not say anything too bad about actors and the theatre. They were particularly severe in their allusions to Edwin Booth, the distinguished tragedian, brother of the assassin, who probably suffered more mental torture from the cruel act of his unnatural relative than did any one else in the country, outside of the President's own family. Edwin Booth was so overcome that he retired from the stage temporarily, and it was many months before he appeared in a theatre before an audience.

Edwin Booth never played in Washington City from the time of the assassination until his death. Theatrical managers offered him the most fabulous prices to go there, but he had made a resolution that he would never play at the Capital of the nation, so intimately associated with his brother's terrible crime; and he kept this resolution until the day of his death.

But the honors shown Edwin Booth in his later years, and the esteem in which he was held by all classes of the community, did something to atone for the cruel and thoughtless treatment he received at the hands of some prejudiced and ignorant persons soon after the tragedy.

Numerous rewards were promptly offered for the capture of Wilkes Booth. I added $500 to the reward that was offered in Philadelphia, and promptly did what I could to show that the members of the dramatic profession were not in sympathy with Wilkes Booth, and looked with horror upon his terrible crime.

The advertisement which I inserted in the Philadelphia newspapers was as follows:

"$500 REWARD. - The undersigned will add to the reward offered by the Government and municipal authorities the sum of FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS for the arrest of JOHN WILKES BOOTH, the assassin of our late beloved President. I have no doubt but

the sum of ten thousand dollars will be raised to further this really necessary object by the different Managers. In offering this reward I feel it my conscientious duty to aid to the utmost in bringing this atrocious murderer to justice. I feel convinced that every Manager in the land will second this object, and take the same view of the case. As this crime was committed in one of our principal theatres, we should endeavor to use our utmost ability in an object of so much importance to every American citizen.

"WILLIAM E. SINN, for GROVER & SINN."

It was not long before theatrical people in all parts of the country put themselves before the public in their proper light, condemning the crime, both in public and in private, both in the North and in the South, showing that, so far as the members of their profession were concerned, there had been no collusion in the matter, and that the crime had been committed by John Wilkes Booth in a false and cruel spirit of devotion to the South.

I think the assassination of President Lincoln was the severest blow the South could have had. Certainly the act was not endorsed by the thinking men in the South. So far from its being a benefit to the South, it put back reconstruction fully ten or fifteen years.

BROOKLYN, N. Y.

SOME TRAITS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM

LINCOLN.

HIS SELF-CONTROL; HIS FORESIGHT; HIS SYMPATHY.

BY WAYLAND HOYT, D.D.

CONSIDER the singular self-control of Abraham Lincoln. The scene is Washington. The time is a few days before Mr. Lincoln's first inauguration. Mr. Lincoln has been in Washington scarcely twenty-four hours. The night before he has eluded the desperate plot to assassinate him in Baltimore by passing through that city at an unexpected hour and in an unheralded way. Washington is throbbing and tumultuous with excitement. Rumors of all sorts are thick and clashing. Every hour is portentous with uncertainty. The ship is about to change captains, but amid the threatenings of a storm such as has never before growled and muttered and flashed in the horizon. The so-called Peace Congress is in session, helplessly seeking some way to still the storm. It is proposed, with very grumbling grace on the part of many of the members of it who have disloyal hearts and proslavery sympathies, to pay a visit on this evening to the President-elect. Though such members splutter and object, they cannot well refuse such evident proprieties of the moment. But with very different ceremony from that with which they had waited on President Buchanan

a little time before with reluctance, carelessness, in some cases with angry rudeness, they enter the parlor of the hotel in which Mr. Lincoln is quietly awaiting them. If any one wishes to study one of the most eminent instances of self-control in history, let him carefully read the description of this scene in Mr. Chittenden's "Recollections of President Lincoln and His Administration." It is too long to rehearse here, but there are few as fascinating pages in any literature.

Here is the gaunt, queer, homely, towering man, just escaped a dastardly attempt upon his life, standing amid utterly untried circumstances, confronted with problems such as had never massed themselves before an American statesman, in environment where an unguarded word might be a match to a magazine, an ill-considered gesture, even, the cause of an explosion, maligned and hated by multitudes, surrounded in this parlor by many men. scowling with criticism, glad to trip him, hot with anger at his election, some determined already to band themselves into rebellion against him, soon to be the constitutional head of the Republic-and he, this plain man, Abraham Lincoln, with never a quiver in his voice, nor a touch of paleness on his gaunt cheek, nor the slightest cadence of irritation in his tone, the steady master of himself, these men, the whole occasion. Says Mr. Chittenden:

"It was reserved for the delegation from New York to call out from Mr. Lincoln his first expression touching the great controversy of the hour. He had exchanged remarks with ex-Governor King, Judge James, William Curtis Noyes and Francis Granger. William E. Dodge had stood awaiting his turn. As soon as his opportunity came, he raised his voice enough to be heard by all present, and, addressing Mr. Lincoln, declared that the whole country in great anxiety was awaiting his inaugural address, and

then added: 'It is for you, sir, to say whether the whole nation shall be plunged into bankruptcy; whether the grass shall grow in the streets of our commercial cities.'

"Then I say it shall not,' Mr. Lincoln answered, with a merry twinkle in his eye. 'If it depends upon me, the grass will not grow anywhere except in the fields and the meadows.'

"Then you will yield to the just demands of the South. You will leave her to control her own institutions. You will admit slave States into the Union on the same conditions as free States. You will not go to war on account of slavery.'

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"A sad but stern expression swept over Mr. Lincoln's face. 'I do not know that I understand your meaning, Mr. Dodge,' he said, without raising his voice; nor do I know what my acts or my opinions may be in the future, beyond this. If I shall ever come to the great office of the President of the United States, I shall take an oath. I shall swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, of all the United States, and that I will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. This is a great and solemn duty. With the support of the people and the assistance of the Almighty I shall undertake to perform it. It is not the Constitution as I would like to have it, but as it is, that is to be defended. The Constitution will not be preserved and defended until it is enforced and obeyed in every part of every one of the United States. It must be so respected, obeyed, enforced and defended, let the grass grow where it may.'"

Silence fell. Dispute was impossible. No one could gainsay the weight and balanced justice of the words. They were. entirely unpremeditated. But they fell and fitted as the light does. Mr. Lincoln's superb yet gracious self-control had won. And this self-control, so splendidly shining here, kept shining on through all the day of turmoil which had to follow. Ah, the strong and patient heart! Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun, the Saviour promises. How the promise is already true for him, as, looking back upon the chaos and the

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