this. It was one which sympathized with all human sorrow; which lifted, so far as it had the power, the burden from the oppressed; which let the prisoner go free; and which called daily for supplies of strength and wisdom from the divine fountains. He grew more religious with every passing year of his official life. The tender piety that breathed in some of his later state papers is unexampled in any of the utterances of his predecessors. In all the great emergencies of his closing years, his reliance upon divine guidance and assistance was often extremely touching. "I have been driven many times to my knees," he once remarked, "by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day." On another occasion, when told that he was daily remembered in the prayers of those who prayed, he said that he had been a good deal helped by the thought; and then he added with much solemnity: "I should be the most presumptuous blockhead upon this footstool, if I for one day thought that I could discharge the duties which have come upon me since I came into this place, without the aid and enlightenment of One who is wiser and stronger than all others." He felt, he said, that he should leave Washington a better man if not a wiser, from having learned what a very poor sort of man he was. He always remained shy in the exposure of his religious experiences, but those around him caught golden glimpses of a beautiful Christian character. With failing strength and constant weariness, the even temper of the man sometimes gave way, while his frequent experience of the faithlessness and cupidity of men made him at last distrustful of those who approached him.

In February, 1862, Mr. Lincoln was visited by severe affliction in the death of his beautiful son Willie, and the extreme sickness of Thomas, familiarly called "Tad." This was a new burden; and the visitation which, in his firm faith in Providence, he regarded as providential, was also inexplicable. Why should he, with so many burdens upon him, and with such necessity for solace in his home and his affections, be

brought into so tender a trial? It was to him a trial of faith, indeed. A Christian lady of Massachusetts, who was officiating as nurse in one of the hospitals, came in to attend the sick children. She reports that Mr. Lincoln watched with her about the bedside of the sick ones, and that he often walked the room, saying sadly: "This is the hardest trial of my life; why is it? Why is it?" In the course of conversations with her, he questioned her concerning her situation. She told him she was a widow, and that her husband and two children were in Heaven; and added that she saw the hand of God in it all, and that she had never loved him so much before as she had since her affliction. "How is that brought about?" inquired Mr. Lincoln. "Simply by trusting in God, and feeling that he does all things well," she replied. “Did you submit fully under the first loss?" he asked. "No," she answered, "not wholly; but, as blow came upon blow, and all was taken, I could and did submit, and was very happy." He responded: "I am glad to hear glad to hear you say that. Your experience will help me to bear my afflictions."

On being assured that many Christians were praying for him on the morning of the funeral, he wiped away the tears that sprang in his eyes, and said: "I am glad to hear that. I want them to pray for me. I need their prayers." As he was going out to the burial, the good lady expressed her sympathy with him. He thanked her gently, and said: “I will try to go to God with my sorrows." A few days afterward, she asked him if he could trust God. He replied: "I think I can, and I will try. I wish I had that childlike faith you speak of, and I trust He will give it to me." And then he spoke of his mother, whom so many years before he had committed to the dust among the wilds of Indiana. In this hour of his great trial, the memory of her who had held him upon her bosom, and soothed his childish griefs, came back to him with tenderest recollections. "I remember her prayers," said he, "and they have always followed me. clung to me all my life."

They have

This lady was with the President on subsequent occasions.

After the second defeat at Bull Run, he appeared very much distressed about the number of killed and wounded, and said: "I have done the best I could. I have asked God to guide me, and now I must leave the event with him." On another occasion, having been made acquainted with the fact that a great battle was in progress, at a distant but important point, he came into the room where the lady was engaged in nursing a member of the family, looking worn and haggard, and saying that he was so anxious that he could eat nothing. The possibility of defeat depressed him greatly; but the lady told him he must trust, and that he could at least pray. "Yes," said he, and taking up a Bible, he started for his room. Could all the people of the nation have overheard the earnest petition that went up from that inner chamber, as it reached the ears of the nurse, they would have fallen upon their knees with tearful and reverential sympathy. At one o'clock in the afternoon, a telegram reached him announcing a Union victory; and then he came directly to the room, his face beaming with joy, saying: "Good news! Good news! The victory is . ours, and God is good." "Nothing like prayer," suggested the pious lady, who traced a direct connection between the event and the prayer which preceded it." "Yes there is," he replied "praise :-prayer and praise." The good lady who communicates these incidents closes them with the words: "I do believe he was a true Christian, though he had very little confidence in himself."

