Abraham Lincoln's Cardinal Traits Part 12

But this well-pondered carefulness was no mere mental sapience. The world of Lincoln's painstaking thought was a world of character; a world of liberty; a world of binding obligation; a world of right and wrong; a world of G.o.d-like opportunities; a world of awful sanctions; a world where dignity and shame are infinite; a world of manhood and of brother men; a world where human souls outrank all other things, like G.o.d.

These were the themes that Lincoln's mind inspected and adjudged. It is by virtue of his life-long search to find in such mighty interests as these their rational consistency, that mental values of the highest grade pervade and signalize his character. No mortal course in all our history was ever reasoned out more carefully than the course that Lincoln chose and held with moral heroism to his death. To overlook or underrate this thoughtfulness in any reasoned estimate or exposition of Lincoln's character would be infinitely unfair. As with light and vision, his thoughtfulness is the medium in which his character stands manifest.

Quite as elemental in Lincoln's character as his thoughtfulness is his courtly deference to duty. Lincoln's conscience controlled and held him in his course, as gravitation holds and guides this globe. This all men discern; and discerning, they admire. Deep in the center of this unanimous admiration is a respect for Lincoln that amounts almost to reverence. Lincoln's estimate of law was most profound. When, after humble and all-engrossing search, he found and traced those sovereign obligations to which he bowed his life, his estimate and att.i.tude were as though he stood face to face with G.o.d. But in that deference was a courtliness that was beautifully Lincoln's own. He too admired, where he obeyed. His thoughtfulness was a stately, sovereign court that sanctioned and made supreme every law that he revered. This transcendent, all-commanding sense of duty, springing from within, and also descending from above, seated centrally within his character, is centrally and inseparably inwrought within his fame. While his name abides this princely heed for duty will persist to challenge and to test each studied statement of his character.

Another factor of Lincoln's character, likewise radical, impossible to omit, is his free and self-formed choice. That Lincoln's choice was truly free, self-moved, and truly unconstrained comes clear impressively when one for long inspects and understands his thoughtfulness. Lincoln's mental action in its riper stages was a pure deliberation. In that careful pondering we can feel and see his ripening moral preference grow clear and free from trammels of every sort, and gain towards decisions that know no other influence but reason wholly purified. So inseparable in him were choice and seasoned wisdom. From this it follows that Lincoln's ripe decisions can be understood only when one comprehends his mental equilibrium.

And here it comes to view that Lincoln's moral resolutions led him far asunder from the mult.i.tudes. It is here that Lincoln's isolation takes departure. This parting of the ways needs noting narrowly. From his selection of his path for life the world at large draws back. Yet even so he still retains the world's applause. Here opens the true secret of his distinction, as of his excellence and power. This secret lies deeply hidden, and yet openly revealed in the comely balanced law his thoughtful wisdom led his n.o.ble will loyally to admire, adopt, and struggle unto death to keep.

What now in true precision was this comely, balanced programme of a moral life that Lincoln's wisdom led his will to adopt? Here is the apex of this study. That it is not beyond man's reach, the world's applause and Lincoln's lowly plainness and full accessibility may well encourage any man to hope. That this inquiry should stand unanswered, or be answered heedlessly, or with any vagueness, is unworthy of our day or of our land. But in the answer should be verbally embodied adequate and intelligible explanation of Lincoln's moral majesty, of his unexampled intimateness with every sort of men, and of an undivided world's applause.

These tests are heeded by the answer which this study ventures to suggest, when it says that Lincoln's thoughtful ponderings on the ways of G.o.d, on the souls and lives of men, on the microcosm in every man, and on the principles of all society, revealed to him the obligation, in deference to himself, to his neighbor, and to his G.o.d, and with full heed to immortality, to choose and follow to its full perfection the law of even truth and love. To be fair, and kind, and pure, as a lowly, kingly child of G.o.d--this was the wisdom, the obligation, the aspiration of Lincoln's life. This was the moral sum and substance of his thoughtful, free, obedient life. Here in brief and in full is Lincoln's character.

In such a character is G.o.dlike potency, and fluency, and dignity.

