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."