{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_45449/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_45449","id":"gutenberg_45449","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45449","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: History - American","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 -- Psychology"],"text":"ABRAHAM LINCOLN\n\n                          THE PRACTICAL MYSTIC\n\n\n\n\n                           BY THE SAME AUTHOR\n\n                         ---------------------\n\n\n                       ILLUSIONS AND REALITIES OF\n                                THE WAR\n\n                        THE INVINCIBLE ALLIANCE\n                            AND OTHER ESSAYS\n\n                         THE CELTIC TEMPERAMENT\n\n                          MODERN MYSTICISM AND\n                              OTHER ESSAYS\n\n                           PARISIAN PORTRAITS\n\n                       THE HUMOUR OF THE UNDERMAN\n\n                         THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS\n\n                          LA VIE ET LES HOMMES\n                             (_in French_)\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n                            ABRAHAM LINCOLN\n\n                          THE PRACTICAL MYSTIC\n\n\n                          BY FRANCIS GRIERSON\n\n                     AUTHOR OF \"MODERN MYSTICISM,\"\n                 \"ILLUSIONS AND REALITIES OF THE WAR,\"\n                     \"THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS,\" ETC.\n\n\n\n\n\n                      NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY\n                   LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD\n                                MCMXVIII\n\n\n                            COPYRIGHT, 1918,\n                          BY JOHN LANE COMPANY\n\n\n\n                                Press of\n                        J. J. Little & Ives Co.\n                           New York, U. S. A.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n           _The Practical Mysticism of Abraham Lincoln_      9\n\n           _The Divine Will_                                12\n\n           _The Mystical Awakening_                         13\n\n           _The Agnostic and the Mystic_                    17\n\n           _The Logic of the Supernatural_                  19\n\n           _The Mystical Mood_                              21\n\n           \"_Going into the Silence_\"                       22\n\n           _Invisible Powers_                               24\n\n           _The Fusion of Spirit and Matter_                26\n\n           _His Miraculous Progress_                        28\n\n           _A Prophetic Witness_                            30\n\n           _Lincoln's Simplicity_                           32\n\n           _Lincoln's Clairvoyant Wit_                      34\n\n           _A Prophetic Vision of Hades_                    37\n\n           _Shakespeare and Lincoln_                        40\n\n           _A Prophecy Fulfilled_                           42\n\n           _The Ordinances of Heaven_                       44\n\n           _Lincoln's Face_                                 48\n\n           _The Great Debate_                               49\n\n           _Forecastings and Premonitions_                  52\n\n           _Illumination of the Spirit_                     54\n\n           _Tycho Brahe and Lincoln_                        56\n\n           _Herndon's Analysis and Testimony_               58\n\n           _An Original Mind_                               60\n\n           _The Great Books_                                61\n\n           _Veneration and Truth_                           63\n\n           _The Great Puzzle_                               64\n\n           _Lincoln's Energy and Will_                      65\n\n           _Nature and Prophecy_                            67\n\n           _The Seal of Nature_                             68\n\n           _Law and Authority_                              70\n\n           _Lincoln as Critic_                              73\n\n           _His Style_                                      74\n\n           _Lincoln's Serenity_                             75\n\n           _The Romance of His Character_                   77\n\n           _President by the Grace of God_                  79\n\n           _Science and the Mystical_                       80\n\n           _The Old and the New_                            81\n\n           _Destiny versus Will_                            82\n\n           _James Jacquess--Practical Mystic_               85\n\n           _Images and Dreams_                              89\n\n           _The New Era_                                    92\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n\n                            ABRAHAM LINCOLN\n                          THE PRACTICAL MYSTIC\n\n\n\n\n              _The Practical Mysticism of Abraham Lincoln_\n\n\nA knowledge of the influences which ruled the life of Lincoln, the\ngreatest of practical mystics, is essential now that a new form of\npaganism and slavery threatens humanity.\n\nIn Lincoln's time the black slaves of America had to be freed; in our\ntime the white slaves of Europe have to be freed. We have returned to\nthe conquest. History is being repeated, but on a far vaster scale. The\nwhole world is groaning under the threats and deeds of tyranny that\nseeks to become absolute. What Abraham Lincoln stood for in the middle\nof the nineteenth century the English-speaking peoples must stand for at\nthe beginning of the twentieth. Materialism produced Prussian autocracy.\nA spiritual power brought America safely through the ordeals of the\nCivil War. But the material and the spiritual cannot both rule at the\nsame time. One must yield authority to the other. And we cannot succeed\nby denying the very thing which caused Lincoln to triumph over all\nenemies and obstacles.\n\nIn 1862 the Reverend Byron Sutherland went with some friends of the\nPresident to call upon him. On November 15th, 1872, Dr. Sutherland wrote\nto the Reverend J. A. Reed:--\n\n\"The President began by saying, 'The ways of God are mysterious and\nprofound beyond all comprehension. \"Who, by searching, can find Him\nout?\" Now, judging after the manner of men, taking counsel of our\nsympathies and feelings, if it had been left to us to determine it, we\nwould have had no war. And, going farther back, to the occasion of it,\nwe would have had no evil. There is the mystery of the universe which no\nman can solve, and it is at that point that human understanding backs\ndown. There is nothing left but for the heart of man to take up faith\nand believe where it cannot reason. Now, I believe we are all agents and\ninstruments of Divine Providence. On both sides we are working out the\nwill of God. Yet how strange the spectacle! Here is one half of the\nnation prostrated in prayer that God will help to destroy the Union and\nbuild up a government upon the corner-stone of human bondage. And here\nis the other half, equally earnest in their prayers and efforts to\ndefeat a purpose which they regard as so repugnant to their ideas of\nhuman nature and the rights of society, as well as liberty and\nindependence. They want slavery; we want freedom. They want a servile\nclass; we want to make equality practicable as far as possible. And they\nare Christians and we are Christians. They and we are praying and\nfighting for results exactly the opposite. What must God think of such a\nposture of affairs? There is but one solution--self-deception. Somewhere\nthere is a fearful heresy in our religion, and I cannot think it lies in\nthe love of liberty and in the aspirations of the human soul. I hold\nmyself in my present position, and with the authority invested in me, as\nan instrument of Providence. I have my own views and purposes. I have my\nconvictions of duty and my ideas of what is right to be done. But I am\nconscious every moment that all I am, and all I have, is subject to the\ncontrol of a Higher Power. Nevertheless, I am no fatalist. I believe in\nthe supremacy of the human conscience, and that men are responsible\nbeings; that God has a right to hold them--and will hold them--to a\nstrict personal account for the deeds done in the body.... God alone\nknows the issue of this business. He has destroyed nations from the map\nof history for their sins. Nevertheless, my hopes prevail generally\nabove my fears for our Republic. The times are dark. The spirits of ruin\nare abroad in all their power and the mercy of God alone can save us.'\"\n\n\n\n\n                           _The Divine Will_\n\n\nSeptember 30th, 1862, when everything looked dark and the future of\nAmerica was uncertain, Lincoln wrote the following meditation on the\nDivine Will:--\n\n\"The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in\naccordance with the will of God. Both may be, one must be, wrong. God\ncannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the\npresent civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something\ndifferent from the purpose of either party; and yet the human\ninstrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation\nto affect His purpose. I am almost ready to say this is probably true:\nthat God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By His\ngreat power on the minds of the contestants he could have either saved\nor destroyed the Union without war. Yet the contest began. And, having\nbegun, He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the\ncontest proceeds.\"\n\n\n\n\n                        _The Mystical Awakening_\n\n\nA mystical epoch is upon us, and like all vital movements it has come\nwithout systematic propaganda and without organised effort.\n\nThe world-upheaval did not cause this new movement; it has simply\nadvanced it by stripping materialism of its illusive trappings and\nshowing it naked to the civilised world. It is not the work of one man\nor any single group, sect, or nation. Its characteristics are\nAnglo-American, and its development will prove the only antidote to the\nnew pagan Kultur, which opposes not only Christian morals but everything\nthat places the spiritual above the material.\n\nAbraham Lincoln, the greatest practical mystic the world has known for\nnineteen hundred years, is the one man whose life and example ought to\nbe clearly set before the English-speaking peoples at this supreme\nclimax in the history of civilisation. The thoughts, incidents,\nmanifestations, which the majority of historians glide over with a\ncareless touch, or sidetrack because of the lack of moral courage, are\nthe only things that count in the life of that great seer. His whole\nexistence was controlled by influences beyond the ken of the most astute\npoliticians of his time. His genius was superhuman. And since this world\nis not governed by chance, a power was at work which fore-ordained him\nfor his unique mission.\n\nW. H. Herndon has this to say in his biography of the immortal\nstatesman:--\n\n\"Nature had burned into him her holy fire and stamped him with the seal\nof her greatness.\"\n\nIn other words, the seal of the practical mystic, which may be taken as\nthe keynote to the spiritual theme of his marvellous experiences. For it\nis futile to continue to harp on Lincoln's political acumen, his\nknowledge of law, his understanding of the people, his judgment of\nindividuals, his poverty, his disregard of the conventional, as causes\nof his greatness. The same may be said of thousands of others, yet there\nis no other Lincoln. To arrive at a just appreciation of the man and his\nachievements I felt it essential to read very carefully all the books\nwritten by those most intimate with the great President--a study which\nhas required a period of thirty years. The writing of \"The Valley of\nShadows\" was one of the results of that study, that book being, as far\nas I could make it, a depiction of the spiritual atmosphere of the\nLincoln country in Lincoln's time--the atmosphere in which he lived and\nmoved, thought and worked.\n\nToo long has the materialism of weights and bushel measures dimmed the\nlight that shines from the example of that incomparable seer. Too long\nhave politicians used his name to fish for gudgeons in the muddy waters\nof sectional politics. Too long has Lincoln been held up in speeches and\nelectioneering manoeuvres as a politician who arrived because he was\nhonest. As if Webster, Calhoun, Clay, Sumner, and scores of others were\nnot equally honest without ever attaining a world-influence. What caused\nLincoln's honesty? His conscience. And what created his conscience? His\ninnate mystical knowledge of the difference between good and evil,\nphilosophers and puppets, the solemn dignity of duty and the sham\ndignity of ambition. His was the clear vision in the darkest hours while\nothers were magnifying events through long-distance spectacles, or\nminimising them in near-sighted details.\n\nThe mystical trend now visible in England and America is not a revival\nbut a renaissance. It has come in the natural course of events, being\nthe only thing that responds to the spiritual aspirations and needs of\nthe dispensation ushered in by the great war.\n\nThe renaissance of practical mysticism is now apparent both in and\noutside the churches; but its greatest influence is exerted on that\nlarge class which, before the war, had no religious convictions of any\nkind. We have arrived at a climax in history. Old methods and systems\nare passing, but not the old fundamental truths. Conditions, not\nprinciples, have changed, and our attitude towards things has changed\nwith conditions. Thousands can now see clearly where once they saw\nthrough a veil of agnosticism. It required a mighty force to lift the\nveil, and a vast amount of machinery and metaphysics had to combine to\naccomplish such a miracle; but the miracle is here, alive with a vital\nflame unknown since the days of the Prophets and the Apostles.