Within its easy interplay is true simplicity, and unison. Within its harmony s.h.i.+nes the eye of beauty. Amid all turbulence it holds serene.

Its movements convey a majesty that awakens deference. It is free, like G.o.d, to devise, adjust, and originate, ever having inner power creatively to overcome or reconcile outright antagonism. Its thoughtfulness has a master's power to divide, combine, and comprehend. It can gaze unblenched and unamazed into the awful face of evil. It can plant and wield a leverage that can overturn every evil argument. In its finished ministry it can present a portrait of the human soul true to its very life. In such a character, though compa.s.sed in a single life, and marked with signal modesty, there dwells a fulness adequate to delineate and comprehend all the mighty magnitudes within the moral universe.

Such is the character that Lincoln's life leads all the world to admire. Its beauty lies enshrined within the blended light of wisdom, freedom and obedience along the way where loyalty, charity, humility and hope of immortality s.h.i.+ne ever brighter unto perfect day. Here is wisdom. And here is worth. And here these two are one.

LINCOLN'S PREFERENCE

In the chapter just concluded, the field of ethics is termed a "universe." In the chapter upon Theodicy, it was noted that in Lincoln's most thoughtful ponderings, the great world of reality that pa.s.ses under the name of physics, or the physical world, seemed to lie outside the field of his concern. Here is a matter demanding something more than a bare allusion. The ponderable universe of material things has impressive majesty. It is too solid and real and present in our life to be ignored. Among the stars and beneath the hills and within the seas are solid and substantial verities. We are environed by their influences on every side. It is deep within their strong embrace that our predetermined fate is being continuously unrolled. What can be the scope and what must be the value of any view of ethics or any plan of life in which this solid, ever-present, all-embracing material world is so indifferently esteemed?

It is with just this query in mind that this research into the mind of Lincoln was first conceived. And the query which has been throughout in immediate review, but unpropounded openly as yet, now demands to be defined and scrutinized. Did the mind of Lincoln, engrossed as it was upon interests supremely ethical, and ignoring, as it seemed to do, all those vast and deep complexities of the purely physical world, find for our unquiet human thought the true and perfect equilibrium?

Or was the thought of Lincoln unbalanced and incomplete, misguided and inadequate essentially? In brief, how must ethics and physics, these two and only two supreme realities, when each is most fairly understood, be conceived to correlate and harmonize? As between these two realities, each so imperial and so irreducible, which holds primacy?

Here is for any thoughtful mind well nigh the last interrogation. To attain a competent reply the essential qualities of each and either realm must be uncovered and compared. In physics here, and in ethics there, what attributes pervade, abide, and are essential? And, these true qualities being seen in each, as between the two, which proves itself superior; in which does the soul of man find rest?

In the universe of physics, in all the world of things men see and touch and weigh one pervading and abiding quality is change. We speak indeed of the eternal hills; and before their age-long steadfastness that phrase seems accurate. But it is only soaring rhetoric, surely sinking from its flight, when sober science sets about to cipher from the distinct confessions of their very rocks the date of their birth, the story of their growth, and the sure predictions of their complete decay. In all the stability of the solid hills there is nothing permanent. So with the ageless stars. So with the ever-flowing sea.

And so with the very elements of which hills and stars and sea are mixed. All the story of all their genesis and journeying and vanis.h.i.+ng is a never-ending tale of change. Nothing physical abides the same.

Beneath the daring rays of present-day research all things are being proved impermanent, all found verging over the infinite abyss.

Trans.m.u.tations are in progress everywhere.

In the soul of Lincoln there was craving for a sort of satisfaction which nothing mutable could ever meet. Amid this pageantry of change, among these ceaseless transformations, with all their pa.s.sing beauty, and all their final disappointment, there was in him a hungering after something that should hold eternally. And within this very eagerness was genuine kins.h.i.+p with the changeless foothold in things eternal which it aspired to find. His very longing was innerly undying. His thirst for immortality was in itself averse and opposite to death essentially. Deep within his desire, deep within himself were living verities, within themselves immutable. His admiration before G.o.d's majesty, his free covenant with perfect loyalty, his friendly kindliness towards all others like himself, and his G.o.d-like sacrificial grief for all wrongdoing, held within their pure vitality visions and pa.s.sions and aspirations that no mortal darts could touch.

