small room in the second story of an old frame house on Sangamon street. The furniture consisted of two small desks, a small table, a few old chairs, and a long wooden bench. Books and papers were scattered about promiscuously. The office was in anything but a tidy condition. Pictures of George Washington, Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay were hanging on the walls. My first impression of Mr. Lincoln was anything but favorable. His face seemed to tell the story of his life-a life of sorrow and struggle, of deep-seated sadness and ceaseless endeavor. It was not difficult for an average mind to interpret the rugged energy stamped on that uncomely plebian face, with its crag-like brows and bones, or to read there the deep melancholy that overshadowed every feature of it.

At that time Mr. Lincoln wore a long, old-fashioned frock coat, a tall "plug hat," and his breeches hardly reached to his ankles. He wore blue socks, an old-fashioned side-board dicky, and what in those days was called a "stock." He was made up of head, hands, feet and length, yet it required but a very few words with him to dispel any unfavorable impression of him that might have been formed. His kind, gentle voice and manner would draw anyone to him. If we may believe tradition, Lincoln came from a stock which proves the hereditary source of his chief characteristics. His humor, his melancholy, his strange, mingling of energy and indolence, his generosity, his unconventional character, his frugality, his tenderness, his courage, all must be traceable to his ancestry as well as to the strange society which molded the boy and nerved the man to face without fear every danger that beset his path.

While in the office transacting my business with Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Herndon, his partner, and Mr. Leonard Swett, for years his close friend, were present. I remained in conversation with them for some little time. Their conversation was on politics and very interesting.

That evening Mr. Lincoln and a party of his friends met at the city hotel. The party was composed of Messrs. Herndon, Swett, Baker, and Stephen Logan, who at one

time was a partner of Mr. Lincoln. Logan was a small man with a weazened face, an immense head of uncombed hair, and if anything he was a more homely man than Mr. Lincoln and more careless in his dress. His voice was shrill and sharp and unpleasant, but yet when he spoke he always had interested and attentive listeners. When he addressed himself to a jury or made a speech in the legislature, people looked upon him and listened with amazement. The party were all interesting conversationalists and good story tellers.

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My next meeting with Mr. Lincoln was at Quincy, Ill., in December, 1857. visited Quincy with Mrs. Lincoln to attend the celebration of the anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, December 11, 1620. Quincy, Ill., was founded by a party of Massachusetts people and took its name from Quincy, Mass., and Adams county, from John Adams, "our second President."

For years the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, on the Mayflower, was celebrated at Quincy, Ill. Among the founders of Quincy were Gov. John Wood, Orvil H. Browning, J. B. Bushnell, Archibald Williams, Sam Artus, B. Comstock, Ben Prentiss and others of the old pioneers who took great interest in the affair.

At that time the writer was proprietor of the Quincy Hotel where the banquet was given. Although Mr. Lincoln was a guest at the home of Hon. O. H. Browning, he spent most of his time at the hotel with his old friends. There was a great array of talent at that meeting. They consisted, in part, of Mr. Lincoln, Hon. O. H. Browning, Lyman Trumbull, for years United States senator, Jas. A. McDougall, at that time attorney-general of Illinois, Edward H. Baker, O. B. Ficklin, James Shields, Gov. John Wood, and a number of that clan-all good story tellers.

The reading room of the hotel, where they were congregated, was kept in a roar during the afternoon by the quaint and amusing stories told by the crowd of learned men. Mr. Lincoln was always ready to keep up his side of the game in that line. He was dressed up in his best for the occasion. No one who saw him on

that occasion can forget his personal appearance-tall, angular, and very awkward. He was dressed with short-waisted, swallow-tail coat, with brass buttons, a short buff vest, thin pantaloons, scarcely coming down to his ankles, a plug hat, and a pair of brogans, with blue woolen socks. Yet, with all his homely, ungainly appearance, he was the center of attraction, not so much for his wit and funny stories, but for his solid good sense. He never pressed his stories on unwilling ears, nor endeavored to absorb all attention to himself. He enjoyed a good story from another as much as any person.

