The following, from the Chicago "Tribune," so perfectly expresses our feelings, that we cannot resist the temptation to quote it:

"Lincoln has been indeed a mild, loving father of his country; and whether in the future it be possible to produce his equal, most certainly not in the past or in the present has a ruler ever lived who has acted with one-hundredth part of the magnanimity displayed uniformly by our late President. Well may the rebels expect to hear from the lips of Johnson the reply made by Rehoboam to the old men, 'My father did beat you with whips; but I will chastise you with scorpions.' Subsequent events will show that they have jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire. The deed was altogether without excuse,―equalled only in enormity by the intent of Satan to pluck the Almighty from his throne.

"Well may the nation weep, - fountains of tears. In Abraham Lincoln, we have lost one whose place can never be filled, either in the Executive chair or in our affections. Who but he could have brought us safely through this fiery trial, landing us on terra firma, yet so gently that we scarcely feel the shock? Our kind father and wise counsellor is gone. Our grief at his loss to ourselves is so great, that we can scarce spare a thought to his bereaved family. We were all his children. All loved and guarded equally by him. In his loss, we mourn a parent. His own family scarce loved him more dearly than the great heart of the American people."

Yes, the greatest and best of men has been taken from us. He has fallen while in the zenith of his glory. Indeed, we only express the opinion we have for years entertained, when we say, that a glory belongs to Lincoln, compared with which, that of all other statesmen fades like the lustre of the stars before the rising sun.

Washington, the Father of this Republic, was no more true, noble, and patriotic, than was Lincoln, its Saviour and Redeemer.

"How are the mighty fallen!" Lincoln is gone. It remains for us to trace his history, that we may realize the extent of our loss. Loss, did I say? I take it back. Lincoln is neither dead nor asleep. He is alive to-day, and as earnestly and patriotically

working for the cause of human freedom as when he was here in the flesh. He has only ceased to preside over a Congress of mortals, to join the band of immortal statesmen. He has entered the heavenly Congress, and works as untiringly in behalf of the stars and stripes, as during the days of his earthly tabernacle.

HIS HISTORY.

I have only time to give a synopsis of his life, which I have condensed from the daily journals.

He was born of poor parents, in La Rue County, Kentucky, in the year 1809. In 1816, when he was eight years old, his father moved to Indiana. He perhaps received in all near one year's educating. In 1830, he removed to Illinois. After a trip to New Orleans, on a flat-boat, he became a clerk in a store at New Salem, Menard (then Sangamon) County. On the breaking-out of the Black-Hawk war, in 1832, he joined a volunteer company, and was elected its captain. He served for three months in the campaign, and on his return was nominated as a Whig candidate for the legislature; but, the county being Democratic, he was defeated, though his own election-district gave him two hundred and seventy-seven votes, with only seven against him. He was afterwards appointed postmaster at New Salem, and then began to study law. During the same time, he practised surveying, although without any instruction beyond what he had obtained by reading a single treatise on that subject. In 1834, he was elected to the legislature, by the highest vote ever cast for any candidate; and was re-elected in 1836, '38, '40. In 1836, he obtained a license to practise law; and in April, 1837, removed to Springfield, and went into partnership with Hon. T. Stuart. He rose rapidly in distinction in his profession, and was especially eminent as an advocate. In 1844, he was presidential elector in favor of Henry Clay, and canvassed the entire State, and the State of

Indiana, in his behalf, addressing large audiences with marked

success.

In 1846, he was elected a Representative to Congress, from the Central District of Illinois. In Congress, he voted for the reception of antislavery memorials and petitions; for the motions of Mr. Giddings for committees to inquire into the constitutionality of slavery in the District of Columbia, and the expediency of abolishing the slave trade in the District, and other like propositions. He voted for the Wilmot Proviso, every time it was presented to the House. In January, 1840, he offered to the House a scheme for abolishing slavery in the District, by compensating the slaveholders from the Treasury of the United States, provided a majority of the people of the District should vote to accept the proposal. He opposed the annexation of Texas, but voted for the Loan Bill to enable the Government to defray the expenses of the Mexican war. Mr. Lincoln was a member of the Whig National Convention of 1848, and urged the re-nomination of General Taylor. In 1849, he was a candidate for the United-States Senate; but the legislature was Democratic, and elected General Shields. After the expiration of his congressional term, Mr. Lincoln applied himself to his profession, until the repeal of the Missouri Compromise called him again into the political arena. He entered with energy into the work which was to decide the choice of a senator in place of General Shields; and it was mainly due to his exertions, that the triumph of the Republican party, and the election of Judge Trumbull to the Senate, was attributed. At the Republican National Convention in 1856, which nominated General Fremont for the Presidency, the Illinois delegation unanimously urged the nomination of Mr. Lincoln for the Vice Presidency. The contest between Mr. Lincoln and Judge Douglas, in 1858, is familiar to all, and need not be recapitulated. It is only necessary to say, that, notwithstanding

the friends of Judge Douglas secured a majority of the legislature, the popular vote was in favor of Mr. Lincoln by over four thousand majority.

On the eighteenth day of May, 1860, the Republican National Convention, which assembled in Chicago, nominated Mr. Lincoln for President of the United States, and that nomination was ratified by the people at the following November election. The history of the dead patriot and statesman from that period to the hour when he fell a martyr to the cause of human liberty is as familiar to the world as household words.

It might not be amiss here to say a word with regard to the

CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH HE TOOK THE CHAIR.

For years, the antislavery sentiment had been gaining ground, insomuch that the South had fully decided to use the first opportunity to secede from the Government. This decision was made more than thirty years ago, long before Lincoln was ever thought of for President. His election, of course, gave them the desired pretext. When he took the chair, some of the States had already rebelled, and prepared for open hostilities. Three-fourths, yea, nine-tenths of the military strength of this nation was in the South. He enters upon his duties with a gigantic rebellion on his hands, without an army, without a navy, in short, without any resource whatever to extinguish the fires of the greatest rebellion since the fabled "Lucifer," " the son of the morning," rebelled in heaven. With all this on his hands, Lincoln undertakes to pilot the Ship of State through the storm. Has he succeeded? Let the history of the nation tell.

Our lamented President entered upon his duties with an unflinching determination to put the rebellion down, and yet with a leniency such as human history never before recorded. To the South he said in his Inaugural Address,

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you.

"You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government; while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect, and defend it.””

What more could they ask? With the positive pledge that the Government would not assail them, who could but think that they would ground their weapons? But the old proverb, "The gods first make mad those whom they would destroy," was good in their case. How pleadingly our President besought them to desist from their hellish designs! Hear him once more:

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.

"The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

Let copperheads, who have howled so long and vociferously about Lincoln and "Lincoln's war," "Nigger war," &c., read and and re-read this, and hide their faces for very shame. Let them know that their misrepresentations of the patriotic Abraham have spilled his blood; their journals and speeches have stimulated such men as Booth to deeds they never would dared to have done under other circumstances. Let them know that they are responsible for the death of our President. Their misrepresentations of Lincoln and his administration are enough to make "e'en a devil blush."

Mr. Lincoln's history, for the past five years, is known and read by all men. I need not repeat it: only let me show that he has fairly earned the title of the Emancipator.

Ist. In March, 1862, he sent a message to Congress recommending "gradual emancipation."