In 1836, he had obtained a license to practice law, and in April, 1837, removed to Springfield and opened a law office, in partnership with Major John F. Stuart. He rose rapidly to distinction in the profession, and was especially eminent as an advocate in jury trials, ir consequence of the rare power he possessed of making himself understood by his auditors, and appealing to their sense of fairness and justice in the cause he represented.

Th's quality as an orator he has ever wielded with success, and in fact has been the corner-stone of his advancement and elevation.

We trust the example thus afforded to American youth will not be lost upon them. There is no accomplishment capable of yielding so rich a return in this land of democ racy and popular freedom, than that one which makes us the exponent, the mouth-picces, and afterwards the advocate and leader of the masses.

After Abraham Lincoln's repeated service in the legislature of his adopted State, he was several times a candidate for Presidential elector, and as such in 1844 he canvassed the entire State, together with part of Indiana, in behalf of Henry Clay, making almost daily speeches to large audiences.

ance.

At this time he was very plain in his costume, as well as rather uncourtly in his address and general appearHis clothing was of homely Kentucky jean, and the first impression made by his tall, lank figure, upon those who saw him was not specially prepossessing. He had not outgrown his hard backwoods experience, and showed no inclination to disguise or to cast behind him

the honest and man y, though unpolished characteristics of his earlier days. Never was a man further removed from all snobbish affectation. As little was there, also, of the demagogue art of assuming an uncouthness or rusticity of manner and outward habit, with the mistaken notion of thus securing particular favor as one of the masses. He chose to appear then, as he has at all times since, precisely what he was. His deportment was unassuming, without any awkwardness of reserve.

First elected at twenty-five, he had continued in office without interruption so long as his inclination allowed, and until, by his uniform courtesy and kindness of manners, his marked ability, and his straight-forward integ. rity, he had won an enviable repute throughout the State, and was virtually, when but a little past thirty, placed at the head of his party in Illinois.

Begun in comparative obscuaity, and without any adventitious aids in its progress, this period of his life, at its termination, had brought him to a position where he was secure in the confidence of the people, and prepared, in due time, to enter upon a more enlarged and brilliant career, as a national statesman. His fame as a close and convincing debater was established. His native talent as an orator had at once been demonstrated and disciplined. His zeal and earnestness in behalf of a party whose principles he believed to be right, had rallied strong troops of political friends about him, while his unfeigned modesty and his unpretending and simple bearing, in marked contrast with that of so many imperious leaders, had won him general and lasting esteem. He preferred no claim

as a partisan, and showed no overweening anxiety to advance himself, but was always a disinterested and generous co-worker with his associates, only ready to accept the post of honor and of responsibility when it was clearly their will, and satisfactory to the people whose interests were involved. At the close of this period, with scarcely any consciousness of the fact himself, and with no noisy demonstrations or flashy ostentations in his behalf from his friends, he was really one of the foremost political men in the State. A keen observer might even then have predicted a great future for the "Sangamon Chief," as people have been wont to call him; and only such an observer, perhaps, would then have adequately estimated his real power as a natural orator, a sagacious statesman, and a gallant TRIBUNE OF THE PECPLE.

The following incident, of which the narration is believ ed to be substantially accurate, is from the pen of one who professes to write from personal knowledge. It is given in this connection, as at once illustrating the earlier struggles of Mr. Lincoln in acquiring his profession, 'the character of his forensic efforts, and the generous gratitude and disinterestedness of his nature:

Having chosen the law as his future calling, he devoted himself assiduously to its mastery, contending at every step with adverse fortune. During this period of study, he for some time found a home under the hospitable roof of one Armstrong, a farmer, who lived in a log house some eight miles from the village of Petersburg, in Menard county. Here, young Lincoln would master his lessons by the firelight of the cabin, and then walk to town for

the purpose of recitation.

This man Armstrong was himself poor, but he saw the genuis struggling in the young student, and opened to him his rude home, and bid him welcome to his rude fare. How Lincoln graduated with promise-how he has more than fulfilled that promisehow honorably he acquitted himself, alike on the battlefield, in defending our border settlements against the ravages of savage foes, and in the halls of our national legislature, are matters of history, and need no repetition here. But one little incident of a more private nature, standing as it does as a sort of sequel to some things already alluded to, I deem worthy of record. Some few years since, the oldest son of Mr. Lincoln's old friend Armstrong, the chief support of his widowed motherthe good old man having some time previously passed from earth-was arrested on the charge of murder. A young man had been killed during a riotous melee, in the night-time, at a camp-meeting, and one of his associates stated that the death-wound was inflicted by young Arm. strong. A preliminary examination was gone into, at which the accuser testified so positively, that there seemed no doubt of the guilt of the prisoner, and therefore he was held for trial. As is too often the case, the bloody act caused an undue degree of excitement in the public mind. Every improper incident in the life of the prisoner -each act which bore the least semblance of rowdyismeach school-boy quarrel-was suddenly remembered and magnified, until they pictured him as a fiend of the most horrid hue. As these rumors spread abroad, they were received as gospel truth, and a feverish desire for ven

geance seized upon the infatuated populace, while only prison-bars prevented a horrible death at the hands of the mob. The events were heralded in the newspapers, painted in highest colors, accompanied by rejoicing over the certainty of punishment being meted out to the guilty party. The prisoner, overwhelmed by the circumstances in which he found himself placed fell into a melancholy condition, bordering upon despair; and the widowed. mother, lo king through her tears, saw no cause for hope from earthly aid.

At this juncture, the widow received a letter from Mr. Lincol, volunteering his services in an effort to save the youth from the impending stroke. Gladly was his aid accepted, although it seemed impossible for even his sagacity to prevail in such a desperate case; but the heart of the attorney was in his work, and he set about it with a will that knew no such word as fail. Feeling that the poisoned condition of the public mind was such as to preclude the possibility of impanneling an impartial jury in the court having jurisdiction, he procured a change of venue, and a postponement of the trial. He then went studiously to work unraveling the history of the case, and satisfied himself that his client was the victim of malice, and that the statements of the accuser were a tissue of falsehoods. When the trial was called on, the prisoner, pale and emaciated, with hopelessness written on every feature, and accompanied by his half-hoping, half-despairing mother-whose only hope was in a mother's belief of her son's innocence, in the justice of the God she worshiped, and in the noble counsel, who, without hope of fee