There were a number of good story tellers in that group that had assembled to celebrate the anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. In Mr. Lincoln's remarks at the banquet at the hotel he alluded to the landing of the Pilgrims in a few words. He stated that he supposed that some of his progenitors were among the number who came over on the Mayflower, although he was not certain.

It is a well known fact that Mr. Lincoln seemed to know little concerning his progenitors, and he seemed to rest well content with the scantiness of his knowledge. The character and condition of his father, of whom alone upon that side of the house he had personal cognizance, did not encourage him to pry into the obscurity behind that luckless rover. Mr. Lincoln always seemed sensitive on the subject, and when he was applied to for information a brief paragraph conveyed all he knew or desired to know. Without doubt he would have been best pleased to have the world take him solely for himself with no inquiry as to whence he came as if he had dropped upon the planet like a meteorite, as indeed many did piously hold that he came a direct gift from heaven.

My next meeting with Mr. Lincoln was at Quincy, in October, 1858, at the joint debate between Mr. Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas for the senatorship of Illinois. It was the fifth meeting between the two giants. The first was at Ottawa, then Jonesboro, Charleston, Galesburg and Quincy, and they wound up at Alton on October 28. Thousands flocked from the surrounding country to listen to the

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speeches of those two great men. Judge Douglas was very elegant, fascinating and rhetorical, Mr. Lincoln was neither rhetorical nor brilliant, and he used very little gesticulation. At first he was rather slow and seemingly indifferent, but after a little while he got warmed up to his work and the crowd was unconsciously and irresistibly drawn by the clearness and closeness of his argument. His fairness and candor were very noticeable. He ridiculed nothing, misrepresented nothing. Instead of distorting the views held by Judge Douglas, he very modestly and courteously inquired into their soundness. He was too kind for bitterness and too great for vituperation. It has been well said of him by an excellent judge: "He loved the truth for the truth's sake." The strain on body and mind had begun to tell on Mr. Lincoln. After his speech he almost collapsed from sheer fatigue. He was taken to his rooms at the Quincy House, which I was then keeping. His illness confined him to his room until the next day.

Seven years elapsed before I again met Mr. Lincoln. From 1860 until 1864, "during the civil war," I was engaged in business in Montgomery, Ala. Although a slave-holder before and during the war, and being of northern birth, I was not imbued with the spirit of secession of the southern states from the Union. I decided to leave the Confederacy. In December, 1864, I left Montgomery and proceeded to Charleston, S. C.; from there to Nassau, via Blockade runner "Arrow," and from there to New York by steamer. As I had left a large amount of perishable property in the south, I was anxious to secure protection papers for it from the Federal officials to save it when the property was captured by the Federal army, and I proceeded to Washington for that purpose. After some five or six days' delay, I managed to obtain an interview with Mr. Lincoln. It so happened that I was the last one to be admitted to see Mr. Lincoln before the closing hour of business. When I entered his room he was sitting in his office chair with his long legs resting on his desk, and his feet were encased in old-fashioned carpet slippers. His face was a sight to behold. He looked like death. His pale, haggard

features, furrowed with wrinkles, his sunken eyes and care-worn face made me hesitate to trouble him. For a few moments he sat without moving a muscle, as though looking at something a hundred miles away. At last, looking at my card, and without changing his position, in a very kindly voice remarked: "Well, my friend, what can I do for you?" I rejoined that he looked too tired and careworn to do anything for anybody.

"Oh, I'm all right," he replied, "what can I do for you?"

I laid my papers before him. He commenced reading them, and after reading a few lines of a letter of recommendation from General Ben Prentiss, whom I had befriended while a prisoner of war in the confederacy in 1862, he jumped up, grasped my hand and said: "Why, I have met you before, sir; I remember you well-at Springfield and Quincy, Ill." And quickly, as if the keeper of the light-house had lighted the beacon-light, the cloud lifted from his face, his eyes snapped, and his thoughts seemed to hark back to the bygone days of 1858.

"You must come up and take tea with us tonight," said he. "I want to talk with you about matters and things in the south. Ben Prentiss tells me that you are well posted on the movements of the 'prodigal sons' and 'lost sheep' in the south.”

