From a photograph taken by Brady at Washington, shortly before the death of Willie Lincoln.

was in a state of feverish excitement, he said; one of his boys had come in that morning to tell him that the cat had kittens, and now the other had just announced that the dog had puppies.

When both the children fell ill; when he saw them suffering, and when it became evident, as it finally did, that Willie, the elder of the two, would die, the President's anguish was intense. He would slip away from visitors and Cabinet at every opportunity, to go to the sick room, and during the last four or five days of Willie's life, when the child was suffering terribly and lay in an unbroken delirium, Mr. Lincoln shared with the nurse the nightly vigils at the bedside. When Willie finally died, on February 20, the President was so prostrated that it was feared by many of his friends that he would succumb entirely to his grief. Many public duties he undoubtedly did neglect. Indeed, a month after Willie's death, we find him apologizing for delay to answer a letter because of a "domestic affliction."

If one consults the records of the day, however, it is evident that Mr. Lincoln did try to attend to public duties even in the worst of this trial. Only two days after the funeral, on February 23, he held a Cabinet meeting, and the day following that, a correspondent wrote to the New York "Evening Post: "

Mr. Lincoln seems to have entirely recovered his health, and is again at his ordinary duties, spending, not infrequently, eighteen out of the twenty-four hours upon the affairs of the nation. He is frequently called up three and four times in a night to receive important messages from the West. Since his late bereavement he looks sad and careworn, but is in very good health again.

There is ample evidence that in this crushing grief the President sought earnestly to find what consolation the Christian religion might have for him. It was the first ex

perience of his life, so far as we know, which drove him to look outside of his own mind and heart for help to endure a personal grief. It was the first time in his life when he had not been sufficient for his own experience. Religion up to this time had been an intellectual interest. The Christian dogma had been taught him as a child and all his life he had been accustomed to hearing every phase of human conduct and experience tested by the precepts of the Bible as they were interpreted by the more or less illiterate church of the West. For a short period of his life when he was about twenty-five years of age, it is certain that he revolted against the Christian system, and even went so far as to prepare a pamphlet against it. The manuscript of this work was destroyed by his friend, Samuel Hill. This period of doubt passed, and though there is nothing to show that Mr. Lincoln returned to the literal interpretation of Christianity which he had been taught, and though he never joined any religious sect, it is certain that he regarded the Bible and the church with deep reverence. He was a regular attendant upon religious services, and one has only to read his letters and speeches to realize that his literary style and his moral point of view were both formed by the Bible.

It was after his election to the presidency that we begin to find evidences that Mr. Lincoln held to the belief that the affairs of men are in the keeping of a Divine Being who hears and answers prayer and who is to be trusted to bring about the final triumph of the right. He publicly acknowledged such a faith when he bade his Springfield friends good-by in February, 1861. In his first inaugural address, he told the country that the difficulty between North and South could be adjusted in "the best way," by "intelligence, patriotism, Christianity and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land." When he

was obliged to summon a Congress to provide means for a civil war, he started them forth on their duties with the words, "Let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear and with manly hearts." In August, 1861, he issued a proclamation for a National Fast Day which is most impressive for its reverential spirit:

"Whereas it is fit and becoming in all people, at all times, to acknowledge and revere the supreme government of God; to bow in humble submission to His chastisements; to confess and deplore their sins and transgressions, in the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and to pray with all fervency and contrition for the pardon of their past offenses, and for a blessing upon their present and prospective action:

"And whereas when our own beloved country, once, by the blessing of God, united, prosperous, and happy, is now afflicted with faction and civil war, it is peculiarly fit for us to recognize the hand of God in this terrible visitation, and in sorrowful remembrance of our own faults and crimes as a nation, and as individuals, to humble ourselves before Him and to pray for His mercy-to pray that we may be spared further punishment, though most justly deserved; that our arms may be blessed and made effectual for the re-establishment of law, order, and peace throughout the wide extent of our country; and that the inestimable boon of civil and religious liberty, earned under His guidance and blessing by the labors and sufferings of our fathers, may be restored in all its original excellence."

But it is not until after the death of his son that we begin to find evidence that Mr. Lincoln was making a personal test of Christianity. Broken by his anxiety for the country, wounded nigh to death by his loss, he felt that he must have a support outside of himself; that from some source he must draw new courage. Could he find the help he needed in the Christian faith? From this time on he was seen often with the Bible in his hand, and he is known to have prayed fre