\n\nThe spiritual renaissance is not a drawing-room fad. It is not founded\non a passing whim. Novelties and opinions shift with the wind, and\npeople who are influenced by them are influenced by shadows. Mere\nnotions can never take the place of ideas. Novelties possess no\nfundamental basis on which the spirit of man can build, and the\ndifference between an idea and a notion is the difference between a\nuniversity and a lunatic asylum.\n\nThe spiritual renaissance is not confined to any particular profession,\nand this is why it is making headway among people of such divers views.\nThe war has crushed the juice out of the orange on the tree of pleasure\nand nothing is left but the peel over which materialism is slipping to\nits doom.\n\nThis stupendous movement was not sprung upon the world in a night. It\nhas had its slow stages of development. Everything comes and goes in\ncycles which are graded in kind and proceed in accordance with immutable\nlaw. This spiritual movement has had its special phases of preparation.\nIt is not true that the voices of the prophets have been inaudible. What\nis true is that every voice that has sounded since the dawn of\nhistorical civilisation has been heard and heeded. Emerson uttered a\ngreat mystical truth when he said: \"A book written for three will\ngravitate to three,\" and, similarly, a voice intended for three will be\nheard and heeded by three.\n\n\n\n\n                     _The Agnostic and the Mystic_\n\n\nHerndon's agnosticism left no lasting impression on the mind of Lincoln.\nThis is remarkable, because Herndon was a man with a powerful\noriginality and a strong will.\n\nLincoln was more or less influenced by Herndon at the beginning of their\nacquaintance but such influence did not last long.\n\nAnother curious thing is that Mr. Herndon, in spite of his probity, his\npractical ability, and his talent as a lawyer, never became known beyond\nhis own state. He never was put forward as a leader. Perhaps he\nentertained no particular ambition to lead, being too much of a\nphilosopher, but the remark is in order that what was lacking in his\ntemperament was just a spark of that mystical illumination which gave\nLincoln his faith, his conviction, and his power.\n\nNo doubt Herndon was singularly fitted for the position he held with\nLincoln for the space of twenty years. Had he been a leader in public\naffairs he could not have aided Lincoln as he did.\n\nThat the great President never had a mentor is plain to all who have\nstudied the best biographies. He did sometimes act upon suggestions from\nfriends in matters of minor importance in his private affairs. When, one\nday, after he had become President, Mrs. Lincoln informed him that the\ngossips declared he was being ruled by Seward, his reply was: \"I may not\nrule myself out, certainly Seward shall not. The only ruler is my\nconscience--following God in it--and these men will have to learn that\nyet.\" And Seward did learn it, as well as Stanton and Chase, and every\nmember of the Cabinet, and all others who came within the radius of his\nmystical circuit. Indeed, the generals all learnt it, some of them to\ntheir sorrow, long before the war ended.\n\nLincoln's authority became apparent to all whenever he delivered a\nspeech on important occasions. Then, as Judge Whitney has said, he was\n\"as terrible as an army with banners.\" Col. Henry Watterson, in his\nmemorable address before the Lincoln Union, in Chicago, puts the\nquestion: \"Where did Shakespeare get his genius? Where did Mozart get\nhis music? Whose hand smote the lyre of the Scottish ploughman? God\nalone. And if Lincoln was not inspired of God then there is no such\nthing as special Providence or the interposition of Divine Power in the\naffairs of men.\"\n\n\n\n\n                    _The Logic of the Supernatural_\n\n\nJudge Henry C. Whitney has asked the following questions:--\"By what\nmagic spell was this, the greatest moral transformation in all profane\nhistory, wrought? What Genius sought out this roving child of the\nforest, this obscure flatboatman, and placed him on the lonely heights\nof immortal fame? Why was this best of men made the chief propitiation\nfor our national sins? Was his progress causative or fortuitous; was it\nlogical or supernatural; was the Unseen Power, or he himself, the\narchitect of his fortune?\n\n\"The blunders that were committed by raw and reckless commanders in the\nfield were sufficient to make angels weep, but they were all mosaics in\nthe process of Fate to work out the Divine plan. If we could see the\nwhole scheme of human redemption it would be quite clear to us that not\nonly Abraham Lincoln, U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, but equally Jefferson\nDavis, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Raphael Semmes were\nnecessary instruments of the great disposer of events--that the bullet\nwhich terminated the glorious career of the President was not more\nsurely sped by Fate to its mark than was the bullet which ended the life\nof Albert Sidney Johnston at Shiloh and which ultimately averted ruin to\nthe Union forces on that blood-stained field, and that in the sublime\nprocession of destiny all events, apparent accidents, calamities,\ncrimes, and blunders were agents of the omnipotent will, now as cause,\nthen as interlude or eddy, anon as effort, all working, apparently, and\nto human comprehension, fortuitously, but in reality all harmoniously to\ntheir Divine appointed end.\"\n\n\n\n\n                          _The Mystical Mood_\n\n\n\"There was to me,\" says Henry B. Rankin, in his \"Personal Recollections\nof Abraham Lincoln,\" \"always an unapproachable grandeur in the man when\nhe was in this mood of inner solitude. It isolated and--I always\nthought--exalted him above his ordinary life. History will discern and\nreverently disclose the strength in Lincoln's character and the\nexecutive foresight for which this mood gave him revealings.\"\n\nAnd the Reverend Joseph Fort Newton adds to the sentiments of his friend\nRankin these words: \"Lincoln was a man whom to know was a kind of\nreligion. His deep musings on the ways of God, on the souls of men, on\nthe principles of justice and the laws of liberty bore fruit in exalted\ncharacter and exact insight. Hence, a style of speech remarkable for its\nlucidity, direction, and forthright power, with no waste of words,\ntinged always by a temperament at once elusive and alluring, which Bryce\ncompares to the weighty eloquence of Cromwell without its haziness.\"\n\n\n\n\n                       \"_Going into the Silence_\"\n\n\nDuring an important criminal trial Amzi McWilliams said: \"Lincoln will\npitch in heavy now for he has hid.\"\n\nOne who knew him declared: \"He seemed never to be alone. I have\nfrequently seen him, in the midst of a Court in session, with his mind\ncompletely withdrawn from the busy scene before his eyes, as completely\nabstracted as if he were in absolute solitude.\"\n\nJudge Whitney wrote: \"In religion, Lincoln was in essence a mystic, and\nall his adoration was in accordance with the tenets of that order,\" a\njudgment which agrees with that of Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President\nof the Southern Confederacy: \"With Lincoln, the Union rose to the\nsublimity of a religious Mysticism.\"\n\nThe mystical mood cannot be likened to any other mood. People in a hurry\nnever experience such a mental state. Personal ambition forbids it and\nthe feeling of vainglory renders such a condition impossible. What\nrenders the life of Lincoln so instructive is the fact that with him\neverything was so natural. He did not experiment; he did not practise\nspecial hours and seasons; he had no fixed times for this or that. He\nprofessed no subtle methods of inducing moods and took no stimulants.\nNature and a mystical Providence arranged and provided.\n\nHis moods were between himself and his God. No one ever dared approach\nhim as to the why or the wherefore of his silence. And it is proper here\nto comment on the instinctive good sense of the American people in whose\nmidst Lincoln passed his whole life--they instinctively knew too much to\npresume upon the privacy of his mystical moods. In this their attitude\nwas wholly admirable. The American people were at that time practical,\ndemocratic seers, without whom the greatest practical mystic could not\nhave existed.\n\nThat Lincoln possessed intuition and illumination without resorting to\nhuman aid is clear and irrefutable. His words were simple and his\nactions were simple, like those of the Hebrew seers. He announced and he\npronounced, without subtle explanations or mysterious formulas.\n\nAll which proves that practical mysticism can nourish as much under a\nDemocracy as under any other form of government.\n\nMen do not receive their gifts from those in power. They come into the\nworld with them. Lincoln was opposed on all sides from the start. He had\nto contend with poverty, provincial ignorance, aristocratic prejudice,\nacademical opposition, and he had against him his homely features, his\nawkward bearing, and the lack of influential patronage. He had no family\nconnections that could be of assistance anywhere at any time. Never had\nthere been a man of great intellect so absolutely alone in the\nintellectual world, so removed from social and political favours of time\nand circumstance.\n\n\n\n\n                           _Invisible Powers_\n\n\nWe are compelled to look at all sides of Lincoln's political career in\norder to arrive at a just appreciation of his stupendous achievements,\nand when that is done we have to dismiss the notion that he succeeded\nbecause of his brilliant intellectual gifts. Others possessed great\nintellects without attaining altitudes of commanding power and enduring\nfame.\n\nWhy did the influence of C\u00e6sar, Darius, Alexander, Bonaparte, and\nBismarck cease as soon as they passed away? Because the influence they\nexerted was based on material dominion. With the collapse of the\nmaterial everything collapses. The material can never go beyond or take\nprecedence of the spiritual. Marcus Aurelius is read to-day because he\nplaced spiritual things above all worldly possessions and privileges.\n\nThe universe was created by a Supreme Mind and the direction of affairs\nis in the hands of this All-Seeing Power, manifesting in all\nforms--sometimes personal, sometimes collective. In Lincoln's case it\ntook a pronounced individual form, isolated and unique, as in Moses. The\nease with which Lincoln overcame opposition amazed those who were near\nhim. They judged it miraculous. Miracles are manifestations for which\nscience has no definition, no analysis. Lincoln's intelligence was not\nbound by the known rules and laws of science. It requires intuition and\nillumination for its realisation. Such intelligence cannot be handled in\ndetail as chemists handle the elements of matter. In the mystical world\nall the elements, forces, and combinations act and develop together as\none manifestation at one time. No mental chemistry can separate them.\n\n\n\n\n                   _The Fusion of Spirit and Matter_\n\n\n\"The existence of a great man,\" says Victor Cousin, the French\nphilosopher, \"is not the creation of arbitrary choice; he is not a thing\nthat may, or may not, exist; he is not merely an individual; too much,\nor too little, of individuality are equally destructive to the character\nof a great man. On the one hand, individuality of itself is an element\nof what is pitiful and little, because particularity, the contingent and\nthe finite, tends unceasingly to division, to dissolution, and to\nnothingness. On the other hand, every general tends to absolute unity.\nIt possesses greatness but it is exposed to the risk of losing itself in\nabstractions. The great man is the harmonious combination of what is\nparticular with what is general. This combination constitutes the\nstandard value of his greatness, and it involves a two-fold condition:\nfirst, of representing the general spirit of his nation, because it is\nin his relation to that general spirit that his greatness consists; and,\nsecondly, of representing the general spirit which confers upon his\ngreatness in his own person, in a real form, that is, in a finite,\npositive, visible, and determinate form; so that what is general may not\nsuppress what is particular; and that which is particular may not\ndissipate and dissolve what is general--that the infinite and the finite\nmay be blended together in that proportion which truly constitutes human\ngreatness.\"\n\nAll which applies to Lincoln.\n\n\"Conceive a great machine,\" wrote Guizot, the historian, \"the design of\nwhich is centred in a single mind, though its various parts are\nentrusted to various workmen, separated from, and strangers to, each\nother. No one of them understands the work as a whole, nor the general\nresult which he concerts in producing; but every one executes with\nintelligence and freedom, by rational and voluntary acts, the particular\ntask assigned to him. It is thus that by the hand of man the designs of\nProvidence are wrought out in the government of the world. It is thus\nthat the two great facts, which are apparent in the history of\ncivilisation, come to co-exist. On the one hand, those portions of it\nwhich may be considered as fated, or which happen without the control of\nhuman knowledge or will; on the other hand, the part played in it by the\nfreedom and intelligence of man and what he contributes to it by means\nof his own knowledge and will.\"\n\n\n\n\n                       _His Miraculous Progress_\n\n\nOne of the most searching biographers of Lincoln maintains that between\nthe ages of fourteen and twenty-eight he displayed no sign of embryonic\nor assured greatness.