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his spirits seemed deeply moved. His opponent was one worthy of his steel. He answered him fully and completely. The conclusion of his speech I remember even now, so deep an impression did it make on me then. He said, "The gentleman commenced his speech by saying that this young man would have to be taken down, alluding to me; I am not so young in years as I am in the tricks and trades of a politician; but live long, or die young, I would rather die now, than, like the gentleman, change my politics, and simultaneous with the change receive an office worth three thousand dollars per year, and then have to erect a lightning-rod over my house, to protect a guilty conscience from an offended God." He used the lightning-rod against Farquer as he did everything in after life.

In 1837, after his return from the legislature, Mr. Lincoln obtained a license to practice law. He lived fourteen miles in the country, and had ridden into town on a borrowed horse, with no earthly goods but a pair of saddlebags, two or three law books, and some clothing which he had in the saddle-bags. He took an office, and engaged from the only cabinet-maker then in the village, a single bedstead. He came into my store (I was a merchant then), set his saddle-bags on the counter and asked me 'what the furniture for a single bedstead would cost." I took slate and pencil and made calculation, and found the sum for furniture complete would amount to seventeen dollars in all. Said he, "It is probably cheap enough: but I want to say that, cheap as it is, I have not the money to pay. But if you will credit me until Christmas, and my experiment here as a lawyer is a success, I will pay you then.

If I fail in that I will probably never be able to pay you at all." The tone of his voice was so melancholy that I felt for him. I looked up at him, and I thought then, as I think now, that I never saw so gloomy and melancholy a face. I said to him, "The contraction of so small a debt seems to affect you so deeply, I think I can suggest a plan by which you will be able to attain your end, without incurring any debt. I have a very large room, and a very large double-bed in it; which you are perfectly welcome to share with me if you choose." "Where is your room?" asked he. "Up stairs,” said I, pointing to the stairs leading from the store to my room. Without saying a word, he took his saddle-bags on his arm, went up stairs, set them down on the floor, came down again, and with a face beaming with pleasure and smiles, exclaimed: "Well, Speed, I'm moved." Mr. Lincoln was then twenty-seven years old, almost without friends, and with no property except the saddle-bags with the clothes mentioned, within. Now, for me to have lived to see such a man rise from point to point, and from place to place, filling all the places to which he was called with honor and distinction, until he reached the presidency, filling the presidential chair in the most trying time that any ruler ever had, seems to me more like fiction than fact. None but a genius like his could have accomplished so much; and none but a government like ours could produce such a man. It gave the young eagle scope for his wings; he tried it, and soared to the top!

In 1839 Mr. Lincoln, being then a lawyer in full practice, attended all the courts adjacent to Springfield. He

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was then attending court at Christiansburg, about thirty miles distant. I was there when the court broke up ; quite a number of lawyers were coming from court to Springfield. We were riding along a country road, two and two together, some distance apart, Lincoln and Jno. J. Hardin being behind (Hardin was afterward made colonel and was killed at Buena Vista). We were passing through a thicket of wild plum and crab-apple trees, where we stopped to water our horses. After waiting some time Hardin came up and we asked him where Lincoln was. “Oh," said he, "when I saw him last" (there had been a severe wind storm) "he had caught two little birds in his hand, which the wind had blown from their nest, and he was hunting for the nest." Hardin left him before he found it. He finally found the nest, and placed the birds, to use his own words, "in the home provided for them by their mother." When he came up with the party they laughed at him; said he, earnestly: “I could not have slept to-night if I had not given those two little birds to their mother."

This was the flower that bloomed so beautifully in his nature, on his native prairies. He never lost the nobility of his nature, nor the kindness of his heart, by being removed to a higher sphere of action. On the contrary, both were increased. The enlarged sphere of his action developed the natural promptings of his heart.

LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE.

"Hon. Geo. Ashmun,

SPRINGFIELD, ILL., May 23, 1860.

"President of the Republican National Convention. "Sir-I accept the nomination tendered me by the Convention over which you presided, and of which I am formally apprised in the letter of yourself and others, acting as a committee of the Convention for that pur

pose.

"The declaration of principles and sentiments which accompanies your letter meets my approval; and it shall be my care not to violate nor disregard it in any part.

"Imploring the assistance of Divine Providence, and with due regard to the views and feelings of all who were represented in the Convention; to the rights of all States and Territories, and the people of the nation; to the inviolability of the Constitution, and to the perpetual union, harmony and prosperity of all, I am most happy to co-operate for the practical success of the principles declared by the Convention.

"Your obliged friend and fellow-citizen,

Abraham Lincol

IN

N times of great trouble, men and nations, unless doomed to perish, recognize and call upon God. So did this nation in the terrible struggle produced by slavery. It now seems that any man, however highly endowed, much unlike Abraham Lincoln, could not have so well filled the demand as President. Certainly, he did meet the demand, and well. To God be all the glory!

SYRACUSE, 1880.

ED. Haven.