And when with clear discernment he freely chose to fill his soul with hopes and deeds that eternally evade decay, he selected, as between things that change and things that abide, that reality to whose eternal primacy every pa.s.sing day yields perfect demonstration.

Nowhere in physics, in ethics alone could be found the perfect solace of conscious perpetuity.

Another quality of all things physical, a quality likewise all-pervading and persistent, is their want of spontaneity. Within the nature of this mighty physical bulk, that is forever altering its garb and form, and within all its flowing change there is no liberty.

Through all the ever-varying orbit of the moon; in all the marvelous wedlock of the elements within the rocks and soils and plants; in all convulsions and explosions of air and sea and fluent gas; in lightning, fire, and plague; in all the age-long monotony of instinct, habit, and proclivity, there is no conscious choice, no character-worth, no enn.o.bling and terrifying responsibility. Through all this change of mortal things all things are fixed. Naught is n.o.bly free.

In the soul of Lincoln there was a pa.s.sion to be free. In this desire there was a clear intelligence, and a purpose like to G.o.d's. He coveted a dignity that was self-achieved. He deemed that worth, and that alone, supreme that was his own creation. Only in deeds that he himself determined could he discern true excellence. Herein he stood apart from brutes, ranked above the hills, and pierced beyond the stars. And when, with such an insight, and such a soaring wish, and in such high dignity, he freely chose to hold supreme the life and thought and joy that are truly free, rating all things fixed and physical as forever far beneath, he allotted certain primacy to that which he discreetly judged undoubtedly pre-eminent. In closest consonance with what has last been said, comes now to be affirmed, a central quality of all things purely physical--persistent and pervading everywhere--their absolute inertia morally. They move as they are moved, and never otherwise. The law by which their being is controlled is not their own. At the last and evermore physics, though the measureless arena of unmeasured active energy, is powerless. It cannot even obey. But most demonstrably it can never command, not even itself. It is vastly, deeply, and forever only pa.s.sive; although within its ponderous frame are playing with baffling constancy forces that weary all too easily our most stalwart thought.

In such a realm as this, forever unawakened and evermore unjudged, Lincoln's awakened and judicial soul could never find contentment.

Within that manly heart was enthroned a conscience, alert alike to receive and to originate, as also to approve and fulfill all n.o.ble and enn.o.bling obligations. He knew the meaning and the sense of duty, the weight of duty claimed, and the worth of duty done. In his true heart was a living spring of moral law. And in cheris.h.i.+ng with exalted satisfaction this imperial quality of all true moral life, therein deciding that physics held nothing worthy of any comparison, he gave kingly utterance to a judgment and decision and desire that could estimate infallibly the ultimate compet.i.tors within his conscious life for primacy. For ever in ethics, as never in physics, right judgment finds its source.

Yet another quality of physics, likewise all-pervasive and permanent, is the mocking, paralyzing mystery in which all its certainties are veiled. The mighty acquisitions to our certain knowledge in the realm of nature are superbly manifold and as superbly sure. The swelling catalogue of things well certified in the material world seems to advance the modern scientific mind almost to genuine apotheosis. But of all these stately cert.i.tudes there is not one but walks in darkness no human eye nor thought can penetrate. Before heroic and unexampled diligence and daring the scientific frontiers are receding everywhere; but only to make still more amazing and unbearable their inscrutability. On every horizon of the physical realm yawn infinitudes, whether of s.p.a.ce or time, of geometry or arithmetic, of electron or of cell, so defiant, so bewildering, and so overwhelming in their complete defeat and mockery of our bravest and best intelligence that our proudest powers are palsied utterly. Whichever ways we turn, whatever gains we win, we face at last, in the very eye of our research, and in the very heart of our desire, a changeless silence that mocks all hope, and leaves us standing in an utter void.

In the realm of simple physics the human intellect, despite the fact that in the physical realm the mind of man has triumphed gloriously, is faced forever with the taunting consciousness that its primal task is still undone.