\n\nIf this be true, it means that none of Lincoln's early friends were\nintuitive enough to discover his greatness. Even the best writers who\nhave dealt with this fascinating subject have failed to see all the\nfacts, all the influences, all the correlated powers, in connection with\nwhat looks to many like a life of miracle. Intelligence and power are\nnot attained by any mental hocus-pocus or metaphysics. Diamonds in the\nrough are still diamonds, or no one would think of having them polished.\nThe same law works in nature as in human nature. The great man is born,\nbut he is not born with all his faculties developed, and he, like\nothers, must pass through stages of progressive development. There is\nnot one law for genius and another for mere talent.\n\nA distinguished writer says:--\n\n\"Lincoln achieved greatness, but can the genesis of the mystery be\nanalysed?\"\n\nCertainly not by the ordinary process of ordinary philosophers and\nscientists. What all writers up to the present have failed to see is\nthat Lincoln's powers were a combination of the normal-practical and the\npractical-supernatural. His supernaturalism was positive, mathematical,\nand absolute. The only things which Lincoln had to learn as he went were\nthe modes of application. He had to learn system and method, as was\nnatural, but the principle came into the world with him. Everything that\nis concrete appears simple. The various qualities and elements that\nproduce what we call mental illumination are hidden from the crowd and\neven from those who most profess to understand.\n\nJesse Dubois wrote to Judge Whitney that \"after having been intimately\nassociated with Lincoln for twenty-five years I now find that I never\nknew him.\"\n\nThe great man had unconsciously deceived his friends because of his\noutward simplicity. And this outward freedom was backed by his\nsimplicity of speech and direct logic. It was all too simple. They were\nfooled by the outward material because the inward mystical took that\nform. His friends liked the man and worked to elect him principally for\nthat reason, and this is why they were astonished later on when the\npractical mystic rose clear above all systems of politics and all the\naccepted philosophies, and accomplished the miraculous. The impossible\nhappened. The President had to go more than half way through the Civil\nWar before the real Lincoln became manifest to observing critics.\n\n\n\n\n                         _A Prophetic Witness_\n\n\nIn his book, \"Life on the Circuit with Lincoln,\" Judge Whitney\ncomments:--\n\n\"As early as 1856, independent of all contemporary opinion, I conceived\nthe idea that Mr. Lincoln was a prodigy of intellectual and moral force.\nOthers associated with us deemed him superlatively great, but still\nhuman. I went farther; my view was definite and pronounced, that Lincoln\nwas ordained for a greater than a merely human mission, and I avowed\nthis belief as early as that time.\n\n\"His character as a lawyer was controlled and moulded by his character\nas a man. He understood human nature thoroughly and was an expert in the\ncross-examination of witnesses. If a witness told the truth without\nevasion Lincoln was respectful and patronising to him, but he would\nscore a perjured witness unmercifully. He took no notes but remembered\neverything quite as well as those who did so. I remember once we all,\nCourt and lawyers, except Lincoln, insisted that a witness had sworn\nso-and-so, but it turned out that Lincoln was correct and that he\nrecollected better than the united bench and bar. But with all his\ncandour, there was a method and shrewdness which Leonard Swett well\nunderstood and which he has thus forcibly expressed: 'As the trial\nprogressed, where most lawyers object, he would say he \"reckoned\" it\nwould be fair to admit this in, or that; and sometimes when his\nadversary could not quite prove what Lincoln knew to be the truth, he\nwould say he \"reckoned\" it would be fair to admit the truth to be\nso-and-so. When he did object to the Court, when he heard his objections\nanswered, he would often say, \"Well, I reckon I must be wrong.\"'\n\n\"He was wise as a serpent in the trial of a case, but I have got too\nmany scars from his blows to certify that he was harmless as a dove.\nWhen the whole thing is unravelled the adversary begins to see that what\nhe was so blandly giving away was simply what he couldn't get and keep.\nBy giving away six points and carrying the seventh he carried his case,\nand, the whole case hanging on the seventh, he traded everything which\nwould give him the least aid in carrying that. Any one who took Lincoln\nfor a simple-minded man would very soon wake up on his back, in a\nditch.\"\n\n\n\n\n                         _Lincoln's Simplicity_\n\n\nThere are two kinds of simplicity--one is without reason or\ndiscrimination, that believes all that is seen and heard if presented\nunder the guise of honesty; the other is the kind that penetrates\nbeneath manner, dress, verbiage, and meets all subterfuge, artifice, and\nsophistry with statements and facts at once logical and irrefutable.\nLincoln was the most simple man in dress, in speech, in manners, in\nlooks, that ever stood before the world in so great a r\u00f4le, but his\nintellect was anything but simple. He was never deceived by cunning\ndevices and cunning manoeuvres. Bacon has an essay showing the difference\nbetween cunning and wisdom, and it may be said that Lincoln's knowledge\ntook the form of wisdom as distinguished from cunning. His management of\na law case was that of a seer. The points he made were not made for\npersonal gratification but for love of truth and justice. Not only he\ndid not want to risk being deceived, he took every precaution to insure\nagainst deception. Here is where his welding of reason and logic\nproduced in his marvellous intellect a kind of clairvoyance which his\nfriends at the bar felt but could not analyse. The combination was\nunheard of! The lawyers and the judges could only reason from their own\nexperience, they could only cite examples in their own lives, and this\nman Lincoln was unlike all that had been and all that was.\n\nLincoln's simplicity seemed to the casual observer of a character so\ntrusting and so na\u00eff that it deceived all the members of his Cabinet\nduring the first two years of the war. They were used to smart men,\nclever men, academical men. They called for the routine of\nrespectability and official dignity. To their minds the President seemed\npliable and willing, and they set about instructing him in the a, b, c\nof high politics and the first principles of statesmanship. The\nPresident was in no way frustrated. He understood them in advance,\nhaving weighed them in the balance of his own judgment. He had found\nthem honest but inexperienced, sincere but saucy. He knew they were\nliving in an atmosphere of low visibility. At the proper moment he would\nturn on the searchlights and give them their bearings. Some of them\nexpected to act as the President's pilot, while others expected to be\ncaptain of the ship-of-state with the President as pilot.\n\nIt took them more than two years to find out that this pioneer of the\nWest was captain, pilot, and master of charts on a political sea the\nlike of which they little dreamed existed. In one sense, he wore out\ntheir obstinacy by his patience. In another, he awaited opportunities to\nattest their errors and show his judgment, but matters proceeded with\nsuch calm that they could not understand with what power he acted, with\nwhat prescience he divined.\n\nWhat mystified them was the combination of the practical with the\nspiritual, the clear vision with the maxims of ordinary business\naffairs, the penetration of the future while working in seeming\ndarkness.\n\n\n\n\n                      _Lincoln's Clairvoyant Wit_\n\n\nLincoln was not deceived by an outward show of religion. A Southern\nwoman begged the President to have her husband released from a Northern\nprison, \"for,\" she said, \"although he is a Rebel he is a very religious\nman.\" Lincoln replied: \"I am glad to hear that, because any man who\nwants to disrupt this Union needs all the religion in sight to save\nhim.\"\n\nHe treated with indifference people who commandeered. A haughty woman\ncame to Lincoln and demanded a colonel's commission for her son. \"I\ndemand it,\" she said, \"not as a favour but as a right. Sir, my\ngrandfather fought at Lexington, my father fought at New Orleans, and my\nhusband was killed at Monterey.\"\n\n\"I guess, Madam,\" was Lincoln's reply, \"your family has done enough for\nthe country. It is time to give some one else a chance.\"\n\nWhen Hugh McCullough, Secretary of the Treasury in Lincoln's second\nterm, presented a delegation of New York bankers at the White House,\nMcCullough said: \"These gentlemen of New York have come on to see the\nSecretary of the Treasury about our new loan. As bankers, they are\nobliged to hold our national securities. I can vouch for their\npatriotism and loyalty, for, as the good Book says, 'Where the treasure\nis there will the heart be also.'\"\n\nTo which Lincoln replied: \"There is another text, Mr. McCullough, I\nremember, that might equally apply, 'Where the carcass is there will the\neagles be gathered together.'\"\n\nLincoln condemned as tedious a certain Greek history. When a diplomat\npresent said: \"The author of that history, Mr. President, is one of the\nprofoundest scholars of the age; no one has plunged more deeply into the\nsacred fount of learning.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" replied Lincoln, \"or come up drier.\"\n\nWhen in Chicago in 1860, the mayor, John Wentworth, asked Lincoln why he\ndid not get some astute politician to _run_ him, Lincoln replied that\n\"events and not a man's own exertions made presidents.\"\n\nTo Henry C. Whitney, Lincoln remarked: \"Judd and Ray and those fellows\nthink I don't see anything, but I see all around them. I see better what\nthey want to do with me than they do themselves.\"\n\nThey were deceived, not by Lincoln, who never cared what individuals\nthought, but by Nature, which often sets a trap for people who live in a\nworld of their own illusions. Nature, the medium through which the\nDivine mind manifests, is, so to speak, a mask through which egoists\ncannot penetrate and by which the cunning are led to destruction.\nLincoln let them talk and even act, knowing that they themselves were\nthe tools for their own undoing. While the ward politicians and others,\nwho thought themselves far superior, laid their plans, schemed, and\nintrigued, the man of clear vision awaited unperturbed the events which\nhe knew would put them all in their proper places. Little did they dream\nthat they were mere incidents among the million of incidents that go to\nthe making of one epoch-making event.\n\nThe practical mystic is little concerned with incidents. The multitude\ndo not know in what direction they are going, moved and influenced as\nthey are by the incidental, the accidental, the shifting illusions in\nwhich they live, but the man who knows why they are influenced also\nknows why he is influenced.\n\nLincoln was patient with the men who considered him a sort of political\naccident. He understood their point of view. He did not entertain\nfeelings of revenge. Hundreds of men, like John Wentworth, are only\nmentioned to-day because of some passing incident which connected them\nwith the man whom they regarded as a failure in politics.\n\n\n\n\n                     _A Prophetic Vision of Hades_\n\n\nThat William Blake was a mystic of the practical kind there can be no\nquestion. In art and in poetry he had that illumination which Lincoln\nhad in statesmanship.\n\nThe New York _Times_ says:--\n\n\"That a century has failed to heap the dust of oblivion over England's\n'Greatest Mystic,' William Blake, is exemplified by the reproduction in\na recent issue of _Country Life_ of one of Blake's engravings for\nDante's _Inferno_, in which four fiends with cruel faces are torturing a\nsoul in Hell.\"\n\nThe face of the chief devil, who is not actually engaged in the torture,\nbut is an eager and interested spectator, might easily be taken for a\nportrait of the German Emperor. As suggested by W. F. Boudillon, the\nfamiliar, upturned moustachios must have puzzled Blake in his vision. He\nrepresented them as tusks growing from the corners of the mouth--it is\nto be noted that this fiend alone among the four has the tusks.\n\nIt is recorded of Blake, as a lad, that his father would have\napprenticed him to Rylands, the Court Engraver--a man much liked and in\ngreat prosperity at the time--but Blake objected, saying: \"Father, I do\nnot like his face; he looks as if he would live to be hanged.\" Twelve\nyears later Rylands committed forgery, and the prophecy came true.\n\nBlake's visions, startling though they be, are not more startling than\nmany prophecies made by Lincoln, as, for instance, his prophecy of\nprohibition, woman's rights, and the end of slavery, not to mention his\nvisions concerning himself. The practical mystic sees _through_, the\nscientific materialist sees only, the surface. Eternity is the\neverlasting now. Blake drew a faithful portrait of the Kaiser Wilhelm II\nof Germany long before the Kaiser was born, and Tycho Brahe predicted\nthe birth of a Swedish conqueror and what he would accomplish.\n\nIn these things there is no place for chance, nor is it true that the\npractical mystic is limited to poetry, or to art, or to music, or to\nreligion, politics, and philosophy. Neither is the practical mystic\nconfined to any particular social class or any creed.\n\nAbraham Lincoln could not have directed affairs had he been a recluse.\nBefore he became an adept in the direction of material affairs he had to\nbe familiar with the practical ways of the world, and as a lawyer he\npassed through a school that left no place for vague theories or vain\nillusions. He frequently stripped others of their illusions, but being\nfree of illusions himself he had none to lose. This made him\ninvulnerable. His enemies were swayed by theories; nothing short of\nknowledge sufficed for this man, who reduced his adversaries to the\nposition where they were kept constantly on the alert to know what\nmanoeuvre to employ next. They moved in a region of guess-work where\nthere was no law except that of their own confusion and discomfiture.