194, THE PORTRAIT GALLERY 
The triumph of final victory and re-election were rudely 
snatched from his personal enjoyment, when a traitorous hand 
shot and then stabbed him to death on April 14, 1865. For one 
day the body lay in state, then the funeral train took him to 
Springfield to his final rest. 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN “had at once the flavor of the soil and the 
flight of the stars. When he rose to large endeavor he had what 
seemed to be almost Divine inspiration. Some of his papers in 
their simplicity, directness and strength are more like the epistles 
of Paul than anything else in literature. His speech was as lu- 
cent as crystal, because his thoughts were as clear as the sunbeam. 
He was filled with sublime thoughts which transformed them- 
selves into sublime words and sublime acts. His imperishable 
speech at Gettysburg, which will ever remain the noblest monu- 
ment of that immortal field, sprang from the greatness of his soul, 
and reflected his inmost being. His second inaugural rose to a 
moral elevation not reached outside of sacred deliverance, and 
the grand and lofty portraiture of the Supreme law of justice 
and retribution in God’s universe, almost suggests the awful and 
mystic communion of Sinai. His example and his inspiration 
live for all time. The appreciation of his great personality and 
his true historic grandeur increases as we gain the juster per- 
spective of distance, and the sanctity of his memory will deepen 
in the hearts of his countrymen, as the sublimity of his service 
and the mystery of his martyrdom become more and more the 
loftiest legend of our national story.” 
