Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

est power. Call we a humble home, a scanty board, and threadbare coat, but a blight or curse? Ah!

'God, in cursing,

Gives us better gifts than men in blessing;'

and those humble ones who have struggled upward with nothing but a stern will and a consciousness of right to uphold them have proved the world's richest friends."

The Lord Jesus teaches, in his pertinent question concerning the falling sparrow and the numbered hairs, that God exercises a constant watchfulness over all men, and continually guides them in the affairs of life. The his tory of our late President's career, and of the times in which he lived, everywhere shows the guiding hand of a divine providence.

"Many are willing to acknowledge a general providence, who do not believe in a universal or particular one. But there cannot be a general providence without a particular one. That would be utterly impossible; for all generals are made up of particulars. Could a man cultivate a farm in general, without ploughing any particular field, or casting into the earth any particular seeds? Could a watchmaker make watches in general, without making any particular wheels and springs, and giving to every wheel its special form and size and place, finishing the minutest parts in the nicest manner? Could a merchant sell things in general, and nothing in particular, having no particular store, or particular goods, or special price? Or if we look at the material creation, where we can see the divine method of working, does the Lord make a tree in general, without any particular branches, twigs, leaves, bark, fibre, and cells? No: on the contrary, the whole tree is built up by the action of the pores and cells in their least parts. This is the universal method of the divine

operations. . . . It is impossible that there can be a general providence without a special one. If there is a general providence, it is the result of a universal or par ticular one."

[ocr errors]

The great work of Abraham Lincoln was to guide the American Ship of State during the storm of rebellion, and, as an indissoluble duty, to emancipate the oppressed millions in our land, whose unrighteous bondage made our glorious banner too long a "flaunting lie," and our "Independent days" ostentatious cheats. We have seen how his childhood and early manhood were the precursors of a useful maturity; and still may we trace the guiding hand of God in his further steps, preparing him for the Presidency of the United States, and to be Commander-in-Chief of the Union Army.

Before the death of his mother, the future director of the greatest army the world ever saw was taught the use of fire-arms; and it is worthy of note that the mother of Lincoln brave pioneer woman that she was! — her self loaded the rifle with which he then shot his first game, a large wild turkey. He became very expert in the use of the rifle; and, as has been already intimated, was able thus to add to the family larder, and also to procure furs, which were then in great demand.

[ocr errors]

One of his biographers says, "There is no doubt that the culture he received by the use of the rifle had its influence in developing his physical energies, as he was ever distinguished for his strength and powers of endurance; and that it indirectly served to inspire his heart with courage, promptness, and decision, for which his whole life has been eminent."

The same biographer relates a circumstance which happened during the time when Abraham attended Mr.

• Rev. Chauncy Giles.

Crawford's school, that illustrates the growing capacity of the lad, and foreshadows his future labors as a public speaker. The scholars were talking, one Monday morning before the hour for school to commence, about the sermon to which they had listened the day before. Abraham declared himself able to repeat a large part of the sermon; and, when the boys doubted it, he proved his retentive memory, close attention, and speech-making powers, by mounting a stump and rehearsing the sermon. The young orator was overheard by his teacher, and won his admiration and applause as well as that of his fellow-pupils. Little did any of them think how he would address large audiences in the future just unfolding before him, swaying their minds and influencing their hearts by a forcible and earnest presentation of high truths intimately connected with the safety and happiness of the nation.

He, of whom one of his early associates says, "We seldom went hunting together; Abe was not a noted hunter, as the time spent by other boys in such amusements was improved by him in the perusal of some good book," did not fail to grow in knowledge ever after he left his father's roof, and sought to carve his own way to fame and fortune, wholly ignorant of the lofty niche assigned him in the temple of renown.

Mr. Lincoln, for so he should be called since he was twenty-one and had an indisputable right to wear the toga virilis, sought employment among those who need ed a strong arm, and exemplified in his own efforts the sensible words which he uttered thirty years later in reference to hired labor:

"My understanding of the hired laborer is this: A young man finds himself of an age to be dismissed from parental control; he has for his capital nothing save

two strong hands that God has given him, a heart willing to labor, and a freedom to choose the mode of his work, and the manner of his employer; he has no soil nor shop, and he avails himself of the opportunity of hiring himself to some man who has capital to pay him a fair day's wages for a fair day's work. He is bene fited by availing himself of that privilege; he works industriously, he behaves soberly, and the result of a year or two's labor is a surplus of capital. Now he buys land on his own hook; he settles, marries, begets sons and daughters; and, in course of time, he, too, has enough capital to hire some new beginner.”

[ocr errors]

This homely and characteristic speech was truthful, like the man who uttered it when on the eve of nomination to the highest office in the gift of the nation; and at that same time he expressed his opinion in regard to free labor, in the same straightforward, though rather inelegant manner. His words may as well be quoted here. They were these: "Our Government was not estab lished that one man might do with himself as he pleases, and with another man too. . . I say, that, whereas God Almighty has given every man one mouth to be fed, and one pair of hands adapted to furnish food for that mouth, if any thing can be proved to be the will of Heaven, it is proved by this fact, that that mouth is to be fed by those hands, without being interfered with by any other man, who has also his mouth to feed and his hands to labor with. I hold, if the Almighty had ever made a set of men that should do all the eating and none of the work, he would have made them with mouths only, and no hands; and if he had ever made another class that he had intended should do all the work, and none of the eating, he would have made them without Youths, and with all hands."

As a hired laborer, young Lincoln spent the summer and fall with a Mr. Armstrong, who observed his studious. habits, and proposed to his wife to keep the youthful student through the winter. He insisted on laboring for Mr. Armstrong enough to pay his board, and spent the rest of his time in study.

Early the next spring, as before stated, he assisted in building a boat at Sangamon, and then made a trip to New Orleans, which was so successful, that his employer, gratified with the industry and tact young Lincoln exhibited, engaged him to take charge of his mill and store in the village of New Salem. Thus Mr. Lincoln, having already been prepared to sympathize with the mechanic, came to have a near relation also to the merchant, that he could understand in after-life the trials and preplexities of that class among the men he was called to govern.

The young man who spent his leisure moments, amid the distractions of mercantile life, in studying grammar and arithmetic, may well be supposed to feel an interest in public events transpiring in his native land.

Early in the year 1832 the Black-Hawk War commenced, and the Governor of Illinois called for volunteer troops. Young Lincoln, with patriotic ardor, was the first to place his name on the roll at the recruiting-office in New Salem. A company was soon raised there; and such was the confidence of his fellow-townsmen and comradesin-arms, that they unanimously chose him to be their captain,—an office which he reluctantly accepted, having a modest doubt of his own ability to serve in that capacity.

"The New-Salem company went into camp at Beardstown, from whence, in a few days, they marched to the expected scene of conflict. When the thirty days of their enlistment had expired, however, they had not seen the enemy. They were disbanded at Ottawa, and most of

« AnteriorContinuar »