In an undertaking such as this, and in such a hapless outcome, the mind and life of Lincoln could never be engrossed. He was ever facing mystery indeed in the perplexities that throng the moral realm. In fact, in the darkness and confusion that enshroud and mystify the world of duty and award were all his sorrows born. But in those mysteries moral honesty is not mocked. Where iniquities prevail, the soul that bows towards G.o.d sees light. Where sin abounds, the heart that yields the sacrifice of penitence finds peace. In the face of hate and strife and bloodshed, to banish malice and to cherish charity is to enter and to introduce complete tranquillity. Where lives grow coa.r.s.e and souls are base and purity is all denied, the soul that seeks refinement grows refined and consciously approaches G.o.d. When G.o.d is mocked and scorners multiply and hearts grow hard in pride, the heart that meekly, humbly holds its confidence in the transcendent, all-controlling Deity opens in that lowly faith deep springs of never-failing hope. In these mysteries, however baffling and persistent, these efforts towards relief find sure and great reward.

In such a field and in such endeavors it was Lincoln's sovereign preference to measure out all the forces of his conscious life. Attent towards G.o.d, benign towards men, upright within, and prizing life, he found, not defiance and despair, but perennial quickening and encouragement, whatever problems darkened round his life. For him such soul-filling verities, and such a corresponding faith held far-transcending primacy. And so in conscious, sovereign and everlasting preference for the truth that shows all its light in character, and for the faith that such clear truth forever illuminates, Lincoln testified his confidence that in the face of physics ethics holds supreme pre-eminence.

Of all this searching estimate and supreme comparison of these two divergent realms one's mind may gravely doubt whether Lincoln's mind had perfect consciousness. Concerning this no one may speak, except with hesitance. But any one whose mind has entered into intimate partners.h.i.+p with all the wealth of Lincoln's words is well aware that it was a habit of his mind to pursue its themes to their farthest bourne. In penetration and in pondering not many minds were ever more evenly taxed. His mental persistence and deliberation were almost preternatural. Discovering this, a student of his mental ways will grow to feel that, in a likelihood almost equivalent to full certainty, Lincoln was wittingly aware of all the meaning in his proclivity to rate ethical interests uppermost.

At any rate, in his life and writings, so the matter stands. And standing thus in the deeply conscious soul of Lincoln, the matter has a high significance. It seems to testify with a prophet's steady voice that in all the total realm of being, the realm of freedom, of consciousness, and of character is the first and sovereign verity; that the real is fundamentally ethical; that he who seeks for perfect satisfaction must bring to his inquiry the glad allegiance of a moral freeman and a moral judge; that in every undertaking becoming him as man each cardinal moral excellence must grow and s.h.i.+ne increasingly; that every mental acquisition must conduce to a lowliness that adores, to a gentleness that loves, to a purity that pledges immortality, to a self-respect that is the mirror and original of all reality; that only thus, in all this universe, and to all eternity, can the soul of man gain triumphs that can satisfy. Only so will truth grow fully radiant, and mystery become benign. Only so can finite man find peace before his Maker, and face serenely all that wisest unbelief finds terrible.

This is truth. Here is freedom. Such is faith. Thus, in a freeman's faith truth stands complete.

Such is Lincoln's preference. Like another Abraham, and with a kindred insight and determination, he won all his triumphs and renown by faith--a free and conscious faith in G.o.d, and soul, and character.

Here are designations, at once so plastic and so precise, at once so simple and so profound, as to signify and demonstrate how souls of men may conquer death; how one may be a perfect devotee to another person's weal, and still preserve his own integrity; how perfect sanct.i.ty may a.s.sume a full companions.h.i.+p with sin, whether by redemption or rebuke, and still remain unflecked; and how in man's humility may be enshrined a dignity wherein supernal majesty may be unveiled.

In some such vivid, moral terms, mobile to grasp and manifest the boundless range and priceless worth within the sovereign moral law; as also to declare unerringly the fateful and unbounded issues of a moral choice, may students hope to trace with true intelligence the real foundations of Lincoln's all but unexampled power and fame.