\n\n\n\n\n                       _Shakespeare and Lincoln_\n\n\n\"Lincoln,\" says Judge Whitney, \"was one of the most heterogeneous\ncharacters that ever played a part in the great drama of history, and it\nwas for this reason that he was so greatly misjudged and misunderstood;\nthat he was, on the one hand, described as a mere humourist--a sort of\nArtemus Ward or Mark Twain--that it was thought that, by some 'irony of\nFate,' a low comedian had got into the Presidential chair, and that the\nnation was being delivered over to conflagration, while this modern Nero\nfiddled upon its ruins.\n\n\"One of his peculiarities was his inequality of conduct, his dignity,\ninterspersed with freaks of frivolity and inanity; his high aspiration\nand achievement, and his descent into the most primitive vales of\nlistlessness.\"\n\nIn the chief drawer of his cabinet table all the current joke books of\nthe time were in juxtaposition with official commissions, lacking only\nthe final signature, applications for pardons from death penalties, laws\nawaiting executive action, and orders which, when launched, would\ncontrol the fate of a million men and the destinies of unborn\ngenerations. \"Hence it was that superficial persons, who expected great\nachievements to be ushered in with a prologue, could not understand or\nappreciate that this great man's administration was a succession of acts\nof grand and heroic statesmanship, or that he was a prodigy of intellect\nand moral force.\"\n\nThe mystic Shakespeare and the mystic Lincoln have a connecting link in\ntheir wit and humour. Had Shakespeare left us only two dramas--_Macbeth_\nand _Othello_--no one would have dreamed of a creation like Falstaff\nemanating from the same mind, yet it is because of the union of the\ntragic and the humorous that Shakespeare is universally human, worldly\nwise as well as spiritual and metaphysical.\n\nShakespeare makes of the gravedigger in _Hamlet_ a sort of clown with a\nspade, and throughout all his dramas wit and humour, pathos and tragedy,\ngo hand in hand. Without his humour Shakespeare would have been little\nmore than an English Racine. With Lincoln, humour was made to serve a\nhigh, psychic purpose. By its means he created a new atmosphere and new\nconditions through which he could all the more freely work and act. He\nbrought humour into play for his own good as well as that of others. He\nwas not a theorist, or a dreamer of dreams; he was a practical mystic.\n\n\n\n\n                         _A Prophecy Fulfilled_\n\n\nIn a letter written from Springfield, Illinois, August 15th, 1855, to\nthe Hon. George Robertson, of Lexington, Kentucky, Lincoln said:--\n\n\"The Autocrat of all the Russias will proclaim his subjects free sooner\nthan will our American Masters voluntarily give up their slaves.\"\n\nOn the day before Lincoln's first inauguration as President of the\nUnited States the \"Autocrat of all the Russias,\" Alexander the Second,\nby Imperial decree emancipated his serfs, while six weeks after the\ninauguration the \"American Masters,\" headed by Jefferson Davis, began\nthe great war of secession to perpetuate and spread the institution of\nslavery. This is only one of Lincoln's prophecies which proved true. In\nstating them he did not pass into an abnormal state. He spoke as one\nwould speak of the coming weather. He did not consult the stars, nor any\nperson, before making a prophetic statement. Seeing clearly was as\nnatural to him as eating or sleeping. He was not a psychic machine,\nuttering thoughts which seemed strange and enigmatical to himself,\nbecause his intellectual and spiritual powers were part of himself.\n\nMen of genius are not instruments in the vulgar meaning of the word.\nThey do not act in ignorance of what they are doing and saying. Lincoln,\nmore than any other, could give deliberate reasons for what he did and\nsaid, and it is exceedingly difficult to name another in history who was\nunder such logical and commanding control of all the moral and\nintellectual faculties. When he seemed to the superficial observer to be\ndreaming, he was reasoning, calculating, comparing, analysing, weighing,\nturning things upside down and inside out, until he satisfied the\ndictates of his conscience and his sense of moral responsibility.\n\nHe placed no reliance on halfway measures and palliatives, no faith in\nthe workings of chance. He therefore was not, and could never have been,\na passive instrument in the hands of some unknown power. When it was\nsaid of a certain musician that he composed his operas under the direct\ninfluence of Mozart, the answer was: \"Then who influenced Mozart?\"\n\nGreat originality belongs to the mystical unity of the Supreme\nIntelligence. Had Lincoln imitated Henry Clay, whom he so much admired\nas a statesman and thinker, what would have become of Lincoln and the\ncountry he governed?\n\nHe who originates is authoritative, and, as Carlyle said, \"All authority\nis mystical in its origin.\" In no single thing of importance did Lincoln\ncopy any one's methods or systems. His trend of thought was at variance\nwith the prevailing trend, even of those who were supposed to know the\nmost.\n\n\n\n\n                       _The Ordinances of Heaven_\n\n\n\"Canst thou bind the sweet influence of Pleiades, or loose the bands of\nOrion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? Or canst thou\nguide Arcturus with his sons? Knowest thou the ordinances of\nheaven?\"--Job.\n\nPhenomena that arrive with the days, months, seasons, centuries, are\naccompanied by events of corresponding significance in the human world,\nfor everything is related to everything else.\n\nIn 1858 a new party came into being, headed by the prophet from the\nwilderness, who was as much a phenomenon in the human world as the comet\nof that year was in the starry heavens--an apparition first observed by\nthe Florentine astronomer, Donati. Some scientific authorities give\nDonati's comet an orbit of two thousand, others three thousand years.\nIts advent was as unexpected as was the advent of Lincoln. Its immense\norbit, the splendour of its train, its seeming close proximity to the\nearth, the presentiments which it inspired in millions of the people,\ncorresponded with the sentiments and sensations inspired by the\nphenomenal progress of Lincoln, the avatar of democratic freedom and\njustice. The following description is taken from \"The Valley of\nShadows\":--\n\n\"After a long period of cloudy weather the sky cleared, and when\ndarkness closed in the night came with a revelation. Never had such a\nnight been witnessed by living man, for a great comet hung suspended in\nthe shimmering vault like an immense silver arrow dominating the world\nand all the constellations. An unparalleled radiance illumined the\nprairie, the atmosphere vibrated with a strange, mysterious glow, and as\nthe eye looked upward it seemed as if the earth was moving slowly\ntowards the stars.\n\n\"The sky resembled a phantasmagoria seen from the summit of some far and\nfabulous Eden. The Milky Way spread across the zenith like a confluence\nof celestial altars flecked with myriads of gleaming tapers, and\ncountless orbs rose out of the luminous veil like fleecy spires tipped\nwith the blaze of opal and sapphire.\n\n\"The great stellar clusters appeared as beacons on the shores of\ninfinite worlds, and night was the window from which the soul looked out\non eternity.\"\n\nSuch was the celestial apparition that ushered in the new party which\nwas to support Abraham Lincoln and send him to the White House.\n\nIn all vital phenomena there is periodicity. The barometer comes to its\nminimum height for the day between four and five in the evening; again,\nit is at its maximum height between eight and ten in the morning and\nbetween eight and ten in the evening. The two first of these periods is\nwhen the electric tension is at its minimum; at its maximum during the\ntwo latter periods. The basic unit of the lunar day is twelve hours. An\nordinary or solar day is two days, and an ordinary week is two weeks.\nThis hebdomadal or heptal cycle governs, either in its multiple or\nsubmultiple, an immense number of phenomena in animal life in which the\nnumber seven has a prominent place. A Mr. Hay, of Edinburgh, writing\nsome sixty years ago, says:\n\n\"There is harmony of numbers in all nature--in the force of gravity, in\nthe planetary movements, in the laws of heat, light, electricity and\nchemical affinity, in the forms of animals and plants, in the\nperceptions of the mind. Indeed, the direction of natural and physical\nscience is towards a generalisation which shall express the fundamental\nlaws of all by one simple numerical ratio. The mysticism of Pythagoras\nwas vague only to the unlettered. It was a system of philosophy founded\non existing mathematics which comprised more of the philosophy of\nnumbers than our present.\"\n\nPhilosophical students of human nature have taken note of the danger\nprofessional and business men encounter when they extend their mental\nactivities beyond the hour of four p.m. (by the sun). Thousands fail\nbecause of their ignorance of the fundamental laws governing all things\nphysical. The morning hours up to ten a.m. are just as dangerous for\nmany who are highly susceptible to the electric tension which occurs up\nto that hour. The feeling that prevails from four to eight in the\nafternoon is one of mental or physical fatigue, that in the morning one\nof irritability.\n\nLincoln was not immune from natural law. On one occasion, at five p.m.,\nhe was suddenly informed of the defeat of the Northern Forces, and it\nwas feared by those who were present that he would fall to the ground.\nMr. C. C. Coffin sprang forward to assist the President, who, however,\nsucceeded in returning to the White House unaided.\n\nNature creates the natural, man the unnatural. Solomon declared: \"To\neverything there is a season, and a time to every purpose.\"\n\n\n\n\n                            _Lincoln's Face_\n\n\nKnowledge, conviction, and certainty gave to Lincoln's face that\npenetrating power which could not have been assumed on occasion even by\nthe most versatile and gifted actor.\n\nThe two following quotations from \"The Valley of Shadows\" describe\nLincoln's personal appearance and the emotions produced by the\nexpression of his features:--\n\n\"'The sperrit air more in the eye than it air in the tongue,' said Elihu\nGest, rising from his seat; 'if Abe Lincoln looked at the wust\nslave-driver long enough Satan would give up every time.'\n\n\"'I see right away the difference a-twixt Lincoln en Douglas warn't so\nmuch in Lincoln bein' a good ways over six foot en Douglas a good ways\nunder, ez it war in their eyes. The Jedge looked like he war speakin'\nagin time, but Abe Lincoln looked plumb through the meetin' into the\neverlastin'--the way Moses must hev looked when he see Canaan ahead--en\nI kin tell ye I never did see a man look that a-way.'\"\n\n\n\n\n                           _The Great Debate_\n\n\nThe hour had struck for the supreme test between the forces of slavery,\non one hand, and the forces of freedom, on the other. A vast throng\ngathered at Alton from every section of the country to hear the last\npublic discussion between the two antagonists, Lincoln and Douglas, and\nfrom the surging sea of faces thousands of anxious eyes gazed upward at\nthe group of politicians on the balcony like wrecked mariners scanning\nthe horizon for the smallest sign of a white sail of hope.\n\n\"This final debate resembled a duel between two men-of-war, the pick of\na great fleet, all but these two sunk or abandoned in other waters,\nfacing each other in the open, Douglas, the Little Giant, hurling at his\nopponent from his flagship of slavery his deadliest missiles, Lincoln\ncalmly waiting to sink his antagonist by one single broadsider.\n\n\"Regarded in the light of spiritual reality, Lincoln and Douglas were\npredestined to meet side by side in this discussion, and it is hardly\npossible to give an adequate idea of the startling difference between\nthe two temperaments: Douglas--short, plump, and petulant;\nLincoln--long, gaunt, and self-possessed; the one white-haired and\nflorid, the other black-haired and swarthy; the one educated and\npolished, the other unlettered and primitive.\n\n\"Judge Douglas opened the debate in a sonorous voice plainly heard by\nall, and with a look of mingled defiance and confidence he marshalled\nhis facts and deduced his arguments. To the vigour of his attack there\nwas added the prestige of the Senate Chamber, and it looked as if he\nwould carry the majority with him. When, after a brilliant oratorical\neffort, he brought his speech to a close, it was amidst the shouts and\nyells of thousands of admirers.\n\n\"And now, Abraham Lincoln, the man who in 1830 undertook to split for\nMrs. Nancy Miller four hundred rails for every yard of jean dyed with\nwalnut bark that would be required to make him a pair of trousers, the\nflat-boatman, local stump-orator, and country lawyer, rose from his\nseat, stretched his long bony limbs upward, as if to get them in working\norder, and stood like some solitary pine on a lonely summit, very tall,\nvery dark, very gaunt, and very rugged, his swarthy features stamped\nwith a sad serenity, and the instant he began to speak the mouth lost\nits heaviness, the eyes attained a wondrous illumination, and the people\nstood bewildered and breathless under the natural magic of the most\noriginal personality known to the English-speaking world since Robert\nBurns.