colonial history the evolution of anarchy and not of orderself-order—is a man who believes that democracy is chaos and not the coalition of individual atoms into a compact, consistent whole, in which, because of its structure, its natural structure, the forces of God have free-play-freer and freer as the democratic state is ever more naturally, harmoniously and reasonably constituted. With such a man I have not time to argue. He is the slave of a dead conception.

Our colonial life must be traced along lines of developing sympathy Democracy without sympathy is a tinkling cymbal. The selfish colonist loses his particularistic tendencies. Patriotism is begotten within him. When the Boston Port bill is passed, the cavalier of Virginia and the puritan of Massachusetts have a common cause. The rough back-woodsman of western Pennsylvania sends over the mountains his wagon-load of flour to the poor of the beleaguered city Such sympathy shows the heart-throbs of a new nation-a nation whose governing principle is and must be brotherly love, democracy ever growing into fuller and riper Christian fellowship.

When the American people entered upon their career as an independent nation this process of fusion was not complete. There was a nation, but it was in its infancy in every sense. More truly, the hold of state on state was still fragile, of man on man was feeble. Our history from July 4, 1776, as before that date, is a process of hardening and strengthening these ties--of deepening and broadening sympathy For the first thirteen years after independence was declared the struggle was a sharp one. Would the forces of disintegration overcome the force of integration-would selfishness overcome Christian brotherhood? Out of and because of this struggle there rose a higher and better state. When the articles of Confederation

were adopted they included the historical falsehood that each state retained its sovereignty But the force of the national life would not have it so. In speaking of American history we almost irresistably talk in terms of law The legal controversies of a century have shaped our speech and even moulded our thought. But let us cast to one side the mere human forms whereby man tries to direct the forces of nature, and let us see the situation. Through that critical storm-and-stress period of our history the forces of dissolution and of integration were striving together Disintegration, dissolution, death, constitute the fruits of sin. Christianity is brotherhood, is union, is a complete and full co-operation, is life and movement as the truth is unfolded and duty becomes more clear The constitution was formed. Lawyers, historians, logicians, have striven and argued. Was it formed by the states? Was it formed by the people? Was it a mere confederation? Was it a fundamental law? Never mind. It was a fuller expression of the national will. The old confederation was a lie. It con

tracted the national spirit, till bonds were burst asunder and the truth was put in its place. There then came into existence adequate machinery for the expression of the national lifeGod-given.

"All was decided

The fiction of the lawyer is convenient. by the constitution. There is the form of government. Thus must national life express itself." But the struggle was only begun. Our history from 1789, as before, has been a process of adjustment. A hundred years have gone by, and in that hundred years there has been growth to compactness, to oneness, to wholeness. I am not talking of law I am not attempting to form any theory about the place of deposit of certain sovereign powers or questioning how they should be

It left a

exercised. The past hundred years through stress and struggle have brought into existence a higher union and a fuller national life. Long our state was attacked by the disease which endangered its whole existence. If it could not throw it off, retrogression and dissolution were the logical results. In one mighty throe of agony, slavery was forever cast out. scar on the body politic that only time can heal. But the victory was won. This was the momentous victory for Christianity and brotherhood in every sense-not that alone four millions of slaves were taken from the bondage of serfdom, but North and South were now to be welded together in firmer compact, to realize together the life which neither section could realize alone.

The teachings of the seventy-five years of struggle, which ended with the surrender of Appomattox, are important. A great and enlightened people insisted that by a line on a piece of parchment they were protected in keeping to themselves a sin which the modern world will not tolerate. The forces of Christendom were leveled against it. These forces of Christendom-these influences, some of them seemingly very material, which emanate from the states of the modern world-are they not the forces of Christianity expressing themselves in a thousand ways? Whence could they come had not the life of the state been shaping itself, unconciously perhaps, in response to the great force of God? Modern Christendom will not tolerate commercial monasticism. The South was not allowed to say: “This taint.is my own. I build up my own industrial life. I care not for the moral denunciation of the modern world or the cold shoulder of trade." But the cold shoulder of trade was powerful. The drift of modern civilization has not been toward the domination of man over man, but of man over

nature; and the South with slavery, that expression of ancient civilization where man's greatest aim was the conquest of man by man, was left hopelessly behind in the unfolding of modern life. In spite of herself she reached out for the conflict. She was vanquished, for she had been beaten before she began to fight. The organic life of the American nation would not and could not suffer the disorganization that sprang from secession.

Abraham Lincoln has been called the embodiment of true American greatness. He belongs with the great men of all time, with the world's great men, and why?-because of his mental acumen, his human sympathy, his Christian benevolence? All these and ten times more. He was a great men of all the ages, because through him flowed and became all-powerful the life of the modern world-because he of all men was chosen as the representative, the embodiment or better parhaps the channel for the floods of Christian force in statecraft. The great men of the world are not the men who struggle with Herculean power against the unrestrainable drift of life, no matter what their moral purpose, no matter what their mental vigor. When judged by history success is a prime requisite for greatness. "How necessary is success!" said Kossuth as he stood by the tomb of Washington. The great men of the world have been the channels of God's irresistible force in the work of evolution of a higher and better civilization. As we study the life and work of Lincoln we may especially see the forces of Christianity in United States history

union, sympathy, self-control, wisdom, good-fellowship, faith, hope, and charity Abraham Lincoln was not an exotic.

So much for the process of unification which seems the first great process at work in American history He who studies American history with a contrary conception will lose,

I believe, the key to its secrets. The second phase of American history, the growth of democracy, is intimately connected with the facts we have just considered. Separation and contrariety I conceive to be a difficulty for America beyond other States becouse we have more fully realized harmonious statehood in representative democracy The old cry that democracies must fly to pieces sooner or later-how absurd! The perfect democracy will present a welded, indissoluble whole, natural and hence permanent.

Let us accept the assertion that man can develop not as an isolated being but as a member of the whole! As one of many, he does the work of Christ. Christ demands above all not alone the purification of the soul of man but the action which, in itself, constitutes love. "And this is love, that ye walk after his commandments." (Second Epistle of John, 6.) The perfect law of Christ is the golden rule. One must love his neighbor as himself. Pure democracy is the embodiment of Christianity because the perfect law of democracy is the perfect law of Christ. Now, I do not wish to assert that we have reached that perfect democracy, where all will stand firm in the perfect freedom which springs from the law of Christ; but I do maintain that this force has been at work in our history. There have been contradiction and misconception, but the progress has been inevitable. Jefferson, the great father of American democracy, often taught individualism and disintegration. His teachings mean dissolution, not democracy But the nation has sloughed off the falsity of Jefferson's work and teaching and has built the truth into its life. For while he was teaching individualism he was also actually demanding scope for individuality. He was preaching the dignity of man. He was protesting against the law and the custom which would