AN EPILOGUE

ADDRESSED TO THEOLOGIANS

In designing and constructing the chapters that precede, three motives have been actively at work. There has been a desire to set within the realm of Civics a clear and balanced exposition of Lincoln's moral grandeur. There has been a desire to introduce within the realm of Ethics a fertile method of discussion and research. There has been a desire to intimate how in the realm of pure Religion the finished outline of a transparent character may provide a pattern for a true description of the problems of Theology.

Of these three motives the one last named has been preponderant.

Lincoln's public life was keyed alike to moral honor and to faith in G.o.d. In his most quickening aspirations and in his most sacrificial sorrows his sense of personal obligation and his belief in an over-ruling Providence held fast together in a most notable unison.

Guileless, luminous, and single-hearted in his rect.i.tude and in his reverence, he affords a signal ill.u.s.tration of the way in which faith and conscience may vitally co-operate and even coalesce. He presents in consequence a signal opportunity for exploring the inner kins.h.i.+p of ethics and religion. His personality challenges us to inquire and see how honesty and G.o.dliness consort; how in a complete and balanced character the categories that define the basis of one's moral excellence may prove themselves to be the very categories that inform and underlie the religious life.

Here opens an engaging investigation. May the ultimate principles of a true ethical theory and the ultimate rationale of a true theology be found in living deed to coincide? To bring this question into open view is the ulterior aim of this book, and more particularly of this appended Epilogue.

In the open petals of the plainest flower soil and sunlight, earth and heaven meet in almost mystic union. Be this our parable. In the ample compa.s.s of a normal character, such as Lincoln shows, there is in very deed a mystic union--a vital partners.h.i.+p of man with fellowman, and of men with G.o.d. Be this deep fellows.h.i.+p described; for here commingle indivisibly the essential elements in any pure and full display in human life of morals and religion.

In Lincoln's public life there was undeniably a close companions.h.i.+p with G.o.d. Earth-born and earth-environed though he was, he had supreme affinity with heavenly realms. His face was seamed with suffering; he wore a humble mien; his habitual posture was a pattern of unstudied modesty. But through those sorrow-shadowed features shone a radiant exalted hope, as he walked and toiled in reverend covenant with the sovereign G.o.d of Nations. Besieged by day and night with difficulties and distresses such as rarely burden mortal men, in his nightly vigils and in his daily labors he clung to Deity, true civilian and true man of G.o.d at once. The terms of this high covenant were specific and distinct. They were the very terms that defined the conscious qualities of his upright, G.o.d-revering character. Be those qualities described.

In the first place, here in Lincoln's open character it becomes heavenly clear how profoundly intimate and at one are majesty and true humility. When the guise of each is fully genuine, they minutely correspond. In Lincoln's lowliness lay the very image of the majesty of G.o.d. To that high majesty his lowliness conformed. As in a mountain lake may be enshrined a perfect pattern of the heavenly firmament, so was Lincoln's reverence a conscious, free reflection of the excellence of G.o.d. His obedience was an intelligent recognition and re-enthronement of the sovereign law of G.o.d. His lowly posture, when in supplicating or interceding prayer, was induced by the bending pity of a compa.s.sionate G.o.d. That trusting appeal was the very echo of G.o.d's benign concern; and within the wrestlings of those intense entreaties the divine designs gained place in human history. Lincoln in his lowliness was G.o.dlike. His humility was supremely dignified, supremely beautiful. In its open face, as in the face of a flower opening towards the sun, was resident a heavenly glory.

In the second place, this vital unison of man with G.o.d stands superbly evident in the stately wedlock of Lincoln's honesty with G.o.d's righteousness. In Lincoln's soul there lived a faith in G.o.d's integrity which no dark storm of human faithlessness, and no delay of heaven's righteous judgments could eclipse or wear away. This belief was in him an active energy. It grew to be a partners.h.i.+p with G.o.d's uprightness--a covenant in which his own soul's eagerest ambitions and resolves became upright. In his inmost soul it was his inmost aspiration to be an agent for enthroning here on earth the equity of G.o.d. And so, in fact, as a mighty nation's chief executive, he did become the executive of the will of G.o.d. In his transparent honesty there was a reflection of the sincerity of G.o.d. In his firm constancy there was upheld before this people's eye an index finger pointing to the steadfast constancy of G.o.d. In his pure jealousy for the utter sanct.i.ty of his plighted word there burned a fire that was kindled in the eye of G.o.d. In all his even, glowing zeal for righteousness he has been adjudged by all his fellowmen pre-eminently a man of G.o.d. And as signal devotee to honesty he demonstrates most signally that G.o.d and man may set their lives in unison.