I accepted the invitation. We were joined by Mr. Fessenden, then secretary of the treasury, Edwin M. Stanton, secretary of war, and O. H. Browning, secretary of the interior. It proved to be quite a cabinet meeting.

My mail and other contracts with the Confederate government during the war had enabled me to "peep" behind the scenes and observe some of the workings and tricks of the misguided officials who sailed the water-logged Confederate craft into rough and ragged rocks, to ship-wreck and destruction. I was enabled to give Mr. Lincoln some information of which he had never dreamed, in regard to the Confederacy, upon which he acted and checkmated some of the Confederate movements.

I received protection papers from Mr. Lincoln for my property in and around Montgomery, Ala., and was appointed gov

ernment agent at Montgomery to take charge of all cotton that should fall into the hands of the Federal army when Montgomery was captured. At that time there were 128,000 bales of cotton in eight warehouses in Montgomery, and 23,000 bales of that cotton was claimed by the Confederate government. The balance, 105,000 bales, belonged to different persons, and 1,500 bales belonged to the writer.

Cotton was selling, at that time, for eighty cents a pound. The 23,000 bales of Confederate cotton would have sold for $9,200,000; the balance,' 105,000 bales, 52,500,000 pounds, would have sold for $42,000,000. We formulated a plan to save all the cotton in Montgomery when the city was captured. But by the obstinate and malicious actions of the Confederate commander at Montgomery, the 128,000 bales of cotton, worth $51,200,000 in good money, was burned. It went up in smoke without a cent of insurance, doing no one a particle of good, and many persons having their "all" invested in that cotton, were reduced to abject poverty by that cruel, uncalled for, wanton act.

During the war Mr. Lincoln was in favor of drawing all the cotton out of the Confederacy. Cotton was the only commodity that the confederates had that was worth a dollar.

At the confab I had with Mr. Lincoln and others at the White House on the night of February 10, 1865, the cotton then in the Confederacy was considered. Mr. Lincoln said: "If we could draw all the cotton out of the Confederacy they would collapse at once. They would be like old Bill Sykes' 'yallar dog.'”

Old Bill had a yallar dog-a worthless cur. His stronghold was to run out from under the house and bark at passersby, and scare horses and children. The boys in the neighborhood decided to have some fun with the useless canine. They procured a small stick of giant powder, inserted a cap and fuse in it, and wrapped it up in raw beef. They laid the little joker on the sidewalk, lighted the fuse, climbed upon the fence and whistled. Out comes the dog with his usual "bow-wow." He scented the meat and bolted the bundle. In a few seconds there was a terrible explosion. Dog

meat was flying in all directions. Out comes old Sykes from the house, bareheaded. "What in hell's up," yelled old Bill.

"Why, the dog," cried the boys on the fence.

While old Bill was gazing around in wonderment, something dropped at his feet. He picked it up and found it was his dog's tail.

"Well, I'll be d- -d," exclaimed old Bill, "if I think old Tige'll amount to much after this as a dog."

"And so it would be with the Confederacy," said Mr. Lincoln. "Take all the cotton away from them and they wouldn't be worth 'shucks.' The fat would be fried out of them."

Mr. Lincoln's wife was Miss Mary Todd, of Kentucky. Her brother, Thomas Todd, lived in Alabama during the war. In April, 1865, while I was in Montgomery, I received a personal letter from Mr. Lincoln, requesting me to attend to a little matter of business concerning Mrs. Lincoln and her brother, which I did. That letter was dated at the White House, Washington, April 10, 1865, four days before Mr. Lincoln was assassinated.

