In the kindliest spirit he protested against the avowed threat of the Southern States to destroy the Union if they could not have their way concerning slavery, and placed the whole subject in a moral and religious light in one of the noblest passages in all his earlier speeches:

Wrong, as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the national Territories, and to overrun us here in these free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belaboured, contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong: vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man, nor a dead man; such as a policy of "don't care" about which all true men do care; such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to dis-Unionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners but the righteous to repentance.

Then in unconscious illustration that he lived up to his Christian teaching, he turned from the honours men were seeking to heap on him, and making his way through the slums, where it was

not safe to go without police escort, he paid a visit on Sunday to the Five Points Mission Sunday School, as thus described by one then teaching there:

Our Sunday School in the Five Points was assembled one Sabbath morning, when I noticed a tall, remarkable looking man enter the room and take his seat among us. He listened with fixed attention to our exercises, and his countenance expressed such genuine interest that I approached him and suggested that he might be willing to say something to the children. He accepted the invitation with evident pleasure, and coming forward, began a simple address which at once fascinated every little hearer and hushed the room to silence. His language was strikingly beautiful, and his tones musical with intense feeling. The little faces around him would droop into sad conviction as he uttered sentences of warning, and would brighten into sunshine as he spoke cheerful words of promise. Once or twice he attempted to close his remarks, but the imperative shouts of "Go on! O! do go on!" would compel him to resume. As I looked

upon the gaunt and sinewy form of the stranger, and marked his powerful head and determined features, now touched into softness by the expressions of the moment, I felt an irrepressible curiosity to learn something more about him, and when he was quietly leaving the room, I begged to know his name. He courteously replied, "It is Abraham Lincoln, from Illinois. "I

1 See Carpenter's Six Months in the White House.

Erastus Corning, President of the New York Central Railroad, heard that speech at Cooper Institute. To him it revealed the keen lawyer as well as the great statesman. Early the next morning he was at the Astor House where Lincoln was staying. "Mr. Lincoln," he said, "I understand that in Illinois you win all your law suits." Laughing softly Lincoln answered, "Oh, no, Mr. Corning, that is not true; but I do make it a rule to refuse cases unless I am convinced the litigant's cause is just." "Mr. Lincoln," came the inquiry, "will you entertain an offer from the New York Central Railroad to become its general counsel at $10,000 a year?" The generous offer was courteously declined and when renewed in writing after Lincoln had returned to Springfield, it was again and finally-after prayerful considerationrefused.

We

Mr. Lincoln never gave the real reason for resisting a temptation few ever can resist of declining to accept a salary out of all proportion to a lawyer's income in those days. know only that he had been set on bringing righteousness to rule in the country that he loved, and that even at his mother's knee he had heard the voice of conscience speaking through the Book of Books to him: "Thou shalt wor

ship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve."

This conversation of Mr. Lincoln and Erastus Corning is reported by Major J. B. Merwin, appointed to the regular army by Mr. Lincoln in his Presidency.

CHAPTER XVI

THE MAN OF THE HOUR

ABRAHAM LINCOLN was nominated for President by the Republican National Convention held in the Wigwam, at Chicago, May 16 to 18, 1860. The city was thronged with delegates and partisans of their favourites, among whom were Mr. Bates, Mr. Chase, and Mr. Cameron. Judge Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, was chosen temporary chairman, and George Adams, of Massachusetts, permanent chairman, with twenty-seven vice-presidents and twenty-five secretaries. The Convention assembled Wednesday, May 16, and adopted its platform the next day. On the first ballot Lincoln received 102 votes, Seward 173, and the rest of the votes were scattered. The second ballot showed 1842 for Seward to 181 for Lincoln. On the third ballot, Mr. Lincoln had 230, within 12 of a majority. Vermont had been divided on the first ballot, but cast her full strength, ten votes, in the third for "the young giant of the West," as the delegation chairman announced amid cheers from the Lincoln adherents.