The first time I met Mr. Lincoln was during his contest with Douglas. I
was a young clergyman in a small Illinois country town. I was almost a
stranger there when Lincoln was announced to make a speech. I went to
the hall, got a seat well forward and asked a neighbor to point out Mr.
Lincoln when he came in. “You won’t have no trouble knowin’ him when he
comes,” said my friend, and I didn’t. Soon a tall, gaunt man came down
the aisle and was greeted with hearty applause.
I was specially impressed with the fairness and honesty of the man. He
began by stating Douglas’ points as fully and fairly as Douglas could
have done. It struck me that he even overdid it in his anxiety to put
his opponent’s argument in the most attractive form. But then he went at
those arguments and answered them so convincingly that there was nothing
more to be said.
Mr. Lincoln’s manner so charmed me that I asked to meet him after the
address, and learning that he was to be in town the next day attending
court I invited him to dine with me. He came, and we had an interesting
visit.
The thing that most impressed me was his reverence for learning. Recently
come from divinity studies, I was full of books, and he was earnest in
drawing me out about them. He was by no means ignorant of literature, but
as a man of affairs naturally he had not followed new things nor studied
in the lines I had. Philosophy interested him particularly, and after
we had talked about some of the men then in vogue he remarked how much
he felt the need of reading and what a loss it was to a man not to have
grown up among books.
“Men of force,” I answered, “can get on pretty well without books. They
do their own thinking instead of adopting what other men think.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Lincoln, “but books serve to show a man that those
original thoughts of his aren’t very new, after all.”
I met Mr. Lincoln several times later, the next time a long while after
in another place. I thought he would have forgotten me, but he knew me
on sight and asked in the gentlest way possible about my wife, who had
been ill when he came to see us. But of all my memories of Lincoln the
one that stands out strongest was his interest in poetry and theology. He
loved the things of the spirit.--A Clergyman.