the men with whom he was accustomed to associate. Brute force and physical prowess were still in the ascendant in this pioneer State. The men of intelligence and culture were to be found almost entirely in the larger settlements and in the practice of law. Lincoln was physically stronger than his associates, and this, with his great length of limb, made him easily the champion in the rough sports in which the young men were wont to engage. His reputation spread far and wide, both for his strength and his skill in wrestling. Many a redoubted champion, who had never before met his match, came from a distance to dispute for his laurels with the new arrival and went away ignominiously defeated.

The people were generally ignorant, few of them being able to read or write. In learning, Lincoln far surpassed them all, not only being able to read and write, but having also acquired a considerable stock of general knowledge. Had he been of higher birth. than his associates, this might have been an occasion for jealousy and ill feeling, but he was as poor as they and of even humbler lineage, hence they were proud of his accomplishments and boasted of his wonderful knowledge, as if credit was thereby cast upon the whole community.

His poverty and consequent struggles for a bare living contributed to strengthen his independence of character and honesty, which, in a less positive man, would have produced cringing servility and dishonesty.

One of the most marked features of his career, as it was of the career of Washington, was the profound impression he made upon everybody with whom he

was brought into close personal contact. This was, no doubt, owing to his intense and harmonious personality, and in part to the quaint charm of his conversation.

From early boyhood he had been accustomed to embellish his conversation with numberless stories and anecdotes of which he had an inexhaustible store and a skill of adaptation to the point in hand which has never been excelled. His early practice had given him a degree of proficiency in public speaking in which he made use of a rude and fervid eloquence which seldom failed to carry the audience along in sympathy with him. In those days, when men would go thirty or forty miles to hear a lawyer's speech in court or a political discussion, this was a commanding gift and quickly earned a local reputation for its possessor.

Thomas Lincoln, with his family, settled first in Macon County; but he shortly afterwards moved to the vicinity of the present city of Mattoon, in Coles County. Young Lincoln took hold with energy to help his father settle in his new home. He chopped down trees and split rails and helped to fence in the whole farm.

He now told his father, that, as he was of age and the law gave him his liberty, he desired to shift for himself and left his home never to return to it again except for a brief visit. His father, with his wandering instinct unimpaired, continued to move from one place to another, hardly able to keep the wolf from the door, until he died, at the age of seventy-three, and was buried on the old homestead near Mattoon. Mrs. Lincoln outlived her illustrious step

son, who always treated her with tenderest consideration.

For a time he worked wherever he chanced upon an opportunity, now splitting fence rails, and again helping to plant, cultivate and harvest a crop of corn. He once made a bargain to split rails for a woman, who was to furnish cloth and make him a pair of trousers in return for his labor. He agreed to split three hundred rails for every yard of cloth used in manufacturing the garments, and faithfully carried out his part of the bargain.

Shortly afterwards a speculator, Offutt by name, came into the neighborhood looking for men to take a flatboat loaded with country produce to New Orleans and dispose of it. As young Lincoln had made one trip to New Orleans he engaged him to take charge of the expedition with two or three of his friends as helpers.

As the boat was not ready at the appointed time, they were compelled to make one, a somewhat difficult task, as the materials were scarce and hard to obtain. But the ingenuity of Lincoln overcame all obstacles, and a good serviceable boat was completed and launched in four weeks. The voyage was safely made, although on the downward trip the boat was stranded on the dam at New Salem, a small place a few miles below Springfield, and nearly lost, but was saved together with its cargo by the skill and strength of Lincoln.

New Salem was a small place, and the arrival and sad plight of the boat caused considerable excitement. The whole population gathered upon the banks of the river and watched the operation of re

leasing it from the dam where it had stranded and partially filled with water. After all the efforts of the crew had proven fruitless Lincoln rolled up the legs of his trousers and stepped into the water, his length of limb standing him in good stead. By sheer strength he lifted the boat upon the edge of the dam and balanced it; then borrowing an auger he bored a hole in the bottom and allowed the water to escape. Having stopped up the hole, they continued the journey. This was Lincoln's first introduction to a community of which he was destined to become a prominent and beloved member, while the people who had watched him were struck with admiration of his strength and ingenuity.

This trip made a far deeper impression upon the mind of Lincoln than the former one. At New Orleans he first came into actual contact with the most horrible features of slavery. For the first time he entered the slave-market and saw human beings put up at auction and sold like cattle. He saw families separated and the hopeless sorrow of father and mother as the children were torn from their arms to be led away into a servitude which was worse than death. He saw the whipping-post with all its attendant horrors, and heard the stinging blows of the lash and the groans of the poor victims.

He said to one of his companions as they turned away from these terrible scenes, "If I ever get a chance to hit that institution, I will hit it hard, John !" His companions remarked of him that "his heart bled, he was mad, thoughtful, abstracted, sad and depressed."

He did not at once become an Abolitionist. Indeed,

it is doubtful if he was ever an Abolitionist in the His was not a nature to leap hastily to a conclusion. It was only after long thought and observation that his opinions attained the strength of convictions, but once formed, it was almost impossible to shake him from them. So now he observed all these things and meditated upon them, but it was many years before he became identified with an anti-slavery movement of any kind.

strict meaning of the term.

There is a tradition that on this trip to New Orleans, in company with John Hanks, he visited a voodoo fortune-teller, and that during the interview "she became much excited and after various other predictions said: 'You will be President, and all the negroes will be free.'" The truth of this tradition cannot be established.

If God, in times of old, appeared to Moses and foretold the great responsibility, about to devolve upon him, of leading the Children of Israel out from the land of bondage into freedom, might not the veil of the future have been raised a little from before the eyes of this modern Moses in order that he might obtain a glimpse of the greet deeds which he was destined to perform? However this may be, he could never again look upon slavery as a dim shadow which lay upon a section of this sunny land, but it must henceforth be a grim and horrid reality which should oppress his spirits and excite his hatred and apprehension.

Upon his return to Illinois his employer was so impressed with his ability and faithfulness that he determined to retain his services. He had recently opened a store and a flouring mill, at the little settlement of