\n\n\"Every movement of his long muscular frame denoted inflexible\nearnestness, and a something issued forth, elemental and mystical, that\ntold what the man had been, what he was, and what he would do in the\nfuture. Every look of the deep-set eyes, every movement of the prominent\njaw, every wave of the brawny hand produced an impression, and before he\nhad spoken twenty minutes the conviction took possession of thousands\nthat here was the prophetic man of the present and the political saviour\nof the future.\"\n\nThus we see how Lincoln influenced persons, groups, crowds, whether he\nwas sitting or standing, arguing or talking, rendering an opinion or\nlistening to counsel.\n\n\n\n\n                     _Forecasting and Premonitions_\n\n\nNothing great comes into the world unattended. Abraham Lincoln was\nsurrounded by men and women who were predestined to their task without\nbeing fully aware of what they were doing. One of the most memorable\nmystical demonstrations ever recorded in any epoch occurred in the\nlittle town of Salem, Illinois, in August, 1837, when Lincoln was only\ntwenty-three years of age, long before he had cut any figure in the\npolitical world. Accompanied by six lawyers and two doctors, Lincoln\nwent from Springfield to Salem in a band-wagon to attend a camp-meeting.\nOn the way Lincoln cracked jokes about the horses, the wagon, the\nlawyers, and many other things. When they arrived at the camp they found\nDoctor Peter Akers, one of the greatest Methodist preachers of the time,\nwas about to preach a sermon on \"The Dominion of Christ.\" The famous\npreacher declared that the Dominion of Christ could not come in America\nuntil slavery was destroyed. His sermon lasted three hours and he showed\nthat a great civil war would put an end to human bondage.\n\n\"I am not a prophet,\" he said, \"but a student of the Prophets; American\nslavery will come to an end in some near decade, I think in the\nsixties.\" These words caused a profound sensation. In their excitement\nthousands surged about the preacher, but when at last he cried out: \"Who\ncan tell but that the man who shall lead us through this strife may be\nstanding in this presence,\" a solemn stillness fell over the assembly.\nThere, not more than thirty feet away, stood the lank figure of Lincoln,\nwith his pensive face, a prophet as yet uninspired, a leader as yet\nunannounced. The preacher's words had fallen like a mystical baptism on\nthe head of this obscure pioneer, as yet unanointed by the sacrificial\nfire of the coming national tragedy.\n\nWhen they returned to Springfield Lincoln remained silent for a long\ntime. At last one of his friends asked him what he thought of the sermon\nand he replied that he \"little dreamed that such power could be given to\nmortal man, for those words were from beyond the speaker. Peter Akers\nhas convinced me that American slavery will go down with the crash of\ncivil war.\" Then he added: \"Gentlemen, you may be surprised and think it\nstrange, but when the preacher was describing the civil war I distinctly\nsaw myself, as in second sight, bearing an important part in that\nstrife.\"\n\nThe next morning Mr. Lincoln came very late to his office, and Mr.\nHerndon, glancing at his haggard face, exclaimed: \"Why, Lincoln, what's\nthe matter?\" Then Lincoln told him about the great sermon and said: \"I\nam utterly unable to shake myself free from the conviction that I shall\nbe involved in that terrible war.\"\n\n\n\n\n                      _Illumination of the Spirit_\n\n\nWhen Lincoln, young and unknown, visited New Orleans as a flat-boatman\nand saw men and women being sold at auction in the public mart, he said\nto the friend who was with him: \"If ever I get a chance to hit that\nthing I'll hit it hard.\"\n\nWho was this young man, whose clothes were in tatters, who was without\npatrons, to suggest such a thing as a chance to strike even a feeble\nblow at the institution of slavery? Dr. Gregg, commenting on this\nmemorable incident, asks:\n\n\"Why did Lincoln utter these words? Was it an illumination of the Spirit\nforecasting the Civil War? Was it a whisper by a divine messenger that\nhe was to be the chosen one to wipe the thing from the earth and give\ndeliverance to millions of his fellow men?\"\n\nFew, if any, of Lincoln's biographers have touched on his early life\nwith more than a superficial notion of its significance. Judge Whitney,\nin spite of his great knowledge and his deep insight, divides Lincoln's\nlife into two parts, the first being uninspired, the second\nsupernaturally wonderful. The truth is that the first part of his life\ncontained a clear forecast of the second. Lincoln at the age of\nfifty-five was the same man, unchanged, excepting by experience. Only in\nfairy stories are people changed from fools into philosophers.\n\nAs a boy Lincoln was unlike any other boy, always unique, self-centred\nin the best and highest sense, the like of whom did not exist in his or\nany other country. All through his early life there could be seen the\nsigns and symbols of his coming power. How such a being came into the\nworld science fails to explain. Back of the mystery there are other\nmysteries, and not in a thousand years of experiment will eugenics\nproduce another such mortal, not in ten thousand years will science\ncreate anything spiritual or mystical. Science can never get beyond the\nmaterial. If it ever controls the psychic intelligence, mediocrity will\nbe the order of the day. The higher intelligence does not need control\nbut development. This freedom Lincoln had, but back of that apparent\nfreedom the mystical conditions existed, fixed and foreordained. The\nvery men and women who assisted him had to be where he found them. To\nhave been anywhere else they would have been out of their proper\nelement. In the human world there are no misfits, only grades of\ndevelopment.\n\n\n\n\n                       _Tycho Brahe and Lincoln_\n\n\nWhen Hugh Miller, the noted geologist, faced the inexplicable he\ncommitted suicide. But Tycho Brahe, the Danish astronomer, the greatest\npractical mystic the world of science has known, experienced a sense of\njoy and exhilaration every time he viewed the starry heavens through his\ntelescope. He considered astronomy something \"divine.\" His was the\njoyful pride of the seer who revels in the unexplained mysteries of the\nuniverse, and from time to time obtained clairvoyant glimpses of the\nworking of the miracle. Brahe, like Abraham Lincoln, had moments when he\nperceived the inevitable with unalloyed vision.\n\nAfter carefully studying the comet of 1577 he declared that it announced\nthe birth of a prince in Finland who should lay waste Germany and vanish\nin 1632. Gustave Adolphus was born in Finland, overran Germany, and died\nin 1632.\n\nBrahe was the forerunner of the true scientist, Lincoln the forerunner\nof the true statesman. It is not a fact that science and intuition are\nantagonistic. The antagonism exists only in the imagination of\nsecond-rate thinkers. The great discoverers always put the spiritual and\nthe mystical above learning. Brahe and Newton, as scientists, were\nunequalled in their age and have not been surpassed in this. The Kultur\nof modern Germany has but emphasised the danger of pseudo science in all\nwalks of life and made it plain that no nation can prosper under such an\nillusion. The Prussians have forced many to revert back to a\nconsideration of the gifts of such men as Tycho Brahe, Newton, Lincoln,\nand the difference between their science and that of Kultur is a\ndifference that strikes the normal thinker with amazement.\n\nThe true scientist is a seer who discloses new facts and discovers\nhidden laws. The true scientific mystic creates, but the votaries of\nKultur destroy without creating. Yet, they will be destroyed by their\nown weapons. Modern materialism will go down under the weight of the\nmaterial. The denial of the mystical forces of the universe is the\nvulnerable spot in the scientific armour of Krupp-Kultur. Let any one\nwho wishes to be convinced by crude facts alone read the history of\nFrederick, the so-called Great, and then read a history of Lincoln. Then\nlet the student ask which is the greater nation to-day--Prussia, headed\nby Frederick's descendant, or America, represented by Woodrow Wilson,\nthe legitimate outcome of Washington the inspired patriot, and Lincoln\nthe inspired emancipator?\n\n\n\n\n                   _Herndon's Analysis and Testimony_\n\n\nW. H. Herndon, for more than twenty years the law partner of Mr.\nLincoln, delivered an address in Springfield, Illinois, upon the life\nand character of the lamented President, which for subtle analysis has\nfew equals in biographical literature. The following are excerpts:\n\n\"Mr. Lincoln's perceptions were slow, cold, and exact. Everything came\nto him in its precise shape and colour. To some men the world of matter\nand of man comes ornamented with beauty, life, and action, and hence\nmore or less false and inexact. No lurking illusion or other error,\nfalse in itself, and clad for the moment in robes of splendour, ever\npassed undetected or unchallenged over the threshold of his mind--that\npoint that divides vision from the realm and home of thought.\"\n\n\"Names to him were nothing, and titles naught--assumption always\nstanding back abashed at his cold, intellectual glare. Neither his\nperceptions nor intellectual vision were perverted, distorted, or\ndiseased. He saw all things through a perfect, mental lens. There was no\ndiffraction or refraction there. He was not impulsive, fanciful, or\nimaginative, but calm and precise. He threw his whole mental light\naround the object, and, in time, substance and quality stood apart; form\nand colour took their appropriate places, and all was clear and exact in\nhis mind. In his mental view he crushed the unreal, the inexact, the\nhollow, and the sham.... To some minds the world is all life, a soul\nbeneath the material; but to Mr. Lincoln no life was individual or\nuniversal that did not manifest itself to him. His mind was his\nstandard. His perceptions were cool, persistent, pitiless in pursuit of\nthe truth. No error went undetected and no falsehood unexposed if he\nonce was aroused in search of truth.\n\n\n\n\n                           _An Original Mind_\n\n\n\"Mr. Lincoln saw philosophy in a story and a schoolmaster in a joke. No\nman saw nature, fact, thing, from his standpoint. His was a new and\noriginal position, which was always suggesting, hinting something to\nhim. Nature, insinuations, hints, and suggestions were new, fresh,\noriginal, and odd to him. The world, fact, man, principle, all had their\npowers of suggestion to his susceptible soul. They continually put him\nin mind of something known or unknown. Hence his power and tenacity of\nwhat is called association of ideas. His susceptibilities to all\nsuggestions and hints enabled him at will to call up readily the\nassociated and classified fact and idea.\n\n\"Mr. Lincoln was often at a loss for a word and hence was compelled to\nresort to stories, and maxims, and jokes to embody his idea, that it\nmight be comprehended. So true was this peculiar mental vision of his,\nthat though mankind has been gathering, arranging, and classifying facts\nfor thousands of years, Lincoln's peculiar standpoint could give him no\nadvantage of other men's labour. Hence he tore up to the deep\nfoundations all arrangements of facts, and coined and arranged new plans\nto govern himself. His labour was great, continuous, patient, and\nall-enduring.\n\n\n\n\n                           _The Great Books_\n\n\n\"The truth about the whole matter is that Mr. Lincoln read _less_ and\nthought _more_ than any man in his sphere in America. When young he read\nthe Bible, and when of age he read Shakespeare. The latter book was\nscarcely ever out of his mind. Mr. Lincoln is acknowledged to have been\na great man, but the question is, what made him great? I repeat, that he\nread less and thought more than any man of his standing in America, if\nnot in the world. He possessed originality and power of thought in an\neminent degree. He was cautious, cool, patient, and enduring. These are\nsome of the grounds of his wonderful success. Not only was nature, man,\nfact, and principle suggestive to Mr. Lincoln, not only had he accurate\nand exact perceptions, but he was causative, i. e., his mind ran back\nbehind all facts, things, and principles to their origin, history, and\nfirst cause--to that point where forces act at once as effect and cause.\nHe would stop and pause in the street and analyse a machine. He would\nwhittle things to a point and then count the numberless inclined planes,\nand their pitch, making the point. Mastering and defining this, he would\nthen cut that point back, and get a broad transverse section of his pine\nstick, and peel and define that. Clocks, omnibuses, language,\npaddle-wheels, and idioms never escaped his observation and analysis.\nBefore he could form any idea of anything, before he would express his\nopinion on any subject, he must know its origin and history, in\nsubstance and quality, in magnitude and gravity. He must know his\nsubject inside and outside, upside and downside.\n\n\"He searched his own mind and nature thoroughly, as I have often heard\nhim say. He must analyse a sensation, an idea, and words, and run them\nback to their origin, history, purpose, and destiny. He was most\nemphatically a merciless analyser of facts, things, and principles. When\nall these processes had been well and thoroughly gone through, he could\nform an opinion and express it, but no sooner. Hence when he did speak\nhis utterances rang out gold-like, quick, keen, and current upon the\ncounters of the understanding. He reasoned logically, through analogy\nand comparison. All opponents dreaded him in his originality of idea,\ncondensation, definition, and force of expression, and wo be to the man\nwho hugged to his bosom a secret error if Mr. Lincoln got on the chase\nof it. I say, wo to him! Time could hide the error in no nook or corner\nof space in which he would not detect and expose it.