Scriptural authority for appointing him. You remember that when Moses was on Mount Sinai, getting a commission for Aaron, that same Aaron was at the foot of the mountain making a false god for the people to worship. Yet Aaron got his commission, you know."

The late Chief-Justice Carter, of the District of Columbia, once called upon Lincoln with a party of politicians to secure the appointment of a gentleman who was opposed by the Senators from his State. Lincoln suggested that they ought to get the Senators on their side. They replied that, owing to local complications, such a thing was impossible. Lincoln retorted that nothing was impossible in politics; that the peculiarities of the Senator referred to were well known, and that by the use of a little tact and diplomacy he might be brought around, in which case there would be no doubt about the appointment. To clinch his argument, Lincoln told a story of James Quarles, a distinguished lawyer of Tennessee. Quarles, he said, was trying a case, and after producing his evidence rested; whereupon the defense produced a witness who swore Quarles completely out of court, and a verdict was rendered accordingly. After the trial one of his friends came to him and said:

a livin'."

Anthony J. Bleecker tell plying for a position unde President requested him Before Bleecker got half cried out, "Oh, stop! You killed the dog." "In Bleecker, not feeling partic comparison. Mr. Lincoln vicious animal which he spatch, and accordingly kı with a club. He contin until a friend stayed his h: needn't strike him any mc you killed him at the fir said he, 'I know that; but ment after death.' So, I Mr. Bleecker acknowleč sible to do too much som

turn told an anecdote of a good priest who converted an Indian from heathenism to Christianity; the only difficulty he had with him was to get him to pray for his enemies. "The Indian had been taught by his father to overcome and destroy them. 'That,' said the priest, 'may be the Indian's creed, but it is not the doctrine of Christianity or the Bible. St. Paul distinctly says, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink."' The Indian shook his head at this and seemed dejected; but when the priest added, 'For in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head,' the poor convert was overcome with emotion, fell on his knees, and with outstretched hands and uplifted eyes invoked all sorts of blessings on his adversary's head, supplicating for pleasant hunting-grounds, a large supply of squaws, lots of papooses, and all other Indian comforts, till the good priest interrupted him (as you did me), exclaiming, 'Stop, my son! You have discharged your Christian duty, and have done more than enough.' 'Oh no, Father,' says the Indian, 'let me pray! I want to burn him down to the stump!'" Mr. Bleecker got the job.

"On arriving at the White House," relates General Wilson, "I found a Congressman in

earnest conversation with the President. Looking at me as if I were an intruder, the politician stopped, and Mr. Lincoln said, 'It is all right— we are going out together; so turn on your oratory.' So the member resumed talking vigorously for five minutes or more, in behalf of his constituent, an applicant for some office. The President, looking critically at the right side of his face and then on the left, remarked, in an interested manner, 'Why, how close you do shave, John!' That was the way in which he baffled the office-seekers; and, although the Congressman was disappointed, of course, he could not avoid laughing. After his departure I said, 'Mr. President, is that the way you manage the politicians?' And he answered, 'Well, you must not suppose you have all the strategy in the army.

H. C. Whitney relates the following story: "I was in Washington in regard to the Indian service for a few days in 1861, and I said to Mr. Lincoln one day, 'Everything is drifting into the war, and I guess you'll have to put me in the army.' He looked up from his work and said, goodhumoredly: 'I'm making generals now. a few days I'll be making quartermasters, and then I'll fix you.''

In

Certain officials in the government employ were very anxious to get absolute control of certain moneys to be disbursed by them. These moneys were formerly controlled by the district attorneys of certain districts, and the control of these district attorneys they were anxious to set aside, and they came to the President with this plea. He knew what they wanted, and told them the following story:

"You are very much like a man in Illinois whose cabin was burned down, and, according to the kindly custom of early days in the West, his neighbors all contributed something to start him again. In his case they had been so liberal that he soon found himself better off than before the fire, and got proud. One day a neighbor brought him a bag of oats, but the fellow refused it with scorn, and said, 'I am not taking oats now; I take nothing but money.'

,,,

While Lincoln was always very patient, he often adopted droll methods of getting rid of bores. The late Justice Carter of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia used to relate an incident of a Philadelphia man who called at the White House so frequently, and took up so much of the President's time, that the latter finally lost his patience. One day when the