future. Shall we wonder that his friends beheld the old look of sadness upon his face at times?

Here

"Mr. Bateman," said Mr. Lincoln to the Superintendent of Instruction, whose office joined the chamber where he received his friends, “here is a book—a canvass of this city, which my friends have made— the name of every citizen, and how he probably will vote. are the names of twenty-three ministers of different denominations, and all but three of them are against me. Here are the names of a great many men who are members of churches, and a very large majority of them are against me. Mr. Bateman, I am not a Christian. God knows that I want to be one. I have read the Bible ever since I sat at my mother's knee. Here is the New Testament which I carry with me. Its teachings are all for liberty. Now, these ministers and church members know that I am for freedom in the Territories-for freedom everywhere as far as the Constitution and law will permit, and that my opponents are for slavery. They know this, and yet with this book in their hands, in the light of which human bondage cannot live a moment, they are going to vote against me. I don't understand it." He rises and paces the room. His voice is tremulous as he goes on, and there are tears upon his cheeks.

"Mr. Bateman, I know there is a God, and that He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that His hand is in it. If He has a place for me--and I think He has-I believe I am ready. I am nothing, but truth is everything. I know that I am right because I know that liberty is right. Jesus Christ teaches it, and Christ is God. I have told them that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Christ and reason say the same, and they will find it so. Douglas doesn't care whether slavery is voted up or down; but God cares, humanity cares, and I care. With God's help I shall not fail. I may not see the end; but it will come, and I shall be vindicated, and these men will find that they have not read their Bibles right."

He paces the floor in silence a while, and then goes on:

"Doesn't it seem strange that men ignore the moral aspects of this contest? A revelation could not make it plainer to me that slavery or the Government must be destroyed. The future would be something awful, as I look at it, but for this." He holds up the New Testament.

"There is the rock on which I stand. It seems to me as if God had borne with slavery until the very teachers of religion had come to defend it from the Bible, and to claim for it a divine charter and sanction,

till the cup of iniquity is full, and the vials of wrath must be poured out." (')

Before Mr. Lincoln was thought of as a candidate for the Presidency the slave-holders of South Carolina had purchased a cargo of slaves brought direct from Africa. They were sold to the cottonplanters. It was an attempt to reopen the slave-trade. No preachers of the gospel in the Slave States uttered a word in condemnation of the traffic. On the contrary, the leading religious publication of the South, the "Presbyterian Review," published in Columbia, S. C., was advocating the system of slavery as an institution expressly ordained of God for the welfare of the human race. (2)

Mr. Lincoln made a hurried trip to Chicago on business, and was received with great enthusiasm by Democrats as well as Republicans. At the house of a friend he beholds a group of little girls. One of them gazes at him wistfully.

"What is it you would like, dear?"

"I would like, if you please, to have you write your name for me." "But here are several of your mates, quite a number of them, and they will feel badly if I write my name for you and not for them also. How many are there, all told?"

"Eight of us."

"Oh, very well; then get me eight slips of paper and pen and ink, and I will see what I can do."

Each of the little misses, when she went home that evening, carried his autograph.

If we had been in the village of Westfield, on the shore of Lake Erie, Chautauqua County, N. Y., on an October evening, we might have seen little Grace Bedell looking at a portrait of Mr. Lincoln and a picture of the log-cabin which he helped build for his father in 1830.

"Mother," said Grace, "I think that Mr. Lincoln would look better if he wore whiskers, and I mean to write and tell him so."

"Well, you may if you want to," the mother answered. Grace's father was a Republican and was going to vote for Mr. Lincoln. Two older brothers were Democrats, but she was a Republican. Among the letters going west the next day was one with this superscription, "Hon. Abraham Lincoln, Esq., Springfield, Illinois." It was Grace's letter, telling him how old she was, where she lived, that she was a Republican, that she thought he would make a good President, but would look better if he would let his whiskers grow. If he would she would try to coax her brothers to vote for him. She thought the

very singer well w
ALincol

FAC-SIMILE OF LINCOLN'S LETTER TO GRACE BEDELL.

rail-fence around the cabin very pretty. "If you have not time to answer my letter, will you allow your little girl to reply for you?" wrote Grace at the end.

Mr. Lincoln was sitting in his room at the State-house with a great pile of letters before him from the leading Republicans all over the

Northern States in regard to the progress of the campaign; letters from men who would want an office after his inauguration; letters abusive and indecent, which were tossed into the waste- basket. He came to one from Westfield, N. Y. It was not from any one who wanted an office, but from a little girl who wanted him to let his whiskers grow. That was a letter which he must answer.

A day or two later Grace Bedell comes out of the Westfield postoffice with a letter in her hand postmarked Springfield, Ill. Her pulse beats as never before. It is a cold morning-the wind blowing bleak and chill across the tossing waves of the lake. Snow-flakes are falling. She cannot wait till she reaches home, but tears open the letter. The melting flakes blur the writing, but this is what she reads:

MISS GRACE BEDELL:

SPRINGFIELD, ILL., Oct. 19, 1860.

MY DEAR LITTLE MISS,-Your very agreeable letter of the 15th is received. I regret the necessity of saying I have no daughter. I have three sons; one seventeen, one nine, and one seven years of age. They, with their mother, constitute my whole family. As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affection (affectation) if I should begin it now?

Before the clocks in the church-towers of the Union tolled the midnight hour on the day of election, it was known that Abraham Lincoln was to be President. There was great rejoicing throughout the North, for it was the verdict of the people that slavery was not to be extended into the Territories. There was also much rejoicing in Charleston, for South Carolina was ready to secede from the Union.

Nov. 6, 1860.

1860.

In the hall of the South Carolina Institute a convention called by the Governor voted that the union with the United States be dissolved. Men tossed their hats into the air; women waved their handDec. 20, kerchiefs. A procession was formed which marched to St. Michael's Church-yard, where, around the grave of Calhoun, a solemn oath was taken to give their lives and fortunes to secure the independence of the State. Lieutenant-colonel Gardner, with a few soldiers, was in command of the forts in Charleston harbor. He saw that the Secessionists were getting ready to seize the fortifications. The Secession members of Congress called upon the Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, of Virginia, and asked for Gardner's removal. The request was granted, and Major Robert Anderson, of Kentucky, was appointed to succeed him. The Secessionists did not know how dearly he loved