\n\n\n\n\n                         _Veneration and Truth_\n\n\n\"The predominating elements of Mr. Lincoln's peculiar character, were:\nfirstly, his great capacity and powers of reason; secondly, his\nexcellent understanding; thirdly, an exalted idea of the sense of right\nand equity; and fourthly, his intense veneration of what was true and\ngood. His reason ruled all other faculties of his mind.\n\n\"His pursuit of truth was indefatigable, terrible. He reasoned from his\nwell-chosen principles with such clearness, force, and compactness that\nthe tallest intellects in the land bowed to him in this respect.\n\n\"He came down from his throne of logic with irresistible and crushing\nforce. His printed speeches prove this, but his speeches before the\nSupreme Courts of the State and Nation would demonstrate it.\n\n\"Mr. Lincoln was an odd and original man; he lived by himself and out of\nhimself. He was a very sensitive man, unobtrusive and gentlemanly, and\noften hid himself in the common mass of men in order to prevent the\ndiscovery of his individuality. He had no insulting egotism and no\npompous pride; no haughtiness. He was not an upstart and had no\ninsolence. He was a meek, quiet, unobtrusive gentleman.\n\n\"Not only were Mr. Lincoln's perceptions good; not only was nature\nsuggestive to him; not only was he original and strong; not only had he\ngreat reason and understanding; not only did he love the true and good;\nnot only was he tender and kind--but, in due proportion, he had a\nglorious combination of them all.\n\n\"He had no avarice in his nature or other like vice. He did not care who\nsucceeded to the presidency of this or that Christian Association or\nRailroad Convention; who made the most money; who was going to\nPhiladelphia, when and for what, and what were the costs of such a trip.\nHe could not understand why men struggled for such things as these.\n\n\n\n\n                           _The Great Puzzle_\n\n\n\"One day, at Washington, he made this remark to me: 'If ever this free\npeople, if this Government itself is ever utterly demoralised, it will\ncome from this human wriggle and struggle for office--a way to live\nwithout work.'\n\n\"It puzzled him at Washington to know and to get at the root of this\ndread desire, this contagious disease of national robbery in the\nnation's death-struggle.\n\n\"This man, this long, bony, wiry, sad man, floated into our country in\n1831, in a frail canoe, down the north fork of the Sangamon River,\nfriendless, penniless, powerless, and alone--begging for work in our\ncity--ragged, struggling for the common necessities of life. This man,\nthis peculiar man, left us in 1861, the President of the United States,\nbacked by friends, power, fame, and all human force.\"\n\n\n\n\n                      _Lincoln's Energy and Will_\n\n\nEnergy is usually a blind force in the conduct of human affairs and the\ngreatest with which we have to deal. History is made up of the deeds of\nindividuals with a surplus of energy, which overflows and damages\ngovernments as floods damage lands.\n\nWill, energy, and ambition are, in most cases, synonymous terms. Without\nenergy the will breaks down, and without ambition energy and will would\nprove innocuous. No one can doubt that misdirected energy was at the\nbottom of much that moved the Prussians and that their ambitions were\nwholly material, limited to geographical boundaries. Lincoln displayed\nphysical as well as mental energy in a supernormal degree; his will was\nas fixed as a mountain of adamant, while his ambition was not personal,\nbut national and universal. Only the practical mystic could direct such\nforces with wisdom, and as we look still closer into the mystery of his\ntemperament the question of pride and vanity arises, and their relation\nto ambition and will.\n\nIn the first place, what causes ambition? Pride, answers the world. But\nthe world is wrong. Ambition is not the result of pride but of vanity.\nSolomon, the wisest and greatest man of his time, was a proud man and a\nwise ruler until he began to import apes and peacocks. Then vanity\nusurped the place of pride and he came to the end of his temporal\ntether.\n\nVanity caused Napoleon to have himself crowned Emperor of the French,\nand from that day his power declined. A proper sense of pride would have\nled him to stop where he was and refuse all further manifestations and\ndevelopments of worldly honour. Pride tends to moral dignity and\nintellectual reticence, and that is why Lincoln blushed in the presence\nof the institution of slavery. His pride gave him an acute sense of\nshame and his honour an acute sense of justice. Only the vain will\nconsent to live in idleness while others slave for them. Vanity induces\nanything from the ridiculous to the criminal, and those controlled by it\nare subject to absurd statements and ridiculous actions. They cannot\navoid both. Washington and Lincoln were free from the fetters of\nridicule. They were imbued with a subconscious pride which stood for the\nwhole nation.\n\n\n\n\n                         _Nature and Prophecy_\n\n\nHerndon says:--\n\n\"I cannot refrain from noting the views Lincoln held in reference to the\ngreat questions of moral and social reforms under which he classed\nsuffrage for women, temperance, and slavery. 'All such questions, he\nobserved one day, as we were discussing temperance in the office, 'must\nfind lodgment with the most enlightened souls who stamp them with their\napproval. In God's own time they will be organised into law and woven\ninto the fabric of all our institutions.'\"\n\nAs the Divine principle permeates all nature, so Lincoln, being a pure\nproduct of nature, possessed the secret consciousness of natural power,\nillumined by mystical intuition and guided by the higher forces of the\nspirit. He realised the superiority of mind over matter, of intelligence\nover ignorance, of wisdom over learning, of illumination over mere\nknowledge. He was another Marcus Aurelius, without the influence of\npaganism, free from the trammels of mythology. He inquired into the\nmystery of his own being and delved into the darkest corners of\npersonality and character. Some of his deepest thoughts on the mysteries\nof life and death were never voiced by this man who never spoke unless\nhe deemed it imperative to speak.\n\nLincoln, indeed, never gossipped about people and books. He was not a\ngossip. His jokes were for a purpose, his talk was for a purpose, and\nhis meditations were fundamental.\n\n\n\n\n                          _The Seal of Nature_\n\n\nHerndon was right when he said that Lincoln's features were stamped with\nthe seal of nature. This is the only seal that is beyond imitation. All\nelse can be mimicked. We have seen how ghastly one or two persons\nappeared when they attempted to look like Lincoln. The imitation took on\nthe appearance of pale, dull putty. The notion that Lincoln's\npersonality could be imitated with success was quite in keeping with\nthat other notion that the great President was, in spite of everything,\njust one of the common people. But Lincoln as he appears in popular\nhistories, and Lincoln as he was known to his associates and those who\ncame into personal contact with him, are two different persons. Perhaps\nno one has summed up the matter with such concision and force as Don\nPiatt, who knew him well:--\n\n\"With all his awkwardness of manner and utter disregard of social\nconventionalities that seemed to invite familiarity, there was something\nabout Abraham Lincoln that enforced respect. No man presumed on the\napparent invitation to be other than respectful. I was told at\nSpringfield that this accompanied him through life. Among his rough\nassociates, when young, he was leader, looked up to and obeyed, because\nthey felt of his muscle and its readiness in use. Among his associates\nat the bar it was attributed to his wit, which kept his duller\nassociates at a distance. But the fact was that this power came from a\nsense of reserve force of intellectual ability that no one took account\nof save in its results. Through one of those manifestations of nature\nthat produce a Shakespeare at long intervals, a giant had been born to\nthe poor whites of Kentucky and the sense of superiority possessed\nLincoln at all times. Seward, Chase, and Stanton, great as they were,\nfelt their inferiority to their master.\"\n\n\n\n\n                          _Law and Authority_\n\n\nWe are beginning to feel the reality of that power that lies above\nappearance and formula, that power manifested in Job and Isaiah, which\nwe accept as inspiration in religion, intuition in philosophy, and\nillumination in art, producing saints in one age and mystical scientists\nin another.\n\nWe float through the ether on a revolving miracle called the earth,\nreturning again and again to attain the same figure on the dial of time.\nThe things done by human automatons count for nothing in the course of\ndestiny.\n\nWe think we are wise when we invent a new name for an old truth; and\nvanity aims to confine the infinite within the limits of a stopper\nbottle or a glass showcase, or attain inspiration by means of a ouija\nboard.\n\nCan any one conceive what would have happened to this country had\nLincoln made use of such a contrivance to direct the course of his\nactions? This scourge of dead agnostics seems like an ironical stroke of\nnature to discount their disbelief. Not only does this clumsy instrument\nmake wits like Mark Twain \"talk like poor Pol,\" but it makes\nphilosophers reason like first-grade pupils at our common schools.\n\nImmortality is destined to have the last word even though it be\npronounced in the most fantastic manner.\n\nLincoln believed in law, order, and authority. He believed in the\nmission of the churches. He was a regular worshipper in Dr. Gurley's\nPresbyterian congregation at the Capital. He was a praying president,\nlike George Washington, and, while he was not a member of any church, he\nwas convinced that all the churches were necessary. He was not a\nfree-thinker, as that term is commonly used. Loose reasoning and vague,\nuncertain doctrines he could not abide. He demanded proofs and would not\naccept a man's word merely from sentimental motives. No one ever induced\nhim to \"side-track\" from the main line of argument and reason. His\nattitude in the matter of inspiration and spiritual direction may be\nsummed up in a few words spoken at the time a delegation of Chicago\nministers came to him, urging him in God's name to free the slaves\nwithout further delay. His reply was that when the Almighty wanted him\nto free the slaves He would deal directly with Lincoln himself instead\nof indirectly through Chicago.\n\nA vacillating President would have been influenced by such a request at\nsuch a time, but the President had faith in his own illuminations and\nawaited orders from a Supreme source. Had he been influenced by advice\ngiven by all sorts of people who called at the White House on all sorts\nof missions, possessing no authority themselves, what turmoil and chaos\nwould have resulted to the army and the Nation!\n\nPractical mystic that he was, he did not seek, nor wish for, advice from\npeople in matters which concerned his own judgment alone. It is true\nthat on several occasions he was approached by persons who came with\nmessages of various kinds assumed to be spiritual, but Lincoln received\nthem with a neutral politeness, sometimes mingled with a grim humour, as\nwhen Robert Dale Owen read to him a long manuscript presumed to be\nhighly inspirational and illuminating, and Lincoln replied, \"Well, for\nthose who like that sort of thing that is the thing they would like.\"\n\n\n\n\n                          _Lincoln as Critic_\n\n\nNothing escaped Lincoln's powers of philosophical and metaphysical\nanalysis. He did not read the Bible and Shakespeare merely for pleasure,\nas people read novels. He could give excellent reasons for everything he\ndid. Even in his most listless moods he never lost his firm grip on\naffairs, both general and individual. When he read a book it was because\nthere was something in it which helped him to penetrate deeper into the\nrecesses of life and character. He would study a passage or a chapter\nuntil he had assimilated its wisdom and its mystical import.\n\nLincoln was a natural critic. When Walt Whitman's \"Leaves O' Grass\" was\nfirst published a copy of the book was read and discussed by several of\nhis friends in Springfield. Lincoln at once recognised the fact that a\nnew poetic genius had appeared and he did not permit adverse opinions to\ninfluence his judgment. He cared nothing for the romantic in itself. He\ncared only for those phases of literature which induce serious\nphilosophical or spiritual thought. While his partner read Carlyle, he\nread Shakespeare.\n\nIn the Spring of 1862 the President spent several days at Fortress\nMonroe awaiting military operations upon the Peninsula. As a portion of\nthe Cabinet were with him, that was temporarily the seat of government,\nand he bore with him constantly the burden of public affairs. His\nfavourite diversion was reading Shakespeare. One day--it chanced to be\nthe day before the capture of Norfolk--as he sat reading alone, he\ncalled to his side Colonel Le Grand B. Cannon. \"You have been writing\nlong enough, Colonel,\" he said, \"come in here; I want to read you a\npassage in _Hamlet_.\" He read the discussion on ambition between Hamlet\nand his courtiers, and the soliloquy in which conscience debates of a\nfuture state.\n\n\n\n\n                              _His Style_\n\n\n\"No criticism of Mr. Lincoln,\" says the _Spectator_, \"can be in any\nsense adequate which does not deal with his astonishing power over\nwords. It is not too much to say of him that he is among the greatest\nmasters of prose ever produced by the English race. Self-educated, or\nrather not educated at all in the ordinary sense, he contrived to obtain\nan insight and power in the handling and mechanism of letters such as\nhas been given to but few men in his, or, indeed, in any age. That the\ngift of oratory should be a natural gift is understandable enough, for\nthe methods of the orator, like those of the poet, are primarily\nsensuous and may well be instinctive.... Mr. Lincoln did not get his\nability to handle prose through his gift of speech. It is in his conduct\nof the pedestrian portions of composition that Mr. Lincoln's genius for\nprose style is exhibited.