HE Civil War, that kept our Stars and Stripes

the flag of a united country, gave America a great hero, Abraham Lincoln.

The Nation remembers other heroes of that sad hard time. General Grant was the chief commander who won the war for us. A great soldier and a splendid man he was. We honor his memory. And many others there were, brave and wise and unselfish.

But Abraham Lincoln is America's hero in a pecu

liar way. His character is an example of ideal democracy; his thoughts and beliefs are the thoughts and beliefs that America herself lives by.

A good way to know what America is and wants to be, is to study the life of Abraham Lincoln. The best answer to any person who calls us a nation of money-lovers is to say: "We are the Nation that follows Abraham Lincoln."

When we read the life of Lincoln we find that he was well used to trouble. Hard things he had to do and bear all his life long. Never was anything made easy for him. No child in America to-day sleeps as cold as Lincoln did, or eats such poor food as Lincoln did in childhood; no child in America to-day has to go without schooling and books, as he did.

But hard things only made Lincoln strong to bear burdens. To have no books only made him more eager to learn. Sorrow only made him kind.

Poor and lonely and untaught, he built up a grand manhood, and the things he built on were the things that every man may have: they were faith in God, absolute honesty, patience to learn, and charity to all men.

When Lincoln became President he was so wise that the finest scholars of the country were glad

to learn from him. He had got his wisdom by patient study of the best books, and by patient close thinking.

Besides wisdom, he had splendid courage. It was a time like our time now, when people disagree about everything, and every public man has bitter enemies. Lincoln was slow to decide, because he could see so well just how other people felt about things, but when he had decided what was right, he did it, although all the world seemed against him.

But most of all, Lincoln had great charity, great kindness. This never failed, even when the world was most unkind to him. He was kind to all people, friends and enemies both. He was kind to animals and even to plants.

When little children wanted to see him in a crowd, he stopped on his busy way and shook hands with them. When the soldiers of the Union lay dying in hospitals, he took time from his never-ending work to sit with them and to write to their mothers. When at last the Union conquered, and the question came, "What shall be done to the States that made the trouble?" Lincoln said, "They have suffered enough; let us remember the command of Scripture, 'Judge not that ye be not judged.""

Abraham Lincoln is the representative of democracy, our true American hero. He was wise, sincere, powerful, and kind. He was of the people and for the people, like the Government he believed in and upheld. He had no special privilege; he wanted nothing for himself that all men might not have. He was a great American.

BECA

cere, he knew that nations like persons make mistakes. Good nations sometimes sin against the laws of God. He knew that when a nation sins against the laws of God, it must suffer, just as each of us suffers for sin.

The American Nation had sinned against the Divine laws of Brotherhood and Freedom when it allowed slavery. It suffered deeply in the Civil War, which almost tore it apart. But the good in the heart