2Democrac\> anb IReligton.

49

party but of the entire nation. How could thepolitical bond be loosened without the moral bondbeing strengthened. How make a people masterof itself which does not subject itself to the masteryof God ? "

All these features are found united in a person-ality of monumental greatness. Those Americans ,who are not too businesslike to believe in politicalideals, still recognise their better self in the personof Abraham Lincoln. This man of Baptist origin,from the days of his childhood lived with the Bibleand " Pilgrim's Progress." For Lincoln everypolitical question in the last resort was an ethicalquestion and ethics for him meant religion. Hisportrait hangs in schools, offices and railwaystations as a symbol of the " better America," which for the Americans of German descent isrepresented by Karl Schurz, the great friend andassociate of Lincoln.

Lincoln's spirit is not dead even to-day, as welearned in the World War. In the battle foughtby the spirits above the clouds our opponents hadfighting in their ranks German Baptists of the six-teenth century and German revolutionaries of1848—not the worst among our ancestors. Andupon that side millions held the belief that the warwas " to make the world safe for democracy." Inthe United States of America the intense activityfor war was sustained by the free churches, thewomen, and the universities, while the men of thebusiness world made their profit by neutrality.Many thousands gave themselves to the cause,convinced that it was Lincoln's cause they were