On Saturday last the Master of Balliol, Professor Caird, delivered
a lecture on Abraham Lincoln at Toyn- bee Hall, which, to judge by the highly abbreviated report in the Times, must have been a very remarkable attempt to focus Mr. Lincoln's life and work for a popular audience. Lincoln was, he pointed out, in several respects a new ethical phenomenon,—the product of a strong indi- viduality in contact with the peculiar conditions of a modern democratic society. Lincoln seemed born to show the one- sidedness of Carlyle's ideal as to the statesman hero, and to prove that it was possible to be a ruler of men, and yet only to move along with the general sentiment of those ruled. " In a sense, the problem of the modern statesman was to abolish the distinction between leading and following; to discern what was deepest and best in the popular sentiment, gradually to help it to a knowledge of itself, and to act only when the real power and sympathy of the nation was behind Mm." So Lincoln apprehended the problem, and he could claim to have solved it at least as successfully as any one had ever done. He became great by discovering for himself and for others what the people really wanted, "and by providing the channels in which the growing moral force of their life would flow." That is exceedingly well put, as is also the general description of Lincoln's character. " His tolerant, humorous, sympathetic temperament marked him out as one of those who could be optimists without the aid of illusion, who could believe in men without being duped by them. Accustomed to all the roughest collisions of life, to all the sharp practice of Yankee tradesmen and Yankee lawyers, he could still see the sound basis of humanity and justice in the hearts of the people." In truth, the Anglo-Saxon race never produced a nobler and greater man than Lincoln. Yet we hardly knew of the treasure before it was lost. Had Lincoln lived, his influence on American politics during the next quarter of a century would have been of incalculable value to America.
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