"Where do you find him flattering his countrymen, indirectly or directly, for a vote? On what did he ever place himself but good coun- . sels and useful service? "Who ever heard that voice cheering the people on to rapacity, to injustice, to a vain and guilty glory? "How anxiously, rather, did he prefer to teach, that by all possible acquired sobriety of mind, by asking reverently of the past, by obedience to the law, by habits of patient labor, by the cultivation of the mind, by the fear and worship of God, we educate ourselves for the future that is revealing." THE STORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. I. THE KENTUCKY HOME. Not far from Hodgensville, in Kentucky, there once lived a man whose name was Thomas Lincoln. This man had built for himself a little log cabin by the side of a brook, where there was an ever-flowing spring of water. There was but one room in this cabin. On the side next to the brook there was a low doorway; and at one end there was a large fireplace, built. of rough stones and clay. The chimney was very broad at the bottom and narrow at the top. It was made of clay, with flat stones and slender sticks laid around the outside to keep it from falling apart. In the wall, on one side of the fireplace, there was a square hole for a window. But there was no glass in this window. In the summer it was left open all the time. In cold weather a deerskin, or a piece of coarse cloth, was hung over it to keep out the wind and the snow. At night, or on stormy days, the skin of a bear was hung across the doorway; for there was no door on hinges to be opened and shut. There was no ceiling to the room. But the inmates of the cabin, by looking up, could see the bare rafters and the rough roof-boards, which Mr. Lincoln himself had split and hewn. There was no floor, but only the bare ground that had been smoothed and beaten until it was as level and hard as pavement. For chairs there were only blocks of wood and a rude bench on one side of the fireplace. The bed was a little platform of poles, on which were spread the furry skins of wild animals, and a patchwork quilt of homespun goods. In this poor cabin, on the 12th of February, 1809, a baby boy was born. There was already one child in the family-a girl, two years old, whose name was Sarah. The little boy grew and became strong like |