the Union by the conduct of Virginia. But the great fact is that the West-Northern army in its various branches has marched through and holds in its power ten of the eleven seceded States, narrowing the rebellion mainly to a part of Virginia. Then Sherman is stopped in his advance northward toward Richmond and goes to City Point for a conference with Grant and Lincoln (March 27-8). "One more hard battle will have to be fought," is the opinion of both generals. The silent Grant is resolved to fight that battle with the army of the Potomac. Two days after Sheridan is at Five Forks and in ten days occurs the surrender at Appomattox. Nine days later, General Johnston, following Lee's example, surrenders to Sherman in North Carolina.

III. The Idea realized by the Nation. The supreme manifestation of the People's approval of Lincoln and his work took place on that November day when he was re-elected President of United States by an overwhelming majority. In the most unequivocal manner the Folk-Soul put its seal upon what he had done and upon his character. Of this indeed he was well aware. Says he in his message, Dec. 6th, 1864: "The most reliable indication of public purpose in this country is derived through popular elections." The Will of the People expressed by the ballot had indeed adopted his acts as their own, and he felt that to be the true harmony of his life. Well

could he declare that the purpose of the People within the loyal States to maintain the integrity of the Union was never more firm or more nearly unanimous than now, after nearly four years of fighting. Lincoln also noted that there were more votes cast in 1864 than in 1860 in spite of the great drain of the War. "We have more men now than we had when the War began; we are not exhausted nor in the process of exhaustion." Moreover the public debt, though great, "is held for the most part by our own people," and should be as nearly as possible distributed among all. "Men readily perceive that they cannot be much oppressed by a debt which they owe to themselves." At the same time the President re-affirms that "I shall not attempt to retract or modify the Emancipation Proclamation."

At a serenade Lincoln dwelt upon the deeper side of the recent election, which he looked upon as the hardest test of free institutions. "It has demonstrated that a People's Government can sustain a national election in the midst of a great civil war. Until now, it has not been known that this was a possibility." Hitherto civil war has called out the strong hand of the military dictator who has suppressed liberty. But a new event has been enrolled on the pages of the World's History: the free exercise of popular suffrage in the heat of internecine strife. It is probable that somebody had suggested to Lincoln

to put off the election till a time of peace, but he answers, "if the rebellion could force us to forego or postpone a national election, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us" - which seems to carry in it an admonition to some headstrong military men. There is no doubt that Lincoin was keenly alive to the danger-signal erected by History, ancient and modern, and pointing warningly at the great and successful general. But in his conception the supreme act of a free Government was that the People should by their ballots stamp the ruler's Will as their own. Lincoln lived in and through and for the Folk-Soul, without whose confirmation and sympathy he could not think of exercising power.

Thus Lincoln felt and saw the Idea of the Age, the Decree of the World-Spirit, saw it realized by the Nation, having been himself the chief instrument of such realization. On this height we behold him a few months before his death viewing the Promised Land to which he had led his People, but which he is destined not to enter. Still the cycle of his career is complete. That prophecy of his, striking so clearly and profoundly the key-note of his whole public life and of the age, has been fulfilled: "I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.

I do not expect the

Union to be dissolved, but I do expect it will cease to be divided."

Retrospect.

There can be no true conception of History unless its movement in Periods is seen, and not only seen, but made an integral part of our thought, nay of our very Self-hood. Events are not and cannot be understood till they are beheld unfolding in harmony with the law of our own consciousness. Historiography leaves much to be desired, if it is satisfied simply with recording events successively in Time, or throwing them together into external divisions usually called chapters. Rightly to periodize History is the profoundest task of the historian. He is to bring out the one supreme process of his total theme, and interlink with it all the lesser processes, which not only compose it, but reflect it in the small and smallest. We shall accordingingly, in this our final retrospective act, look back at the periodicity which runs through the whole work, and orders the occurrences of the time into one great totality as well as into its many subdivisions.

It may be said that in this way the man of thought, contemplating the outer events of an epoch, enters into and communes with the Genius of History, with that Spirit which we have

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often sought to glimpse in the foregoing account, and which has been repeatedly called the World-Spirit, into whose workshop (so to speak) we have now and then peeped for the purpose of limning some feature of that grand Artificer who manifests himself in the historic acts of States and of their Great Men.

1. With the surrender of the Confederates under Lee and Johnston in the spring of 1865, armed resistance to the restoration of the Union has substantially ceased, and the Idea of the North, enforced by the naval and military powers, and wrestling so long and so desperately with its foe, has triumphed and proceeds to its full realization. So the Period of national War lasting four years comes to a close.

The movement of this Period must be seen to be toward Re-union, out of the preceding Period of Dis-union, in which the trend was toward a dissolution of the federation of States (1858-61). Thus the nature of the whole time is the getting back, even by force at first, to that from which there has been a separation. We behold, accordingly, a return to what had before existed, namely, the Union, which however, must be a new Union, having taken up into itself and overcome its own deeply separative character.

2. We have, therefore, to emphasize that the Great War looked at by itself, is but a part or stage of a still larger process, which it indeed