it like this dead President of ours?  He fed us faithfully and truly.  He fed us with counsel when we were in doubt, with inspiration when we sometimes faltered, with caution when we would be rash, with calm, clear, trustful cheerfulness through many an hour when our hearts were dark.  He fed hungry souls all over the country with sympathy and consolation.  He spread before the whole land feasts of great duty and devotion and patriotism, on which the land grew strong.  He fed us with solemn, solid truths.  He taught us the sacredness of government, the wickedness of treason.  He made our souls glad and vigorous with the love of liberty that was in his.  He showed us how to love truth and yet be charitable—­how to hate wrong and all oppression, and yet not treasure one personal injury or insult.  He fed all his people, from the highest to the lowest, from the most privileged down to the most enslaved.  Best of all, he fed us with a reverent and genuine religion.  He spread before us the love and fear of God just in that shape in which we need them most, and out of his faithful service of a higher Master who of us has not taken and eaten and grown strong?  “He fed them with a faithful and true heart.”  Yes, till the last.  For at the last, behold him standing with hand reached out to feed the South with mercy and the North with charity, and the whole land with peace, when the Lord who had sent him called him and his work was done!

He stood once on the battle-field of our own State, and said of the brave men who had saved it words as noble as any countryman of ours ever spoke.  Let us stand in the country he has saved, and which is to be his grave and monument, and say of Abraham Lincoln what he said of the soldiers who had died at Gettysburg.  He stood there with their graves before him, and these are the words he said:—­

“We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.  The brave men who struggled here have consecrated it far beyond our 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 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; and this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

May God make us worthy of the memory of Abraham Lincoln!