final scene in the rejection of the Lecompton Constitution. To be sure she will continue to have her local history, and a good deal of it, bloodier than at first; but it is not of universal import, it can no longer be recorded in the Book of the Ages, the great Presence leaves her when her unflinching grapple with slavery is over. Never since has she attracted so much attention, though she has sought to do so, nature even helping her to specks of transient fame by drouths, grasshoppers, and cyclones. Struggle has indeed continued in a small way, political fights, temperance crusades, and pitched battles over county-seats; but the stake has not been large, being local, not even national, still less has it been worldhistorical. Desperate have been the efforts of Kansas to keep herself great; but that has been shown to be beyond her power. Over her birth the World-Spirit presided, coming of its own accord and staying three years, as a kind of supernal god-mother; then the task being fulfilled, it passed elsewhither on its errand, and seemingly has never revisited its god-child up to date, almost half a century having now elapsed.

But whither has it gone? We shall find it again, that being just the function of the World's History to follow it up, to trace its presence, and to record its doings. It is not going to leave the country; its hand must be seen directing the

ablest public men of the State. We may see Lincoln advancing to the keystone of the bridge where Douglas is standing and hesitating, stop his further advance, and indeed turn him around. For the two men and their doctrines are quite different, and soon get to be opposite. Kansas may (or may not) become a Free-State through the doctrine of Douglas, but it must be a Free-State through the doctrine of Lincoln and not only Kansas but all the Territories. (See speeches of Lincoln, at Springfield, June 16, and at Chicago, July 10, 1858.)

At this point the world-historical career of Lincoln starts, and never drops from its lofty position until after his death; in fact it moves on an ascending plane from his first leap into the arena with Douglas till its sudden conclusion when it had reached its highest mark. Lincoln bids fair to become the most interesting character in all History to the People. He knew the Folk-Soul by long study and intimate acquaintance, he went to school to it during his earlier years; then he became its voice, its expounder to itself, whereby it grew conscious of its supreme purpose; finally it went to school to him as master, who brought to it a still higher message than its own.

3. We may also add, by way of contrast, that about this time the world-historical career of Kansas comes to a close, having enacted her

final scene in the rejection of the Lecompton Constitution. To be sure she will continue to have her local history, and a good deal of it, bloodier than at first; but it is not of universal import, it can no longer be recorded in the Book of the Ages, the great Presence leaves her when her unflinching grapple with slavery is over. Never since has she attracted so much attention, though she has sought to do so, nature even helping her to specks of transient fame by drouths, grasshoppers, and cyclones. Struggle has indeed continued in a small way, political fights, temperance crusades, and pitched battles over county-seats; but the stake has not been large, being local, not even national, still less has it been worldhistorical. Desperate have been the efforts of Kansas to keep herself great; but that has been shown to be beyond her power. Over her birth the World-Spirit presided, coming of its own accord and staying three years, as a kind of supernal god-mother; then the task being fulfilled, it passed elsewhither on its errand, and seemingly has never revisited its god-child up to date, almost half a century having now elapsed.

But whither has it gone? We shall find it again, that being just the function of the World's History to follow it up, to trace its presence, and to record its doings. It is not going to leave the country; its hand must be seen directing the

movement of the whole Ten Years' War. It takes possession of individuals and inspires whole peoples; primarily it impresses itself upon the Folk-Soul, and impels the same to realize its farreaching designs. But it is now done with Kansas, and so is completed the First Part of our American Iliad.

Retrospect.

It is generally agreed that a peculiar force or energy lies in the early Kansas conflict just described; what is its nature? Can we catch the power which seems to be lurking and working in these tumultuous occurrences, hold it fast and give to it some kind of a shape? Here is indeed a tangled skein of events out of which the historic process must be evolved and formulated. And not only one but many of these processes must be seen unfolding, conflicting, and then intertwining into a supreme process which unites them all. Thus what may be called the historic organism rises into vision, defining itself in certain distinct outlines.

1. The reader will probably have observed already that we are not trying to write an ordinary historical account of matters cotemporaneous in place and successive in time, simply setting them down in their external order. Undoubtedly, the facts must be given, and given with exactness, but these spring up more or less separated, disconnected, whereas the mind must have connection. Hence we seek for the Process running through and interlinking these events which are in appearance consecutive merely, but really are rounding themselves out into a cycle