reverses.

It is the peculiar glory of Mr. Lincoln that he never faltered in his work or yielded to discouragement in the midst of heavy It was an utterance of divine inspiration, when he said in his second inaugural, March 4, 1865: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in." More than a year earlier, he had said at Gettysburg over the dead who had given "the last full measure of devotion" to their country on that battlefield, "It is for us here to highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

When at last, after four years of horrid war, General Grant said to General Lee, "Let us have peace," and the latter surrendered his army, no man's heart thrilled with a deeper joy than Abraham Lincoln's. Five days later came the awful tragedy of his assassination. The dread news struck the people of Burlington with horror. We felt that we had been mocked by fiendish malignity and diabolic hate. We wept and mourned with the whole nation, and put on sackcloth and ashes, and our people marched in a funeral procession with draped flags and muffled drums at the time of the funeral obsequies in Washington. Senator Grimes who was then at home, led in the exercises. In his letters to his wife, then in New Hampshire, he said, "We have had four days of universal and heartfelt sorrow and mourning; business has been nearly suspended. There was a meeting in Union Hall on Monday evening, and, although very rainy, the hall was full. I presided and spoke a few minutes, and was followed by Mr. Salter, Father Donelon, and Mr. Darwin. At twelve o'clock to-day (April 19), there were religious services in all the churches and I hear that all were crowded. In the afternoon there was an immense procession through the streets, end

ing its march at the hall where as many entered as could, leaving a large part out-of-doors. I again presided and opened and closed with a few remarks. There was not a business house, or a drinking house even, open during the day nor an intoxicated man to be seen in the town. No Sunday was ever so universally kept sacred in Burlington. The real grief does not seem to be confined to any party or sect. Everybody seems ready to canonize Mr. Lincoln's memory. If there ever was a man who was happy

in his death that man was Mr. Lincoln. He is for all time to enjoy the reputation of having carried the country through a terrible civil war successfully, and is to have none of the odium and hate that are sure to be engendered by the rival schemes and the rival parties for the adjustment of our troubles. Mr. Lincoln was the most amiable, kind-hearted man I ever knew, and would not, if he could avoid it, punish his most malignant enemy."

Such was the high character of Abraham Lincoln that he not only disenthralled and redeemed the nation, giving a new birth to freedom, but that he has also set free the religion of the American people, giving it a larger liberality, identifying Christianity more and more with the moral sentiments and with the Golden Rule and the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount, and less and less with ecclesiastical and denominational opinions. Mr. Lincoln was not a church member and it was said that there was only one clergyman who voted for him in Springfield at his first election. In the light of his character and of his great services, many are appreciating his higher views of the supreme duty to do justly, to love mercy, and promote peace on earth and good-will among men. Of higher inspiration than any of the creeds from Nice to Westminster or the Vatican council and of more profit to the world than any denominational forms and ceremonies, are such sentiments and convictions as Abraham Lincoln gave utterance to in his inaugurals, and at Gettysburg, and as he carried them out in the administration of his office as president of the

United States. Let American Christianity, its churches and clergy, rally to the support of these principles and no more divide the people into sects and parties, or confuse their understandings with doubtful disputations, but bring them together in the federation of Christian love and in the practice of all goodness.

III

I

ITALY IN 1860

ENTERED Italy at its extreme northern boundary where the

highest point in the Splügen Pass separates it from Switzerland. The moment that the weary and long ascent of the mountain terminates and the driver whips up his horses and you begin the descent in a brisk trot, the face of nature changes, the appearance of the people is different. The waters that rush by you are no longer hastening to join the Rhine and pour themselves into the German Ocean, but seek the river Po and the Adriatic Sea. You are in the kingdom of Italy. I entered it on the third of September. Had I been there fifteen months earlier I should have found the Austrians in possession, though about to leave before the victorious forces of Louis Napoleon and Victor Immanuel. Soon after passing the summit we were brought to a halt before a massive and cheerless building which proved to be a guard-house; our luggage was examined and for a small fee the imprimatur of the Sardinian officials, which allowed a humble citizen of the New World admission into Italy, was affixed to our passports. The scene here was one of frightful desolation. The rain was falling heavily. It was night. We were glad to hasten on and obtain the shelter of an inn at Campo Dolcino.

The next morning was clear and pleasant and revealed to us an exceedingly bare and rugged landscape. The storms of ages have swept these mountain sides and piled up the rocks in consummate disorder. Here and there we marked the path by which avalanches had descended into the valley. We took an early start, and after riding two miles were obliged to leave the

carriage, the road having been entirely swept away by immense landslides for a distance of seven miles two or three days before. We had to go afoot. Trusty porters at once appeared with large sacks in which they stowed the luggage and marched before us with the load upon their backs. Our party followed, clambering over rocks, and down precipitous steeps, and crossing the tumbling mountain torrents as best we could, through a scene of utter desolation and ruin. A road that had been constructed with great skill and incredible labor, with many substantial bridges and long galleries on the side of the mountain, had only here and there a vestige of its solid masonry left. We found several hundred men already at work clearing the pathway and putting up temporary bridges, and it was said that after two weeks the road would be made passable again for carriages. After a walk of eight miles over this wild desolation we reached the town of Chiavenna. Here the landscape begins to soften and you behold a more luxuriant vegetation than on the other side of the Alps. Magnificent chestnut trees with their rich foliage greet the eye. Peaches and grapes are ripe. With the exception of the strawberries and gooseberries the traveler had found in England, and some small but luscious mountain strawberries in Switzerland, he had seen but little fruit hitherto. Here he also finds the tomato in abundance. In other respects, as to the manners and habits of the people, the contrast was striking both as to my own country and the other countries through which I had traveled. The appearance of industry and thrift and tidiness was gone, and the fields and houses and dress of the people betrayed a want of those virtues. This, it should be remembered, was in the spurs of the Alps.

The town of Chiavenna lies at the foot of several grand and beautiful valleys. About three miles distant is a spot where a village (Pleurs) of twenty-five hundred inhabitants was overwhelmed by a falling mountain, September 4, 1618, and not only