Few subjects have been debated and less understood than the Emancipation Proclamation, issued by Mr. Lincoln in 1863. No doubt that Proclamation was what, to a great extent, made Mr. Lincoln immortal. Mr. Lincoln's conception of slavery has been misconstrued by many. There are many who believe that the Emancipation Proclamation was issued solely to free the slaves, and that only. It is absurd. Mr. Lincoln issued the Proclamation to save the Union, and that alone. His own utterances from 1858 to 1865 prove that to be a fact. It was not until slavery or the Union must be sacrificed that he became emancipator of the negro race of America. There are very strong reasons for saying that Mr. Lincoln himself doubted his right to emancipate under the war power, and he doubtless meant what he said when he compared an executive order to that effect to the "Popes Bull" against the comet. In discussing the case he used to liken it to that of the boy, who, when asked how many legs his calf would have if he called

the tail a leg, replied, five. To which the response was made that calling the calf's tail a leg didn't make it a leg.

In his speech at Quincy, Ill., in October, 1858, Mr. Lincoln said: "I will say that I am not nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social or political equality of the white and black races. I am not nor never have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor qualifying them to hold office, nor of inter-marriage with white people. And I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. Inasmuch as they cannot so live while they do remain together, there must be a position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."

Mr. Lincoln always kept the cause of the Union to the front.

The north was not fighting to liberate the slaves, nor the south to preserve slavery. The people of the slave states plunged into a bloody war to build a southern empire of their own, and the people of the north fought to preserve the government of the fathers in all the land the fathers left us. In that awful conflict slavery went to pieces.

On August 22, 1862, just one month after Mr. Lincoln had first opened the subject of emancipation to his cabinet, he wrote Horace Greeley a letter in which he said:

"If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union by freeing all the slaves I would do it. If I could save the Union without freeing the slaves I would do it. If I could save the Union by freeing some of the slaves and leaving others alone

I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors, and I shall adopt new views as fast as they shall appear to be true views.

"We think this is plain English language and the sentiments cannot be misconstrued."

Emancipation was forced upon Mr. Lincoln as a military necessity. It was thrust at him from various quarters.

The effect of the Emancipation Proclamation on the slaves in the south was not such as was predicted by many sanguine advocates of emancipation who had risked the confident prophecy that it would be fol

lowed by a simultaneous exodus of negroes from the south, and such an exodus as would close the war; that the plow would stand still in the furrow; that the ripened grain would remain unharvested, the cows would not be milked, and the dinners would not be cooked. That bubble was never pricked.

The Emancipation Proclamation was not authorized by the Constitution or by international laws. Nobody was more quick to perceive or more frank to admit the legal weakness and insufficiency of the Emancipation Proclamation than Mr. Lincoln. And it was with candor, which did him honor, that he made no pretense of concealing its manifold infirmities either from his own eyes or from the eyes of the people.

The Emancipation Proclamation did not draw its breath in the serene atmosphere of law. It was born in the smoke of battle, and its swaddling bands were rolled in blood.

"In the life beyond, the laws of association may not always be as they are on earth. There similitude must conjoin as dissimilitude must separate. It is thus that the mistakes on earth shall cease to be in the life beyond. The quality of our spiritual life here below shall determine our associations in life eternal."-T. S. Arthur.

Those pretty thoughts were written some years ago. We came across them recently. They express a great deal that we had felt for years, but had never been able to formulate, or heard anybody to express in forms so vivid. From such thoughts we can see that even our life terrestrial is conditioned to the quality of the spiritual perceptions we may be able to grasp and carry into the realm of action.

Take now the clumsy ideals we convey to each other with words like chance, luck, fate, destiny, or with the conception that our imperfect humanity was generated to be imperfect forever, that all we can do is to be forever improving and remain forever

imperfect, that even if we tried to establish normal social surroundings, even then many of us would prefer to remain abnormal, crooked, vicious, criminal; hence we should do our best to stick to some vicious, crooked social organization. There we have the philosophy of the wise men of all periods, the wisdom of conservatism, of foolish radicalism, of empirical reform movements, bent upon declining the dominion of any sensible and fundamentally honest social reform as something impracticable or about impossible. That only is practicable, our wise men say, which leaves plenty of evil on the throne of law, because the complete purification of that throne, because the suppression of all legalized wrongs, would not stop the perpetual evolution of wrong men. Is it possible that a God of righteousness has been able and willing to create such a disgraceful kind of men? The writer, for one, says: Nay.

Fate, luck, chance, destiny, or any other such conceptions-do you know what they