Preston King once introduced A. J. Bleeker to the President, and the
latter, being an applicant for office, was about to hand Mr. Lincoln his
vouchers, when he was asked to read them. Bleeker had not read very far
when the President disconcerted him by the exclamation, “Stop a minute!
You remind me exactly of the man who killed the dog; in fact, you are
just like him.”
“In what respect?” asked Bleeker, not feeling he had received a
compliment.
“Well,” replied the President, “this man had made up his mind to kill
his dog, an ugly brute, and proceeded to knock out his brains with a
club. He continued striking the dog after the latter was dead until a
friend protested, exclaiming, ‘You needn’t strike him any more; the dog
is dead; you killed him at the first blow.’
“‘Oh, yes,’ said he, ‘I know that; but I believe in punishment after
death.’ So, I see, you do.”
Bleeker acknowledged it was possible to overdo a good thing, and
then came back at the President with 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. “This Indian
had been taught to overcome and destroy all his friends he didn’t like,”
said Bleeker, “but the priest told him that while that might be the
Indian method, it was not the doctrine of Christianity or the Bible.
‘Saint Paul distinctly says,’ the priest told him, ‘If thine enemy
hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink.’
“The Indian shook his head at this, but when the priest added, ‘For
in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head,’ Poor Lo was
overcome with emotion, fell on his knees, and with outstretched hands
and uplifted eyes invoked all sorts of blessings on the heads of all his
enemies, supplicating for pleasant hunting-grounds, a large supply of
squaws, lots of papooses, and all other Indian comforts.
“Finally the good priest interrupted him (as you did me, Mr. President),
exclaiming, ‘Stop, my son! You have discharged your Christian duty, and
have done more than enough.’
“‘Oh, no, father,’ replied the Indian; ‘let me pray! I want to burn him
down to the stump!”