ful for a few moments; He at length said, very earnestly: "If what you have told me is really a correct view of this great subject, I think I can say with sincerity that I hope I am a Christian. I had lived," he continued, "until my boy Willie died, without realizing fully these things. That blow overwhelmed me. It showed me my weakness as I had never felt it before, and if I can take what you have stated as a test, I think I can safely say that I know something of that change of which you speak; and I will further add, that it has been my intention for some time, at a suitable opportunity, to make a public religious profession.”

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Thurlow Weed's Recollections.

In a letter to the New York Lincoln Club, Thurlow Weed remarked; I went to the Whig National Convention, at Chicago, in 1860, warmly in favor of and confidently expecting the nomination of Governor Seward. That disappointment of long-cherished hopes was a bitter one. I then accepted, very reluctantly, an invitation to visit Mr. Lincoln at his residence in Springfield, where, in an interesting conversation, even while smarting under the sense of injustice to Mr. Seward, confidence in Mr. Lincoln's good sense, capacity and fidelity was inspired.

A campaign programme was agreed upon, and, returning to A bany, I went to work as zealously and as cheerfully as I should have done with Mr. Seward as our Presidential nominee. Mr. Lincoln's inauguration simultaneously inaugurated rebellion. Events soon proved that the Chicago Convention had been wisely if not providentially guided, The country in its greatest emergency

had, what it so greatly needed, the services of two, instead of one, of its greatest and best men. With Lincoln as President and Seward as Secretary of State, the right men were in the right places.

With ample opportunities to study the character of Abraham Lincoln, I never hesitated in declaring that his sense of public and private duty and honor was as high and his patriotism as devoted as that of George Washington.

Their names and their memories should descend to future generations as examples worthy of imitation.

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How Lincoln Took His Altitude-A Prophetic Bowl of Milk.

Soon after Mr. Lincoln's nomination for the Presidency, the Executive Chamber, a large fine room in the State House at Springfield was set apart for him, where he met the public until after his election.

As illustrative of the nature of many of his calls, the following brace of incidents were related to Mr. Holland by an eye witness: "Mr. Lincoln, being in conversation with a gentleman one day, two raw, plainly-dressed young 'Suckers' entered the room, and bashfully lingered near the door, As soon as he observed them, and apprehended their embarrassment, he rose and walked to them, saying, "How do you do, my good fellows? What can I do for you? Will you sit down?" The spokes

man of the pair, the shorter of the two, declined to sit, and explained the object of the call thus: he had had a talk about the relative height of Mr. Lincoln and his companion, and had asserted his belief that they were of ex

actly the same height. He had come in to verify his judgment. Mr. Lincoln smiled, went and got his cane, and, placing the end of it upon the wall, said:

"Here, yonng man, come under here."

The young man came under the cane, as Mr. Lincoln held it, and when it was perfectly adjusted to his height, Mr. Lincoln said:

"Now, come out, and hold up the cane."

This he did while Mr. Lincoln stepped under. Rubbing his head back and forth to see that it worked easily under the measurement, he stepped out, and declared to the sagacious fellow who was curiously looking on, that he had guessed with remarkable accuracy-that he and the young man were exactly the same height. Then he shook hands with them and sent them on their way. Mr. Lincoln would just as soon have thought of cutting off his right hand as he would have thought of turning those boys away with the impression that they had in any way insulted his dignity.

They had hardly disappeared when an old and modestly dressed woman made her appearance. She knew Mr. Lincoln, but Mr. Lincoln did not at first recognize her. Then she undertook to recall to his memory certain incidents connected with his rides upon the circuit-especially his dining at her house upon the road at different times. Then he remembered her and her home. Having fixed her own place in his recollection, she tried to recall to him a certain scanty dinner of bread and milk that he once ate at her house. He could not remember it-on the contrary, he only remembered that he had al- * ways fared well at her house.

"Well," said she, one day you came along after we had

got through dinner, and we had eaten up everything, and I could give you nothing but a bowl of bread and milk and you ate it; and when you got up you said it was good enough for the President of the United States !"

The good woman had come in from the country, making a journey of eight or ten miles, to relate to Mr. Lincoln this incident, which, in her mind, had doubtless taken the form of prophecy. Mr. Lincoln placed the honest creature at her ease, chatted with her of old times, and dismissed her in the most happy and complacent frame of mind.

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How Lincoln Won the Nomination for

Congress.

Old-time politicians, says a correspondent, will readily recall the heated political campaign of 1843 in the neighboring State of Illinois.

The chief interest of the campaign lay in the race for Congress in the Capital district, which was between Hardin-fiery, eloquent and impetuous Democrat, and Lincoln-plain, practical and ennobled Whig. The world knows the result. Lincoln was elected.

It is not so much with his election as with the manner in which he secured his nomination with which we have to deal. Before that ever-memorable spring Lincoln vacilated between the courts of Springfield, rated as a plain, honest, logical Whig, with no ambition higher politically than to occupy some good home office. Late in the fall 1842 his name began to be mentioned in connection with Congressional aspirations, which fact greatly annoyed the leaders of his political party, who had already selected as

the whig candidate, one Baker, afterward the gallant Colonel who fell so bravely and died such an honorable death on the battlefield of Ball's Bluff in 1842. Despite all efforts of his opponents within his party the name of the "gaunt rail-splitter" was hailed with acclaim by the

masses, to whom he had endeared himself by his witticisms, honest tongue and quaint philosophy when on the stump or mingling with them in their homes.

The convention, which met in early spring in the city of Springfield, was to be composed of the usual number of