The Honorable Schuyler Colfax, in his funeral oration at Chicago, said of him:—

"He bore the nation's perils, and trials, and sorrows, ever on his mind. You know him, in a large degree, by the illustrative stories of which his memory and his tongue were so prolific, using them to point a moral, or to soften discontent at his decisions. But this was the mere badinage which relieved him for the moment from the heavy weight of public duties and responsibilities under which he often wearied. Those whom he admitted to his confidence, and with whom he conversed of his feelings, knew that his inner life was checkered with the deepest anxiety and most discomforting solicitude. Elated by victories for the cause which was ever in his thoughts, reverses to our arms cast a pall of depression over him. One morning, over two years ago, calling upon him on business, I found him looking more than usually pale and careworn, and inquired the reason. He replied, with the bad news he had received at a late hour the previous night, which had not yet been communicated to the press-he had not closed his eyes or breakfasted; and, with an expression I shall never forget, he exclaimed, 'How willingly would I exchange places to-day with the soldier who sleeps on the ground in the Army of the Potomac !"

He may not have looked for it from the hand of an assassin, but he felt sure that his life would end with the war long ago. "He told me,"

says a correspondent of the Boston Journal, "that he was certain he should not outlast the rebellion." It was in last July. As will be remembered, there was dissension then among the Republican leaders. Many of his best friends had deserted him, and were talking of an opposition convention to nominate another candidate; and universal gloom was among the people.

The North was tired of the war, and supposed an honorable peace attainable. Mr. Lincoln knew it was not-that any peace at that time would be only disunion. Speaking of it, he said: "I have faith in the people. They will not consent to disunion. The danger is, they are misled. Let them know the truth, and the country is safe." He looked haggard and careworn; and further on in the interview I remarked on his appearance, "You are wearing yourself out with work.” "I can't work less," he answered; "but it isn't that--work never troubled me. Things look badly, and I can't avoid anxiety. Personally I care nothing about a re-election, but if our divisions defeat us, I fear for the country." When I suggested that right must eventually triumph; that I had never despaired of the result, he said, “Neither

have I, but I may never live to see it. I feel a presentiment that I shall not outlast the rebellion. When it is over, my work will be done."

HIS FAVORITE POEM.

The evening of March 22d, 1864, 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 Shakspeare, of whom he was very fond. Little "Tad," his son, coming in, he sent him 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 afterwards 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. Greatly pleased and interested, I told him I would like some time to write them down. A day or two afterwards, he asked me to accompany him to the temporary studio in the Treasury Department of Mr. Swayne, the sculptor, who was making a bust of him. While “sitting,” it occurred to me that then would be a good opportunity to secure the lines. He very willingly complied with my request to repeat them, and, sitting upon some books at his feet, as nearly as I remember, I wrote the verses down, one by one, as he uttered them :*

Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?-
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,

He passeth from life to his rest in the grave.

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,

Be scattered around, and together be laid;

And the young and the old, and the low and the high,

Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie.

The infant a mother attended and loved;

The mother, that infant's affection who proved

The authorship of this poem has been made known since its publication in the Evening Post. It was written by William Knox, a young Scotchman, a contemporary of Sir Walter Scott-who thought highly of his promise. He died quite young.

The two verses in brackets were not repeated by Mr. Lincoln, but belong to the origina! poem.

The husband, that mother and infant who blest,-
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.

[The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,
Shone beauty and pleasure-her triumphs are by;
And the memory of those who loved her and praised,
Are alike from the minds of the living erased.]

The hand of the king, that the sceptre hath borne,
The brow of the priest, that the mitre hath worn,
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.

The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap,
The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep,
The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread,

Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

[The saint, who enjoyed the communion of heaven,
The sinner, who dared to remain unforgiven,
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.]

So the multitude goes-like the flower or the weed,
That withers away to let others succeed;

So the multitude comes-even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told:

For we are the same our fathers have been;
We see the same sights our fathers have seen;
We drink the same stream, we view the same sun,
And run the same course our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think;
From the death we are shrinking, our fathers would shrink:

To the life we are clinging, they also would cling-
But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing.

They loved-but the story we cannot unfold;
They scorned-but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved-but no wail from their slumber will come;
They joyed-but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.

They died-ay, they died-we things that are now,

That walk on the turf that lies over their brow,

And make in their dwellings a transient abode,

Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,

Are mingled together in sunshine and rain;

And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

'Tis the wink of an eye,-'tis the draught of a breath;
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud :-
Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

Discussing briefly the merits of this poem, and its probable authorship, Mr. Lincoln continued:

"There are some quaint, queer verses, written, I think, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, entitled 'The Last Leaf,' one of which is to me inexpressibly touching." He then repeated these also from memory. The verse he referred to occurs in about the middle of the poem, and is this:

"The mossy marbles rest

On the lips that he has pressed

In their bloom,

And the names he loved to hear

Have been carved for many a year

On the tomb."

As he finished this verse he said, in his emphatic way: "For pure pathos, in my judgment, there is nothing finer than those six lines in the English language !"

Mr. R. McCormick, in some "Reminiscences," published in the Evening Post, says that Mr. Lincoln was fond of the works of Robert Burns; and although I myself never heard him allude to the great Scottish poet, I can readily conceive that it may have been true. "There was something," says Mr. McCormick, "in the humble origin of Burns, and in his checkered life, no less than in his tender, homely songs, that appealed to the great heart of the plain man who, transferred from the prairies of Illinois to the Executive Mansion at Washington at a time of immense responsibility, gave a fresh and memorable illustration of the truth that

'The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that.'"

HIS RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE.

There is a very natural and proper desire, at this time, to know something of the religious experience of the late President. Two or three stories have been published in this connection, which I have never yet been able to trace to a reliable source, and I feel impelled to say here, that I believe the facts in the case-if there were such-have

been added unto, or unwarrantably embellished. Of all men in the world, Mr. Lincoln was the most unaffected and truthful. He rarely or never used language loosely or carelessly, or for the sake of compliment. He was the most utterly indifferent to, and unconscious of, the effect he was producing, either upon official representatives, or the common people, of any man ever in public position.

Mr. Lincoln could scarcely be called a religious man, in the common acceptation of the term, and yet a sincerer Christian I believe never lived. A constitutional tendency to dwell upon sacred things; an emotional nature which finds ready expression in religious conversation and revival meetings; the culture and development of the devotional element till the expression of religious thought and experience becomes almost habitual, were not among his characteristics. Doubtless he felt as deeply upon the great questions of the soul and eternity as any other thoughtful man, but the very tenderness and humility of his nature would not permit the exposure of his inmost convictions, except upon the rarest occasions, and to his most intimate friends. And yet, aside from emotional expression, I believe no man had a more abiding sense of his dependence upon God, or faith in the Divine government, and in the power and ultimate triumph of Truth and Right in the world. In the language of an eminent clergyman of this city, who lately delivered an eloquent discourse upon the life and character of the departed President, "It is not necessary to appeal to apocryphal stories, in circulation in the newspapers-which illustrate as much the assurance of his visitors as the simplicity of his faithfor proof of Mr. Lincoln's Christian character." If his daily life and various public addresses and writings do not show this, surely nothing can demonstrate it.

But while inclined, as I have said, to doubt the truth of some of the statements published on this subject, I feel at liberty to relate an incident, which bears upon its face unmistakable evidence of truthfulness. A lady interested in the work of the Christian Commission had occasion, in the prosecution of her duties, to have several interviews with the President of a business nature. He was much impressed with the devotion and earnestness of purpose she manifested, and on one occasion, after she had discharged the object of her visit, he said to her: "Mrs., I have formed a very 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