IN A HOPELESS MINORITY

The President was often in opposition to the general public sentiment of the North upon certain questions of policy, but he bided his time, and things usually came out as he wanted them. It was Lincoln's opinion, from the first, that apology and reparation to England must be made by the United States because of the arrest, upon the high seas, of the Confederate Commissioners, Mason and Slidell. The country, however (the Northern States), was wild for a conflict with England.
"One war at a time," quietly remarked the President at a Cabinet meeting, where he found the majority of his advisers unfavorably disposed to "backing down." But one member of the Cabinet was a really strong supporter of the President in his attitude.
"I am reminded," the President said after the various arguments had been put forward by the members of the Cabinet, "of a fellow out in my State of Illinois who happened to stray into a church while a revival meeting was in progress. To be truthful, this individual was not entirely sober, and with that instinct which seems to impel all men in his condition to assume a prominent part in proceedings, he walked up the aisle to the very front pew.
"All noticed him, but he did not care; for awhile he joined audibly in the singing, said 'Amen' at the close of the prayers, but, drowsiness overcoming him, he went to sleep. Before the meeting closed, the pastor asked the usual question—'Who are on the Lord's side?'—and the congregation arose en masse. When he asked, 'Who are on the side of the Devil?' the sleeper was about waking up. He heard a portion of the interrogatory, and, seeing the minister on his feet, arose.
"'I don't exactly understand the question,' he said, 'but I'll stand by you, parson, to the last. But it seems to me,' he added, 'that we're in a hopeless minority.'
"I'm in a hopeless minority now," said the President, "and I'll have to admit it."

HIS WAY TO A CHILD'S HEART

Charles E. Anthony's one meeting with Mr. Lincoln presents an interesting contrast to those of the men who shared the emancipator's interest in public affairs. It was in the latter part of the winter of 1861, a short time before Mr. Lincoln left for his inauguration at Washington. Judge Anthony went to the Sherman House, where the President-elect was stopping, and took with him his son, Charles, then but a little boy. Charles played about the room as a child will, looking at whatever interested him for the time, and when the interview with his father was over he was ready to go.
But Mr. Lincoln, ever interested in little children, called the lad to him and took him upon his great knee.
"My impression of him all the time I had been playing about the room," said Mr. Anthony, "was that he was a terribly homely man. I was rather repelled. But no sooner did he speak to me than the expression of his face changed completely, or, rather, my view of it changed. It at once became kindly and attractive. He asked me some questions, seeming instantly to find in the turmoil of all the great questions that must have been heavy upon him, the very ones that would go to the thought of a child. I answered him without hesitation, and after a moment he patted my shoulder and said:
"'Well, you'll be a man before your mother yet,' and put me down.
"I had never before heard the homely old expression, and it puzzled me for a time. After a moment I understood it, but he looked at me while I was puzzling over it, and seemed to be amused, as no doubt he was."
The incident simply illustrates the ease and readiness with which Lincoln could turn from the mighty questions before the nation, give a moment's interested attention to a child, and return at once to matters of state.

WOMEN PLEAD FOR PARDONS

One day during the War an attractively and handsomely dressed woman called on President Lincoln to procure the release from prison of a relation in whom she professed the deepest interest.
She was a good talker, and her winning ways seemed to make a deep impression on the President. After listening to her story, he wrote a few words on a card: "This woman, dear Stanton, is a little smarter than she looks to be," enclosed it in an envelope and directed her to take it to the Secretary of War.
On the same day another woman called, more humble in appearance, more plainly clad. It was the old story.
Father and son both in the army, the former in prison. Could not the latter be discharged from the army and sent home to help his mother?
A few strokes of the pen, a gentle nod of the head, and the little woman, her eyes filling with tears and expressing a grateful acknowledgment her tongue, could not utter, passed out.
A lady so thankful for the release of her husband was in the act of kneeling in thankfulness. "Get up," he said, "don't kneel to me, but thank God and go."
An old lady for the same reason came forward with tears in her eyes to express her gratitude. "Good-bye, Mr. Lincoln," said she; "I shall probably never see you again till we meet in heaven." She had the President's hand in hers, and he was deeply moved. He instantly took her right hand in both of his, and, following her to the door, said, "I am afraid with all my troubles I shall never get to the resting-place you speak of; but if I do, I am sure I shall find you. That you wish me to get there is, I believe, the best wish you could make for me. Good-bye."
Then the President remarked to a friend, "It is more than many can often say, that in doing right one has made two people happy in one day. Speed, die when I may, I want it said of me by those who know me best, that I have always plucked a thistle and planted a flower when I thought a flower would grow."

A STAGE-COACH STORY

The following is told by Thomas H. Nelson, of Terre Haute, Indiana, who was appointed minister to Chili by Lincoln:
Judge Abram Hammond, afterwards Governor of Indiana, and myself arranged to go from Terre Haute to Indianapolis in a stage-coach.
As we stepped in we discovered that the entire back seat was occupied by a long, lank individual, whose head seemed to protrude from one end of the coach and his feet from the other. He was the sole occupant, and was sleeping soundly. Hammond slapped him familiarly on the shoulder, and asked him if he had chartered the coach that day.
"Certainly not," and he at once took the front seat, politely giving us the place of honor and comfort. An odd-looking fellow he was, with a twenty-five cent hat, without vest or cravat. Regarding him as a good subject for merriment, we perpetrated several jokes.
He took them all with utmost innocence and good nature, and joined in the laugh, although at his own expense.
After an astounding display of wordy pyrotechnics, the dazed and bewildered stranger asked, "What will be the upshot of this comet business?"
Late in the evening we reached Indianapolis, and hurried to Browning's hotel, losing sight of the stranger altogether.
We retired to our room to brush our clothes. In a few minutes I descended to the portico, and there descried our long, gloomy fellow traveler in the center of an admiring group of lawyers, among whom were Judges McLean and Huntington, Albert S. White, and Richard W. Thompson, who seemed to be amused and interested in a story he was telling. I inquired of Browning, the landlord, who he was. "Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, a member of Congress," was his response.
I was thunderstruck at the announcement. I hastened upstairs and told Hammond the startling news, and together we emerged from the hotel by a back door, and went down an alley to another house, thus avoiding further contact with our distinguished fellow traveler.
Years afterward, when the President-elect was on his way to Washington, I was in the same hotel looking over the distinguished party, when a long arm reached to my shoulder, and a shrill voice exclaimed, "Hello, Nelson! do you think, after all, the whole world is going to follow the darned thing off?" The words were my own in answer to his question in the stage-coach. The speaker was Abraham Lincoln.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN FAVORITE POEM

HIS FAVORITE POEM
Mr. Lincoln's favorite poem was "Oh! Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud?" written by William Knox, a Scotchman, although Mr. Lincoln never knew the author's name. He once said to a friend:
"This poem has been a great favorite with me for years. It was first shown to me, when a young man, by a friend. I afterward saw it and cut it from a newspaper and learned it by heart. I would give a great deal to know who wrote it, but I have never been able to ascertain."

"Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?--

Like a swift-fleeing 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 husband, that mother and infant who blessed

--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--aye, they died--and we things that are now,

That walk on the turf that lies o'er 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?"