What we have to do to-day is to receive them cheerfully, and to give
them ensemble, and a modern American and democratic physiognomy.
A LINCOLN REMINISCENCE
As is well known, story-telling was often with President Lincoln a
weapon which he employ'd with great skill. Very often he could
not give a point-blank reply or comment--and these indirections,
(sometimes funny, but not always so,) were probably the best responses
possible. In the gloomiest period of the war, he had a call from a
large delegation of bank presidents. In the talk after business was
settled, one of the big Dons asked Mr. Lincoln if his confidence in
the permanency of the Union was not beginning to be shaken--whereupon
the homely President told a little story: "When I was a young man
in Illinois," said he, "I boarded for a time with a deacon of the
Presbyterian church. One night I was roused from my sleep by a rap at
the door, and I heard the deacon's voice exclaiming, 'Arise, Abraham!
the day of judgment has come!' I sprang from my bed and rushed to the
window, and saw the stars falling in great showers; but looking back
of them in the heavens I saw the grand old constellations, with which
I was so well acquainted, fixed and true in their places. Gentlemen,
the world did not come to an end then, nor will the Union now."
FREEDOM
It is not only true that most people entirely misunderstand Freedom,
but I sometimes think I have not yet met one person who rightly
understands it.
Pages:
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567