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been a Captain of Volunteers in Postmaster at a very small office.

Black Hawk War.
Four times a mem-

ber of the Illinois Legislature, and was a member of the Lower House of Congress."

DEATH OF LINCOLN'S MOTHER.

"A great man," says J. G. Holland, "never drew his infant life from a purer or more womanly bosom than her own; and Mr. Lincoln always looked back to her with unspeakable affection. Long after her sensitive heart and weary hand had crumbled into dust, and had climbed to life again in forest flowers, he said to a friend, with tears in his eyes: 'All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother-blessings on her memory!" She was five feet and five inches high, a slender, a pale, sad, and sensitive woman, with much in her nature that was truly heroic, and much that shrank from the rude life around her.

Her death occurred in 1818, scarcely two years from her removal from Kentucky to Indiana, and when Abraham was in his tenth year. They laid her to rest under the trees near her cabin home, and, sitting on her grave, the little boy wept his irreparable loss.

LINCOLN'S RELIGIOUS BELIEF.

Abraham Lincoln, says David P. Thompson, had the good fortune to be trained by a godly mother and step-mother. The two books which made the most impression on his character were the Bible and Weem's "Life of Washington." The former he read with such diligence that he knew it almost by heart, and the

words of Scripture became so much a part of his nature that he rarely made a speech or wrote a paper of any length without quoting its language or teachings.

One of Mr. Lincoln's notable religious utterances was his reply to a deputation of colored people at Baltimore who presented him a Bible. He said: "In regard to the great book, I have only to say it is the best gift which God has ever given man. All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated to us through this book. But for this book we could not know right from wrong. All those things desirable to man are contained in it."

Colonel Rusling overheard the following conversation between President Lincoln and General Sickles, just after the victory of Gettysburg: "The fact is, General," said the President, "in the stress and pinch of the campaign there, I went to my room, and got down on my knees and prayed God Almighty for victory at Gettysburg. I told Him that this was His country, and the war was His war, but that we really couldn't stand another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville. And then and there I made a solemn vow with my Maker that if He would stand by you, boys, at Gettysburg, I would stand by Him. And He did, and I will! And after this I felt that God Almighty had taken the whole thing into His hands." Mr. Lincoln said all this with great solemnity.

CONCERNING MR. LINCOLN'S RELIGIOUS VIEWS. The Rev. Mr. Willets, of Brooklyn, gives an account of a conversation with Mr. Lincoln, on the part of a lady of his acquaintance connected with the "Christian

Commission," who, in the prosecution of her duties, had several interviews with him.

The President, it seemed, had been much impressed with the devotion and earnestness of purpose manifested by the lady, and on one occasion, after she had discharged the object of her visit, he said to her:

"Mrs. I have formed a high opinion of your Christian character, and now, as we are alone, I have a mind to ask you to give me in brief your idea of what constitutes a true religious experience."

The lady replied at some length, stating that, in her judgment, it consisted of a conviction of one's own sinfulness and weakness, and a personal need of the Savior for strength and support; that views of mere doctrine might and would differ, but when one was really brought to feel his need of divine help, and to seek the aid of the Holy Spirit for strength and guidance, it was satisfactory evidence of his having been born again. This was the substance of her reply.

When she had concluded Mr. Lincoln was very thoughtful 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 fully realizing 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."'

LINCOLN'S RELIGION.

He once remarked to a friend that his religion was like that of an old man named Glenn, in Indiana, whom he heard speak at a church meeting, and wno said, "When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad; and that's my religion."

Mrs. Lincoln herself has said that Mr. Lincoln had no faith-no faith, in the usual acceptance of those words. "He never joined a church; but still, as I believe, he was a religious man by nature. He first seemed to think about the subject when our boy Willie died, and then more than ever about the time he went to Gettysburg; but it was a kind of poetry in his nature, and he never was a technical Christian."

LINCOLN'S DEFINITION OF BIOGRAPHY.

Lincoln had been reading a few pages of the life of Edmund Burke, when, throwing it on the table, he exclaimed, "No, sir, I've read enough of it. It's like all the others. Biographies as generally written are not only misleading, but false.

"The author of that Life of Burke makes a wonderful hero out of his subject. He magnifies his perfections, and suppresses his imperfections. He is so faithful in his zeal, and so lavish in his praise of his every act, that one is almost driven to believe that Burke never made a mistake or failure in his life.'

He lapsed into a brown study, but presently broke out again: "Billy, I've wondered why book publishers and merchants don't have blank biographies on their shelves, always ready for an emergency; so that if a

man happens to die, his heirs or his friends, if they wish to perpetuate his memory, can purchase one already written, but with blanks. These blanks they can fill up at their pleasure with rosy sentences full of high-sounding praise. In most instances they commemorate a lie, and cheat posterity out of the truth."

This emphatic avowal of sentiment from Mr. Lincoln not only fixes his estimate of ordinary biography, but was his vindication in advance, when assailed for telling the truth.

LINCOLN'S FAVORITE POEM.

OH! WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE proud?

"The evening of March 22d, 1864," says F. B. Carpenter, "was a most interesting one to me. I was with the President alone in his office for several hours. Busy with pen and papers when I went in, he presently threw them aside and commenced talking to me of Shakespeare, of whom he was very fond. Little 'Tad,' his son, coming in, he sent to the library for a copy of the plays, and then read to me several of his favorite passages. Relapsing into a sadder strain, he laid the book aside, and, leaning back in his chair, said:

""There is a poem which has been a great favorite with me for years, which was first shown to me when a young man by a friend, and which I afterward saw and cut from a newspaper and learned by heart. I would,' he continued, 'give a great deal to know who wrote it, but I have never been able to ascertain.' Then, half-closing his eyes, he repeated the verses to me, as follows:

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