\" Lincoln avoided the superfluous in writing as\nin speaking, and style came after the matter of his thought, not as a\nconscious effort while he was uttering his thoughts. He was not\nconsciously a literary artist. When, in his famous inaugural address, he\nmade \"pray\" rhyme with \"away,\" it sounded like a false note struck in\nthe movement of a great symphony. That blemish remains like a flaw in a\ndiamond which cannot be removed, but the miracle remains that this\nmaster of men and moods accomplished in his speeches and letters what no\none else accomplished in his time.\n\n\n\n\n                          _Lincoln's Serenity_\n\n\n\"Lincoln,\" says the same writer in the _Spectator_, \"saw things as a\ndisillusioned man sees them, and yet, in the bad sense, he never\nsuffered any disillusionment. For suffusing and combining his other\nqualities was a serenity of mind which affected the whole man. He viewed\nthe world too much as a whole to be greatly troubled or perplexed over\nits accidents. To this serenity of mind was due an almost total absence\nof indignation in the ordinary sense.\"\n\nThis is true, because, as Walt Whitman says, \"The foundations of his\ncharacter, more than any man's in history, were mystic and spiritual.\"\n\n\"Lincoln was, before all things, a gentleman,\" says the _Spectator_,\n\"and the good taste inseparable from that character made it impossible\nfor him to be spoiled by power and position. This grace and strength of\ncharacter is never better shown than in the letters to his generals,\nvictorious or defeated. If a general had to be reprimanded he did it as\nonly the most perfect gentleman could do it.\"\n\nNevertheless, the invulnerable President did show his anger or\nindignation on some few occasions. And justly so. As a rule he did not\nconsider it worth his while to permit himself to be moved by the sayings\nand doings of any one. The foolish are unworthy of indignation; they\nmust be dealt with quietly but effectively; while the others must be\nmanaged with gentle firmness backed by the fundamentally drastic. Fuss\nand fury were unknown to this pioneer politician, philosophical\nstatesman, and mystical leader.\n\nNo man can be serene who doubts himself. Lincoln, when in doubt as to\nthe actions of others, did not grope in the darkness, but waited. His\ninvincible trust in Providence held him aloof from the petty\ncircumstances and daily routine of intrigue, and his imagination soared\nin the empyrean while those around him flattered themselves that he was\nbeing influenced or led by their counsels and their interests.\n\nHe treated people who bedevilled him with importunities and all sorts of\nadvice as the wise parent treats a child who asks for the impossible--he\nknew that a little waiting would wear them out and they would end by\nforgetting. Often, in place of a flat refusal, he would turn away the\noffice-seeker by a sudden, adroit stroke of his humour, thus sending the\nman and his friends away smiling good-humouredly at Lincoln's inimitable\ntact.\n\n\n\n\n                     _The Romance of His Character_\n\n\nThere is a \"romance of character\" that accompanies people of exceptional\nachievements, as Emerson has so justly said, and Lincoln possessed it\nwithout being in the slightest degree conscious of the fact. This is one\nreason why his life surpasses in interest any book of fiction ever\nwritten. He united all the realism of pioneer life with the romance of\nthe inexplicable and the fascination of the unexpected.\n\nThose who come to Lincoln in search of the shifting romance of\nbohemianism will be disappointed, for the romance of change and\nvacillation is the kind that leads to the poorhouse or the hospital.\nThis romance of character, belonging, as it did, to the temperament of\nthe man, was hidden from the multitude, but all could readily see the\nromance of the progressive events of his life. Lincoln was at times\nawed, but not alarmed, by the turn of affairs which placed him at the\nhead of the nation. He realised the tremendous responsibility without\nregrets or fear. He was fully conscious of his mission but quite\nunconscious of the romantic elements which enveloped it, for Lincoln's\nlife included both the \"romance of character\" and the romance of\nexperience. Without the first, the second would have unfitted him for\nthe heavy responsibilities of his high office later on. He did not seek\nexperience for the sake of experience, like so many in our day who are\nunder the illusion that truth and wisdom arrive perforce. He forced\nnothing. He followed a natural course of events, dealing with each\naccording to the light of his own judgment, asking for no advice.\n\nNeither the romance of character nor the romance of experience comes to\nthose who seek them. Self-consciousness dissipates romantic mystery.\n\n\n\n\n                    _President by the Grace of God_\n\n\nLincoln lived long enough to become convinced that everything exists for\na purpose. He saw that the Rebellion had to be, and that in the seeming\nconfusion of sentiments and interests the Divine ruled over all persons\nand parties.\n\nEvents had to follow as ordained by the spiritual Power that lies behind\nappearance. Lincoln worked in the light; Czar Nicholas of Russia lived\nin the dark. He could not tell why he occupied the Russian throne.\nLincoln knew why he occupied the White House. The Kaiser was not able to\nsee why will, energy, and money should not rule the world.\n\nNever were the lessons taught by Lincoln's career so much needed as now,\nwhen a ruthless autocracy is seeking to get rid of all moral\nresponsibility, while, on the other hand, thousands are awakening to the\nnecessity of a new order, of fostering the mystical renaissance.\n\n\n\n\n                       _Science and the Mystical_\n\n\nQuintilian said:--\n\n\"No man can become a perfect orator without a knowledge of geometry. It\nis not without reason that the greatest men have bestowed extreme\nattention on this science.\"\n\nLocke, the philosopher, gives the reason:--\n\n\"Geometry develops the habit of pursuing long trains of ideas which will\nremain with the student who will be enabled to pierce through the mazes\nof sophism and discover a latent truth, when persons who have not this\nhabit will never find it.\"\n\nLincoln was passionately fond of geometry. His oratory was based on\nlogic, but his logic came from the mystical absolute, a geometric\nscience of the soul which he alone could appropriate through his\nperception of fundamental principles of universal law. He could perceive\nthat an idea is a personal conception of a mathematical truth, as\ndistinguished from mere beliefs, notions, and sentiments. Others turned\npolitics into the art of influencing crowds through their sentimental\nopinions; Lincoln engaged in trying to make them think logically. While\nothers gave vague reasons for their political views he gave reasons\nbased on law which he explained with simple force and lucid phraseology.\n\nHe never attempted to tell all he knew. The practical mystic never does.\nHe knew how he acquired his knowledge, but his reticence was as\npronounced as his gift of expression. It was this quality of reticence\nthat kept him from taking counsel from all sorts of statesmen and\nexplaining the inexplicable. There was not a man among them that could\nhave understood. In this, Lincoln was a mystic, full-fledged, initiated,\nas by centuries of experience. His innate wisdom told him exactly how\nmuch the people could understand, how much politicians could digest, and\nhow much statesmen could divine. Not only did he hold the allegiance of\nthe Whigs, but he gained the allegiance of the Abolitionists. This,\nindeed, was intellect illumined.\n\n\n\n\n                         _The Old and the New_\n\n\nHow old yet new are nature's moods and manifestations! How mysteriously\nthe souvenirs of the past are revived and quickened in new forms, faces,\nand phenomena! The seasons come and go with varying moods and seem new,\nbut they are older than the formulas of civilisation; strangers bring\nwith them new influences, but we discover in them something familiar\nfrom the vague and shadowy past. Every single thing is related to every\nother thing, and illuminated minds are the periods that separate the\ncycles, but not the laws, of human progress. The form is new; the\nprinciple remains unchangeable. Solomon was unique in his glory, but\nAthens had a Pericles, Rome a C\u00e6sar, Europe a Bonaparte, and the new\nworld a Lincoln.\n\nReal genius is elemental. It influences humanity as much as heat and\ncold, rain and sunshine. People who offer the greatest opposition to it\nare those who fall before its onward march. Indeed, it seems to be, from\nall historical accounts, a sort of car of Juggernaut to those who\nwilfully oppose it. And this is not surprising since it is the greatest\npower of which man has any personal knowledge, supported by all the\nforces of the material and the spiritual.\n\n\n\n\n                         _Destiny versus Will_\n\n\nGreat men float into power on mystical waves moved by the force of\ndestiny. The greater the mind the greater the fixture of force behind\nit.\n\nBetween George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, Presidents came and went\nas figureheads of parties or props to some ephemeral political scaffold.\nThe majority were stopgaps. They, like the majority of politicians and\nmany others, put their trust in Will and Desire. They could not\nunderstand that a man is not great because of his will, but because of\nhis innate knowledge. Washington realised his destiny and understood.\nLincoln realised what he was and what he would become long before his\nnomination for the Presidency, but he was wholly unconscious of any Will\nto Power. The born statesman is aware of his invincible, hidden\nknowledge, and he places Will in the second rank. He knows it counts for\nnothing in the fundamental issues.\n\nLincoln discerned, at an early age, the difference between desire and\ndestiny. He saw the dangerous illusions under which the\nWill-to-Power-politicians and others laboured and how vain were their\nhopes.\n\nWill and Ambition are characteristics of men who mistake the material\nfor the permanent. Bonaparte and Bismarck exercised their Will for the\npossession of the material and both failed. The Hohenzollerns and their\nhenchmen have failed in the same exercise. This exercise is indulged in\nby people who believe that to become intensely individualistic means the\ndevelopment of powerful personality. They talk of their rights as if\ntheir desires gave them the privilege of robbing their neighbours. And\nwhat some are doing publicly others are doing privately.\n\nThe motives for this desire for material domination vary with the\nindividual. With one, it is to get even with a group; with another, it\nis to get even with a party; with others, it is to appear in public, to\nbe frequently named and sometimes applauded. Compromise and subterfuge\nare ingredients inseparable from the illusions of the Will. While\nLincoln often assisted his friends, he refused to hedge or trim in order\nto please. Destiny behind him was invulnerable, his own sense of justice\ninexorable. While others were working for the good of their city, state,\nor section, he was thinking of the good of the whole country, with all\nhumanity behind it. Destiny created the man and the crisis at the same\ntime, as always happens. The one could not exist without the other.\nDestiny is the collective conscience acting through elective genius. For\nthis reason Lincoln was not only the man of his time but the man whose\nexample will exert the greatest influence on future eras.\n\n\n\n\n                   _James Jacquess Practical Mystic_\n\n\nIn the hubbub and confusion created by the upheaval which began in 1914\nit is of vital importance for thinking people of the English-speaking\ncountries to know what went on in the inner circles at Washington during\nthat year of trial, 1864, when the destiny of the Union seemed to be\nhanging in the balance. It is time to know the truth about Lincoln's\nsupernaturalism. Your favourite historian avoids the subject. He will\nnot touch on a matter so dangerous to his neutral agnosticism. He avoids\nthe details of the supernatural events of that wonderful time. He will\ndiscuss anything but that; he knows that once thinking people become\nacquainted with the facts they will begin to form their own conclusions.\n\nIn Lincoln's day agnosticism had not taken root in the intellectual soil\nof this country. The negative writings of Darwin and Spencer were\nunknown among politicians and statesmen, and the churches still believed\nthat \"spirit\" ruled matter and that Providence was directing the affairs\nof the nation.\n\nIn Lincoln's time agnostic ministers were unknown. All believed in a\npositive religion. The Union was saved from disruption because Lincoln\nand his aids were firm believers in a higher Power and a higher destiny.\nDoubt, cynicism, and scepticism would have handed the country over to\nuniversal chaos. The downfall of the Union would have meant the end of\nthe British Empire and to-day Kaiserism would be in supreme command of\nthe remnant of Anglo-Saxon civilisation.\n\nIt is the fashion to read romantic novels, but the story of the Jacquess\npeace mission is more fascinating than any novel because it is fact\ninstead of fiction and because its basic element is the supernatural.