PREFACE. It has been thought that a biography of our martyred President, brief, yet comprehensive, ought to be published. Of this remarkable man it can be said, as it was of our Lord Jesus Christ, "The common people heard him gladly;" and therefore a memoir expressly designed for the mass of readers in our country cannot fail to be warmly welcomed. Every new book finds new readers and meets some unsupplied demand. If a volume like this now offered be indeed as it is supposed to be a desideratum, its own readers for whom it is designed, will cluster about it, and the hopes of its author and publisher be realized. The special aim of this volume is twofold: First, To present a truthful picture of the character of the great and good man who has fallen among us, delineating, as far as possible in narrating the events of his life, the growth and development of those grand and heroic virtues which stamp him with the unmistakable seal of Heaven's approval, and make his name "One of the few, the immortal names That were not born to die." And secondly, To show that "the course of human events was such, during his earthly existence, and his relation to them so peculiar in the providence of God, as to indicate that he was specially commissioned for his day and work, -a man of the times, and a man for the times; that he lived long enough to be able to say, like his Lord, "It is finished," and then passed on to hear from divine lips the unrivalled words of welcome, "Well done, good and faithful servant! enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!" Should this volume deepen the convictions of its readers in the grand truths of God's sovereignty on earth as well as in heaven, and of his love to all the family of man, shown especially in his care for the outcast and oppressed; and should it make them love freedom and righteousness more and more as they contemplate the character and life of the Martyr-President, the labor spent in its preparation will not have been in vain, and to God will be ascribed the glory. P. A. H. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. CHAPTER I. EARLY DAYS IN OBSCURITY. "Honor and shame from no condition rise: Act well your part,-there all the honor lies." POPE. "But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty; "And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: "That no flesh should glory in his presence.” — ST. PAUL (1 Cor. 1. 27). THE sixteenth President of the United States was born in obscurity. No Gabriel heralded his birth; no shepherds saw the star of his nativity, and heard the chanting of celestial visitants to earth; nor did sages and philosophers come to his cradle-side with costly offerings and significant homage. Yet he had a grand mission on earth to perform, and was to be, in some sense, the savior of many, and in the obscurity of his birth, at least, resembled the Master whose footsteps he afterward loved to follow. It is the design of Infinite Wisdom that the tiny acorn should precede the towering oak, the little rivulet commence the mighty river; and that Wisdom was no less manifest in the humble birth and parentage of one whom the good of all nations, in all time, should afterward delight to honor. In that part of Hardin County, Ky., now known as La Rue, on the 12th of February, 1809, ABRAHAM |