In the light of such facts, W. H. Herndon, Esq., of Springfield, Ill., was right in saying,—

“Through his perceptions,—the suggestiveness of nature, his originality, and strength; through his magnificent reason, his understanding, his conscience, his tenderness, and kindness, his heart, rather than love,—he approximated as nearly as most human beings in this imperfect state to an embodiment of the great moral principle, ‘Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you.’ ”

Thousands of the brave men who honoured and loved Abraham Lincoln sleep on Southern soil. They went down to the graves of heroes from a thousand battlefields, through four long, bloody, dreadful years; and no heart throbbed with truer sympathy for them in their sufferings than the heart of the President; and no eyes shed hotter tears for their loss than his. And when the nation’s offering was complete, and there were no more human sacrifices to be laid upon the altar of liberty on gory fields, and the country was jubilant over the final victory and the return of peace, the chieftain himself was added to the hecatomb of loyal men, the tears and lamentations of a loving and afflicted people consecrating the unparalleled sacrifice!

Well may the Grand Army of the Republic cherish the memory of their heroic leader, whose thoughts were ever with them on the field of conflict. How ring his beautiful words, “The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature!”