\n\nJames Jacquess was, himself, a practical mystic of no uncertain power\nbut whose great gifts were overshadowed by the personality of Lincoln,\nhis revered chief. Before the Civil War Jacquess was a mathematician, a\nGreek and Latin scholar, a college president, and one of the most\nforcible Methodist preachers of the age. His field of work was the\ncountry around Springfield, where Lincoln often heard him preach. Long\nbefore Jacquess received the mystical command to undertake his peace\nmission to the Rebel headquarters at Richmond, Lincoln knew and\nrespected him as a sincere and earnest patriot. Jacquess was Colonel of\nan Illinois regiment during the war, and had already taken a valiant\npart in some of the most terrible battles.\n\nColonel Jacquess was inspired to act as he did without, at first,\nconsulting any one. He conceived the idea of going to Richmond,\ninterviewing the Confederate leaders, and so gaining some definite\ninformation that would eventually lead to peace, through victory, for\nthe Union. His mission was a secret, known only to a limited circle,\nincluding the President, General Rosecrans, General Garfield (who later\nbecame President), and James R. Gilmore, the friend of Lincoln.\n\nMr. Gilmore, in his \"Personal Recollections of Lincoln,\" devotes many\npages to this peace mission, with all the details, from its inception by\nColonel Jacquess to its final wonderful results.\n\nGeneral Garfield, writing to Mr. Gilmore from his military headquarters\non June 17th, 1863, said:--\n\n\"Colonel Jacquess has gone on his peace mission. The President approved\nit, though, of course, he did not make it an official matter. There are\nsome very curious facts relating to his mission which I hope to tell you\nsome day. It will be sufficient for me to say that enough of the\nmysterious is in it to give me an almost superstitious feeling of faith,\nand certainly a great interest, in his work. He is most solemnly in\nearnest and has great confidence in his mission.\"\n\nColonel Jacquess succeeded in gaining a respectful hearing before the\nhighest authorities at Richmond without being shot as a spy--more than\none of his friends having predicted such a fate for him.\n\nHe returned to the North determined to await patiently for another\nopportunity to try again. In 1864, after conferring with Mr. Gilmore and\nthe President, it was decided that a second mission should be set on\nfoot, this time in company with his friend Gilmore, whom a special\nProvidence had chosen to record all the incidents and events of that\nunprecedented undertaking.\n\nOn this occasion Colonel Jacquess learned all that he had hoped to\nlearn, and more, from the lips of Jefferson Davis, President of the\nSouthern Confederacy; and when Jacquess and Gilmore returned Lincoln\nrequested Mr. Gilmore to prepare a detailed account of the astounding\nrevelation for the _Atlantic Monthly_.\n\nThis vivid recital of the facts was published and it created a sensation\nfrom one end of the country to the other. It turned the tide in favour\nof Lincoln's election for a second term and saved the Union. This, in\nbrief, was the work of Jacquess, the mystic, whose name to-day is only\nknown to the more serious students of Lincoln's life and work. Had the\nPresident been less a practical mystic than he was he would have\nforbidden Colonel Jacquess to undertake a journey full of risks and\nperil, and one that ordinary business men would have called an insane\nadventure.\n\n\n\n\n                          _Images and Dreams_\n\n\nNoah Brooks, in his Life of Lincoln, gives the following account of a\nvision which the President described to him:--\n\n\"It was just after my nomination in 1860 when the news was coming thick\nand fast all day, and there had been a great Hurrah Boys, so that I was\nwell tired out, and went home to rest and threw myself on a lounge in my\nchamber. Opposite where I lay was a bureau with a swinging glass, and\nlooking in the glass I saw myself reflected, nearly at full length, but\nmy face, I noticed, had two separate and distinct images, the tip of the\nnose of one being about three inches from the tip of the other. I was a\nlittle bothered, perhaps startled, and got up and looked in the glass,\nbut the illusion vanished. On lying down again I saw it a second time,\nplainer, if possible, than before. Then I noticed that one of the faces\nwas a little paler, say five shades, than the other. I got up and the\nthing melted away. I left, and in the excitement of the hour forgot all\nabout it, nearly but not quite, for the thing would once in a while come\nup and give me a little pang, as though something uncomfortable had\nhappened. Later in the day I told my wife about it, and a few days later\nI tried the experiment again, when, sure enough, the thing came again.\nMy wife thought that it was a sign that I was to be elected to a second\nterm of office and that the paleness of one of the faces was an omen\nthat I should not live through the last term.\"\n\nNot long after his second inauguration he said to a friend in\nWashington:--\n\n\"I have seen this evening what I saw on the evening of my nomination. As\nI stood before a mirror I saw two images of myself--a bright one in\nfront and one that was pallid, standing behind. It completely unnerved\nme. The bright one I know is my past, the pale one my coming life. I do\nnot think I shall live to see the end of my second term.\"\n\nIn his biography, Morgan relates a dream which Lincoln had. He thought\nhe was in a vast assembly, and the people drew back to let him pass.\nJust then Lincoln heard some one say: \"He is a common-looking fellow.\"\nLincoln, in his dream, turned to the man and said: \"Friend, the Lord\nprefers common-looking people; that is the reason He makes so many of\nthem.\"\n\nShortly before Lincoln's assassination some friends were talking about\ncertain dreams recorded in the Bible when the President said:\n\n\"About two days ago I retired very late. I could not have been long in\nbed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to dream.\nThere seemed to be a deathlike stillness about me. Then I heard subdued\nsobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and\nwandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful\nsobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room; no\nliving person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met\nme as I passed along. It was light in all the rooms; every object was\nfamiliar to me, but where were all the people who were grieving as if\ntheir hearts would break? I was puzzled and alarmed. What could be the\nmeaning of all this? Determined to find the cause of a state of things\nso mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East\nRoom, which I entered. Before me was a catafalque on which was a form\nwrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were\nacting as guards; there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully\nupon the catafalque; others weeping pitifully. 'Who is dead in the White\nHouse?' I demanded of one of the soldiers. 'The President,' was the\nanswer. 'He was killed by an assassin.' Then came a loud burst of grief\nfrom the crowd, which woke me from my dream.\"\n\n\n\n\n                             _The New Era_\n\n\nThe principles enunciated by Abraham Lincoln are abiding examples, not\nonly for the English-speaking peoples but for the whole world.\n\nOut of what seems universal confusion, tending towards chaos, there\narises a new era. A material transformation had to occur before the\nuprising of the spiritual, and the truth is beginning to dawn in the\nminds of thousands that behind all material phenomena there dwells the\ndivine idea. Before the gates of oblivion closed on civilisation we were\nplucked from the gulf in accordance with the Divine purpose.\n\nAmidst the strife of contending factions the thunder of upheaval\nreverberates from continent to continent, heralding the close of a\ndispensation that has known the trials and triumphs of nearly two\nthousand years, from which is emerging the mystical dawn of a new day.\n\n\n                                THE END\n\n\n\n\n                              THE WORKS OF\n                            FRANCIS GRIERSON\n\n              -------------------------------------------\n\n\n                       THE HUMOUR OF THE UNDERMAN\n\n_The London Evening News_:--\"'The Humour of the Underman' is a classic.\nThe work will rank among the great books of the century if only for the\nrarity and beauty of its literary expression.\"\n\n_The London Telegraph_:--\"In 'The Humour of the Underman' there is a\ndelicacy, a skilfullness, an ease of manner, and a consummate sense of\nstyle. Here is the short epigrammatic way of putting things which is\nEmerson's way, but the successive sentences are less staccato than in\nthe work of the Concord Sage; there is added to it something of the\ndelicacy, the ease, the grace of the French.\"\n\n\n                        THE INVINCIBLE ALLIANCE\n\n_Austin Harrison, Editor of The English Review_:--\"Mr. Grierson's essays\nare masterpieces of lucid expression and condensed though. In 'The\nInvincible Alliance' he puts his index finger on the weak places--on\nsnobbery on politics, on music, on the clergy, on the English point of\nview, which is twenty years behind Continental thought.... We believe\nhim to be absolutely right.\"\n\n_Dr. Samuel P. Orth, Professor of Political Science at Cornell, in a\npage review of the book in the N. Y. Times_:--\"In 'The Invincible\nAlliance' Mr. Grierson touches prophetic heights. His analytical gift is\na sort of intellectual clairvoyance.\"\n\n\n                   ILLUSIONS AND REALITIES OF THE WAR\n\n_The New York Sun_:--\"Mr. Grierson's volume on the war is the rarest\nbook of the year.\"\n\n_The Brooklyn Eagle_:--\"A work of marvellous power.\"\n\n_The Independent_:--\"Keen observation, trenchant criticism, and a\nconciseness of style combine with unusual force in Mr. Grierson's latest\nvolume on the great war.\"\n\n_The Boston Transcript_:--\"In 1913 Mr. Grierson wrote a volume of essays\ncalled 'The Invincible Alliance' in which he outlined very clearly the\ndangers which lay before the two great English-speaking nations.\nRe-reading these essays in the light of the last four years we can see\nthat Mr. Grierson looked even more deeply into the future and that he\npredicted much which has come to pass since the war began.\"\n\n_The Herald, Washington, D. C._:--\"Since the publication of the 'The\nInvincible Alliance' nothing has appeared in book form to surpass the\ntrenchant vigour and illuminating insight of 'Illusions and Realities of\nthe War.'\"\n\n\n                          LA VIE ET LES HOMMES\n\n_M. Sully Prudhomme, of the French Academy_:--\"J'ai trouv\u00e9 ces\nm\u00e9ditations pleines d'aper\u00e7us profonds et sagaces. J'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 frapp\u00e9 de\nl'originalit\u00e9 puissante de la pens\u00e9e de l'auteur.\"\n\n\n                            MODERN MYSTICISM\n\n_Maurice Maeterlinck_:--\"This volume is full of thoughts of the very\nhighest order. You have deliciously and profoundly surprised me. You\nhave said so many things which I should like to have written myself.\"\n\n_A. B. Walkley, dramatic critic of the London Times_:--\"Modern Mysticism\nis an original and delectable book.\"\n\n_The London Telegraph_:--\"Mr. Grierson pierces to the heart of his theme\nwith a keenness that is almost disconcerting. He illumines the most\nobscure situation by one of his sudden flashes of insight. The poise of\nhis sentences has something of Gallic precision about it and it is not\nsurprising that savants of contemporary French literature have praised\nhis work with generous emphasis. Such an influence, working like leaven\nin the lump, cannot fail to make its presence appreciated.\"\n\n\n                         THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS\n\n_Arnold Bennett, in a long review_:--\"'The Valley of Shadows' is a noble\nbook.... Mr. Grierson's descriptions possess a detaching sentiment of\nbeauty with absolute visual quality.\"\n\n_The New York Times_:--\"Perhaps at last, before oblivion closes over the\nante-bellum days in Illinois, the laureate of the Lincoln Country has\narrived. If there is another book in existence which deals so\ngraphically and so faithfully with that period we do not know of it.\"\n\n_The Literary Digest_:--\"Grierson's description of Lincoln as he stood\nbefore Douglas at Alton, is more real, more lifelike, than any statue or\npicture, and will in future ages take rank with Balzac's description of\nDante.\"\n\n_Sir Owen Seaman (Editor of Punch)_:--\"There are chapters in 'The Valley\nof Shadows' that haunt one afterward like remembered music.\"\n\n\n                         THE CELTIC TEMPERAMENT\n\n_Prof. William James_:--\"I find this volume full of wisdom. The pages of\n'Reflections' have found their mark in me.\"\n\n_Maeterlinck_:--\"'The Celtic Temperament' is one of the most subtle and\nsubstantial books that I know.\"\n\n\n                           PARISIAN PORTRAITS\n\n_The London Times_:--\"The most remarkable feature of Mr. Grierson's\n'Parisian Portraits' is their extraordinary clear and various detail;\nthey are served up with truth undiluted by sentiment. His insight is\nsure and his choice of subject exclusive.\"\n\n_Leon Bazalgette, in La Phalange, Paris_:--\"In his 'Parisian Portraits'\nFrancis Grierson gives us some chapters of his romantic and marvellous\nexistence. He conquers us by a very rare quality of evoking and\nsuggesting a spiritual atmosphere.\"\n\n              -------------------------------------------\n\n                      JOHN LANE COMPANY, NEW YORK\n                   JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD, LONDON\n\n\n\n\n                          TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES\n\n\nOnly obvious typographical errors have been corrected.","title":"Abraham Lincoln: The Practical Mystic","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":17858}