The election has placed our President beyond the pale of human envy or human harm, as he is above the pale of human ambition. Henceforth all men will come to see him as we have seen him—a true, loyal, patient, patriotic, and benevolent man. Having no longer any motive to malign or injure him, detraction will cease, and Abraham Lincoln will take his place with Washington and Franklin and Jefferson and Adams and Jackson-among the benefactors of the country and of the human race.-Tribute of William M. Seward.

I

CHAPTER I

STORIES ABOUT LINCOLN

LED BY THE SPIRIT

SAAC and Sarah Harvey, very devout Quakers, resided

in Clinton County, Ohio, about fifty miles northwest

of Cincinnati. They were ardent abolitionists and Isaac was so obedient to "the movings of the Spirit" that his neighbors, who held him in reverence and esteem, regarded him as very eccentric in some of his religious convictions and conduct. In 1868 Mrs. Nellie Blessing-Eyster, who now resides in Berkeley, California, visited the Harveys and received from Isaac, who had become blind, an account of an interview with President Lincoln in September, 1862. The story as told by Mrs. Eyster is here published by her permission and is as follows:

"Folding his thin hands, his face wearing an expression of sweet gravity, and his words coming slowly as if he were weighing the value of each, he said:

"I will answer thy question. My quiet life has known few storms. I have loved God as my first, best and dearest friend, and He has ever dealt most tenderly with me. During the first years of the great rebellion, when I read and heard of the condition of the poor crushed Negroes, I tried to think it was a cunning device of bad men to create greater enmity between the North and the South; but when I read Lincoln's speeches, I thought so good and wise a man could not be deceived, and then I resolved to go and see for myself. At one of our First-day meetings I spoke of my intention, but although the brethren felt as I did upon the subject they

said it was rash for me to expose my life, for I could do no good. Nevertheless I went, traveling on horseback through most of the Southland.

"Often my life was in danger from guerrillas, but there was always an unseen arm between me and the actual foe, and in a few weeks I returned, saying the half had not been told of the sufferings of these poor, despised, yet God-fearing and God-trusting people.'

"Here his voice trembled with the overflow of pity of which his heart seemed the fountain.

""That summer,' he continued, 'I plowed and reaped and gathered in my harvest as usual. Day by day I prayed, at home and in the field, that God would show His delivering power as he had to the children of Israel. Nothing seemed to come in answer. Occasionally during the beginning of the war, news reached us that battles had been fought by the Northern men and victories won, but still the poor colored people were not let go.

"One day while plowing I heard a voice, whether inside me or outside of me I know not, but I was awake. It said: "Go thou and see the President." I answered: "Yea, Lord, Thy servant heareth." And unhitching my plow, I went at once to the house and said to mother: "Wilt thou go with me to Washington to see the President?"

"""Who sends thee?" she asked.

"""The Lord," I answered.

"""Where thou goest I will go," said mother, and began to make ready.

"My friends called me crazed; some said that this trip would be more foolish than the first, and that I, who had never been to Washington and knew no one in it, could not gain access to the great President.

""The Lord knew I did not want to be foolhardy, but I had that on my mind which I must tell President Lincoln, and I had faith that He who feedeth the sparrows would direct me.