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STATUE OF LINCOLN, LINCOLN PARK, CHICAGO]
RECITATIONS, PLAYS, DIALOGUES, DRILLS, TABLEAUX, PANTOMIMES, QUOTATIONS, SONGS, TRIBUTES, STORIES, FACTS
It is especially fitting to issue this book--in fact, any book on the life and work of Abraham Lincoln--at this time, just preceding the centennial of his birth. Insignificant as the little volume may seem, it will have earned its right to publication if it bring, in whatever small measure, before the growing mind of the country a better realization of the grand life of the noble Lincoln--the loved and martyred President--inspired by God and divinely prepared for a great purpose: to guard and preserve a free and united country.
One hundred years seem but a day! One thousand years hence a deeper feeling will be felt for everything concerning Lincoln, as with each passing year he grows in the affections of the people. His body is dead, but his memory will live in the hearts of the people as long as our country shall cherish freedom and liberty. He was a born king of men, with an intense and yearning love for his fellows and their welfare, which knew neither rank, race, nor creed, but gathered within its boundless charity all mankind.
What a shining example this simple but sublime life offers to our growing youth! Born of humble parents, surrounded by poverty and hardships such as we seldom encounter today, his rise to the highest position in the gift of the American people--which position he not only ably filled but highly honored--is a grand illustration of persistence and ambition; ambition, though, tempered with foresight and wisdom. His was an exemplary character: a character which for quaint simplicity, earnestness, kindness, truthfulness and purity has never been surpassed among the historic personages of the world. His figure, too, more than any other in the history of our country, illustrates that America is the land of opportunity. In short, to us he is the representative and typical American.