In the third place there was in Lincoln's patient gentleness a profound resemblance to the all-enduring gentleness of G.o.d. His mastery of malice and his universal charity in the face of mult.i.tudes of bitter and malignant men attest eternally an intimate companions.h.i.+p with divine forbearing grace. His sacrificial intervention on behalf of all G.o.d's little ones whom human heartlessness had oppressed is world-arresting evidence and demonstration that in his kindly heart was throned the Heavenly Father's sympathy. Unto costly fellows.h.i.+p with this divine forbearance and compa.s.sion Lincoln opened unreservedly all the compa.s.s of his life. For afflicted and afflicting men he felt a sorrow, mixed with pity and rebuke, both born of the affection fathers feel, both proved sincere by years of sacrificial anguish unto death. And this he did with a discerning and deliberate mind. It was thus he understood the heart and ways of G.o.d; and thus by clear design he undertook in his own life to recommend the ways of G.o.d to men. In verity he was partaker and dispenser of the manifold grace of G.o.d. In him the mighty love of G.o.d found living medium. Like a gentle flower drinking gratefully the warmth and beauty flowing towards it from the sun, his soul absorbed the gentle ways of G.o.d and itself grew kind and beautiful. Here again it may be seen how intimate may be the life of man in G.o.d, the life of G.o.d in man.

In the fourth place there was in Lincoln's soul an all-prevailing confidence touching future destiny. This living confidence was the outcome of his close partners.h.i.+p with G.o.d. His faith believed that G.o.d's designs held fast eternally, and that conviction clouds and night and death were impotent to overshadow or obscure. The rather, as his faith and hope confided in that unfailing verity, that faith and hope became themselves unfailing. His sure belief became partic.i.p.ant in G.o.d's dependability. Here is the deepest secret of his abiding steadiness. Hence his calm indifference to death.

And this illumines all his great appeals to his fellowmen with the light of a prophetic vision. For his fellow-citizens, as for himself, his sovereign aspiration was after permanence. This abiding life, whether in the Nation or in himself, he had the mind to comprehend, must be the very life of G.o.d within the soul. In civic G.o.dliness alone could there be civic permanence. In the Nation's life the life of G.o.d must be incorporate. Then and then alone would any Nation long endure.

For this bright civic hope, for this alone he lived. And this ever-springing hopefulness and confidence is the s.h.i.+ning efflorescence of his G.o.dliness. He clung to things eternal in a conscious league with G.o.d.

Here is something wonderful--something replete alike with mystery and with cert.i.tude--a vital unison of G.o.d and man in undeniable verity--a unison in righteousness and kindliness, in lowly and majestic dignity, in immortal spirit purity--a unison in which all that is most sacredly elemental in G.o.d and man most intimately coalesce, while yet remaining most unmistakably distinct--a unison in which is freely and consciously engaged all that personality, however self-discerning and free, can ever contribute or contain--a unison as historically real as it is immeasurably profound--a unison in which s.p.a.ce and time provide the theater, while yet a unison in which time and s.p.a.ce dissolve. Here is surely ample range for ample exposition of many a major problem in theology, and all within the open and familiar bounds of a normal moral life.

In close alliance and affinity with Lincoln's vital partners.h.i.+p with G.o.d, and of almost equal pregnancy for the problems of religious thought, is the marvelous intimacy of his inner and essential fellows.h.i.+p with men. This feature of his public life is becoming more commanding and impressive every year. To a degree altogether notable it is becoming widely understood how he and all his fellowmen were wonderfully allied. It is becoming seen by all of us that the qualities essential to his commanding excellence are qualities deeply typical of us all. His att.i.tudes of deference and modesty, his promptings towards things permanent and durable, his equities, his kindnesses are universal. They are enthroned within us all.