Leader of His People
Saw you in his boyhood days
O'er Kentucky's prairies;
Bending to the settler's ways
Yon poor youth whom now we praise—
Romance like the fairies?
Hero! Hero! Sent from God!
Leader of his people.
Saw you in the days of youth
By the candle's flaring:
Lincoln searching for the truth,
Splitting rails to gain, forsooth,
Knowledge for the daring?
Hero! Hero! Sent from God!
Leader of his people.
Saw you in his manhood's prime
Like a star resplendent,
Him we praise with measured rhyme
Waiting for the coming time
With a faith transcendent?
Hero! Hero! Sent from God!
Leader of his people.
Saw you in the hour of strife
When fierce war was raging,
Him who gave the slaves a life
Full and rich with freedom rife,
All his powers engaging?
Hero! Hero! Sent from God!
Leader of his people.
Saw you when the war was done
(Such is Lincoln's story)
Him whose strength the strife had won
Sinking like the setting sun
Crowned with human glory?
Hero! Hero! Sent from God!
Leader of his people.
Saw you in our country's roll
Midst her saints and sages,
Lincoln's name upon the scroll—
Standing at the topmost goal
On the nation's pages?
Hero! Hero! Sent from God!
Leader of his people.
Hero! Yes! We know thy fame;
It will live forever!
Thou to us art still the same;
Great the glory of thy name,
Great thy strong endeavor!
Hero! Hero! Sent from God!
Leader of his people.
LINCOLN THE LAWYER
From an Ambrotype, taken in 1856
“The charm which invested the life on the Eighth Circuit in the mind and fancy of Mr. Lincoln yet lingered there, even in the most responsible and glorious days of his administration; over and over again has the great President stolen an hour … from his life of anxious care to live over again those bygone exhilarating and halcyon days … with Sweet or me."—Henry C. Whitney in his Life of Lincoln.
Wilbur Hazelton Smith was born in the town of Mansfield, New York, March 28, 1860. His early education was obtained from the district school and he began teaching at the age of sixteen. After completing an academic course he went to Cornell University from which he was graduated with the degree of A.B. in 1885.
He at once became a teacher and after a few years started the first Current Topic paper in the state, The Educator. Later he edited a teachers' paper, The World's Review. Perhaps he is best known as publisher of the Regents' Review Books used in nearly every school in the United States. His death occurred October 19, 1913.