Mr. Lincoln always manifested a strong interest in the peculiar work of the Christian Commission in the army, and attended the important meetings of that body at Washington. His official and personal approval of the plan of this charity was one of the greatest encouragements of those engaged in the work. In the early part of 1864, a meeting of the commission was held, at which Mr. Lincoln was a deeply interested spectator. He was particularly moved on this occasion by the remarks of Chaplain McCabe, just released from Libby prison, at Richmond, who described, in a graphic manner, the scene among the prisoners on the reception of the news of the

national victory at Gettysburg, as they took up Mrs. Howe's spirited lyric, beginning with the line,

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,

and made the prison walls rock with the melody. The Chaplain sang it to the meeting, and Mr. Lincoln requested its repetition. That was a song that he could appreciate; and it stirred him like a trumpet.

At another of these meetings, he was greatly interested and amused by a story told by General Fisk of Missouri. The General had begun his military life as a Colonel; and, when he raised his regiment in Missouri, he proposed to his men that he should do all the swearing of the regiment. They assented; and for months no instance was known of the violation of the promise. The Colonel had a teamster named John Todd, who, as roads were not always the best, had some difficulty in commanding his temper and his tongue. John happened to be driving a mule-team through a series of mudholes a little worse than usual, when, unable to restrain himself any longer, he burst forth into a volley of energetic oaths. · The Colonel took notice of the offense, and brought John to an account. "John," said he, "did n't you promise to let me do all the swearing of the regiment?" "Yes, I did, Colonel," he replied, "but the fact was the swearing had to be done then, or not at all, and you were n't there to do it."

Mr. Lincoln enjoyed this story quite as much as he did the singing of the previous occasion, and gave himself up to laughter the most boisterous. The next morning, General Fisk attended the reception at the White House; and saw, waiting in the ante-room, a poor old man from Tennessee. Sitting down beside him, he inquired his errand; and learned that he had been waiting three or four days to get an audience, and that on his seeing Mr. Lincoln probably depended the life of his son, who was under sentence of death for some military offense. General Fisk wrote his case in outline on a card, and sent it in, with a special request that the President would see the man. In a moment, the order came; and past

senators, governors and generals, waiting impatiently, the old man went into the President's presence. He showed Mr. Lincoln his papers; and he, on taking them, said he would look into the case, and give him the result on the following day. The old man, in an agony of apprehension, looked up into the President's sympathetic face, and actually cried out: “Tomorrow may be too late! My son is under sentence of death! The decision ought to be made now!" and the streaming tears told how much he was moved. "Come," said Mr. Lincoln, "wait a bit, and I'll tell you a story;" and then he told the old man General Fisk's story about the swearing driver; and, as he told it, the old man forgot his boy, and both the President and his listener had a hearty laugh together at its conclusion. Then he wrote a few words which the old man read, and in which he found hew occasion for tears; but the tears were tears of joy, for the words saved the life of his son.

Only a few months before Mr. Lincoln died, he was waited upon at the White House by about two hundred members of the commission, who had been holding their annual meeting. The chairman of the commission, George H. Stuart, addressed a few words to Mr. Lincoln, speaking of the debt which the country owed him. "My friends," said Mr. Lincoln in reply, 66 you owe me no gratitude for what I have done: and I-" and here he hesitated, and the long arm came through the air awkwardly, as if he might be misunderstood in what he was going to say,-"and I, I may say, owe you no gratitude for what you have done; just as, in a sense, we owe no gratitude to the men who have fought our battles for us. I trust that this has all been for us a work of duty;" and at the mention of that word, the homely, sad face was irradiated with the light of a divine emotion. Looking around for encouragement into the faces of the eager group, he then proceeded in the simplest words to say that all gratitude was due to the Great Giver of all good. At the close of his remarks, Mr. Stuart, who cared as little for precedent as Mr. Lincoln himself, asked him if he had any objection, then and there, to a word of prayer. Quietly, but very cordially, as if he were