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from me that if it be possible for him to effect the exchange of Captain without compromising the cases of other prisoners of his rank, I wish him to do so." "But," I said, "for a technical misdemeanor Captain

has, since his capture, been deprived of his commission and reduced to the ranks, and probably the rebels will not exchange him for a private soldier." "Well," said the President, "if Gen. raises that point, say to him that if he can arrange the exchange part, I can take care of the rank part, and I will do so." The captain was in Washington in about ten days afterwards.

Again, a boy from one of the country towns of Massachusetts, who had entered a store in Boston, and become dazzled by the apparent universal distribution of wealth, without any definite idea of how it was acquired, fell into the fault of robbing his employer's letters as he took them to and from the post-office, and, having been convicted of the offense, was serving out his sentence in jail. The father of this boy came to Washington to obtain a pardon for his son, and I accompanied him to the White House and introduced him. A petition signed by a large number of respectable citizens was presented. The President put on his spectacles and stretched himself at length upon his arm-chair while he deliberately read the document, and then he turned to me and asked if I met a man going down the stairs as I came up. I said that I did. "Yes," said the President; "he was the last person in this room before you came, and his errand was to get a man pardoned out of the penitentiary; and now you have come to get a boy out of jail!" Then, with one of

those bursts of humor which were both contagious and irresistible, he said: "I'll tell you what it is, we must abolish those courts, or they will be the death of us. I thought it bad enough that they put so many men in the penitentiaries for me to get out; but if they have now begun on the boys and the jails, and have roped you into the delivery, let's after them! And they deserve the worst fate," he soon continued, "because, according to the evidence that comes to me, they pick out the very best men and send them to the penitentiary; and this present petition shows they are playing the same game on the good boys, and sending them all to jail. The man you met on the stairs affirmed that his friend in the penitentiary is a most exemplary citizen, and Massachusetts must be a happy State if her boys out of jail are as virtuous as this one appears to be who is in. Yes; down with the courts and deliverance to their victims, and then we can have some peace!"

During all this time the President was in a most merry mood. Then his face assumed a sad and thoughtful expression, and he proceeded to say that he could quite understand how a boy from simple country life might be overcome by the sight of universal abundance in a large city, and by a full supply of money in the pockets of almost everybody, and be led to commit even such an offense as this one had done, and yet not be justly put into the class of hopeless criminals; and if he could be satisfied that this was a case of that kind, and that the boy would be placed under proper influences, and probably saved from a bad career, he would be glad to extend the clemency asked for. The father explained

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his purpose in that respect, the Congressmen from the State in which he belonged united in the petition, and the boy was pardoned.

Such examples as these, varying in character, but all springing from the same tender and noble qualities of heart, might be multiplied almost indefinitely; but they all found culmination in that grandest utterance of modern eloquence, at the consecration of the battle-field of Gettysburg, when, the promptings of his soul having summoned his intellect to the point of supreme exaltation, he spoke to all mankind those words of patriotism, admonition and pathos which will continue to sound through the ages as long as the flowers shall bloom or the waters flow.

Meganda A. Rice

BOSTON, 1882.

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TH

HE name of Abraham Lincoln will ever stand in history and in the hearts of his own countrymen beside the name of Washington. His genius, wisdom and goodness saved the Union; his great heart liberated the slaves. Christian people believe he was raised up by the divine Hand for the deliverance of the nation, and guided in its accomplishment. In my humble judgment his name is the greatest in American history.

Art & Taylon

PETER COOPER.

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I

HAVE always had the greatest admiration for the amiable, simple and honest traits of Mr. Lincoln's character. I believe that, under the providence of God, he was, next to Washington, the greatest instrument for the preservation of the Union and the integrity of the country; and this was brought about chiefly through his strict and faithful adherence to the Constitution of his country.