“Yes, sir; he was what I call a _godly_ man. Fact is, I never knew
anybody I felt so sure would walk straight into Heaven, everybody
welcomin’ him, nobody fussin’ or fumin’ about his bein’ let in as
Abraham Lincoln.”
Billy was tilted back in a worn high-back Windsor, I seated properly
in his famous “Lincoln’s chair,” a seat too revered for anybody to
stand on two legs. It was a snowy blusterly day and the talk had run on
uninterruptedly from the weather to the campaign. (The year was 1896,
and Billy, being a gold Democrat, was gloomy over politics.) We had
finally arrived, as we always did when we met, at “when Mr. Lincoln
was alive,” and Billy had been dwelling lovingly on his great friend’s
gentleness, goodness, honesty.
“You know I never knew anybody,” he went on, “who seemed to me more
interested in God, more curious about Him, more anxious to find out
what He was drivin’ at in the world, than Mr. Lincoln. I reckon he
was allus that way. There ain’t any doubt that from the time he was a
little shaver he grabbed on to everything that came his way--wouldn’t
let it go ’til he had it worked out, fixed in his mind so he understood
it, and could tell it the way he saw it. Same about religion as
everything else. Of course he didn’t get no religious teachin’ like
youngsters have nowadays--Sunday schools and church regular every
Sunday--lessons all worked out, and all kinds of books to explain ’em.
Still I ain’t sure but what they give so many helps now, the Bible
don’t get much show.
“It wa’n’t so when Mr. Lincoln was a boy. No, sir. Bible was the whole
thing, and there ain’t any doubt he knew it pretty near by heart, knew
it well before he ever could read, for Lincoln had a good mother,
that’s sure, the kind that wanted more than anything else in the world
to have her boy grow up to be a good man, and she did all she knew how
to teach him right.
“I remember hearin’ him say once how she used to tell him Bible
stories, teach him verses--always quotin’ ’em. I can see him now
sprawlin’ on the floor in front of the fire listenin’ to Nancy Hanks
tellin’ him about Moses and Jacob and Noah and all those old fellows,
tellin’ him about Jesus and his dyin’ on the cross. I tell you that
took hold of a little shaver, livin’ like he did, remote and not havin’
many books or places to go. Filled you chuck full of wonder and
mystery, made you lie awake nights, and sometimes swelled you all up,
wantin’ to be good.
“Must have come mighty hard on him havin’ her die. Think of a little
codger like him seein’ his mother lyin’ dead in that shack of theirs,
seein’ Tom Lincoln holdin’ his head and wonderin’ what he’d do now.
Poor little tad! He must have crept up and looked at her, and gone out
and throwed himself on the ground and cried himself out. Hard thing for
a boy of nine to lose his mother, specially in such a place as they
lived in.
“I don’t see how he could get much comfort out of what they taught
about her dyin’, sayin’ it was God’s will, and hintin’ that if you’d
been what you ought to be it wouldn’t have happened, never told a man
that if he let a woman work herself to death it was his doin’s she
died--not God’s will at all--God’s will she should live and be happy
and make him happy.
“But I must say Mr. Lincoln had luck in the step-mother he got. If
there ever was a good woman, it was Sarah Johnston, and she certain did
her duty by Tom Lincoln’s children. ’Twa’n’t so easy either, poor as he
was, the kind that never really got a hold on anything. Sarah Johnston
did her part--teachin’ Mr. Lincoln just as his own mother would, and
just as anxious as she’d been to have him grow up a good man. I tell
you she was proud of him when he got to be President. I remember seein’
her back in ’62 or ’3 on the farm Mr. Lincoln gave her, little ways out
of Charleston. One of the last things Mr. Lincoln did before he went to
Washington was to go down there and see his step-mother. He knew better
than anybody what she’d done for him.
“Yes, sir, the best religious teachin’ Mr. Lincoln ever got was from
Tom Lincoln’s two wives. It was the kind that went deep and stuck,
because he saw ’em livin’ it every day, practicin’ it on him and his
sister and his father and the neighbors. Whatever else he might have
seen and learnt, when he was a boy he knew what his two mothers thought
religion meant, and he never got away from that.
“Of course he had other teachin’, principally what he got from the
preachers that came around, now and then. Ramblin’ lot they was, men
all het up over the sins of the world, and bent on doin’ their part
towards headin’ off people from hell-fire. They traveled around alone,
sometimes on horseback, sometimes afoot--poor as Job, not too much to
wear or to eat, never thinkin’ of themselves, only about savin’ souls;
and it was natural that bein’ alone so much, seein’ so much misery
and so much wickedness, for there was lots that was bad in that part
of the world in them times--natural enough meditatin’ as they did
that they preached pretty strong doctrine. Didn’t have a chance often
at a congregation, and felt they must scare it to repentance if they
couldn’t do no other way. They’d work up people ’til they got ’em to
shoutin’ for mercy.
“I don’t suppose they ever had anybody that listened better to ’em than
Mr. Lincoln. I can just see him watchin’ ’em and tryin’ to understand
what they meant. He was curious, rolled things over, kept at ’em and no
amount of excitement they stirred up would ever have upset him. No, he
wa’n’t that kind.
“But he remembered what they said, and the way they said it. Used to
get the youngsters together and try it on them. I heard him talkin’ in
here one day about the early preachin’ and I remember his sayin’: ’I
got to be quite a preacher myself in those days. You know how those old
fellows felt they hadn’t done their duty if they didn’t get everybody
in the church weepin’ for their sins. We never set much store by a
preacher that didn’t draw tears and groans. Pretty strong doctrine,
mostly hell-fire. There was a time when I preached myself to the
children every week we didn’t have a minister. I didn’t think much of
my sermon if I didn’t make ’em cry. I reckon there was more oratory
than religion in what I had to say.’
“I reckon he was right about that, allus tryin’ to see if he could do
what other folks did, sort of measurin’ himself.
“Yes, sir, so far as preachin’ was concerned it was a God of wrath that
Abraham Lincoln was brought up on, and there ain’t any denyin’ that he
had to go through a lot that carried out that idea. A boy can’t grow
up in a backwoods settlement like Gentryville, Indiana, without seein’
a lot that’s puzzlin’, sort of scares you and makes you miserable.
Things was harsh and things was skimpy. There wa’n’t so much to eat.
Sometimes there was fever and ague and rheumatiz and milk sick. Woman
died from too much work. No medicine--no care, like his mother did. I
expect there wa’n’t any human crime or sorrow he didn’t know about,
didn’t wonder about. Thing couldn’t be so terrible he would keep away
from it. Why I heard him tell once how a boy he knew went crazy, never
got over it, used to sing to himself all night long, and Mr. Lincoln
said that he couldn’t keep away, but used to slip out nights and listen
to that poor idiot croonin’ to himself. He was like that, interested in
strange things he didn’t understand, in signs and dreams and mysteries.
“Still things have to be worse than they generally are anywhere to keep
a boy down-hearted right along--specially a boy like Mr. Lincoln, with
an investigatin’ turn of mind like his, so many new things comin’ along
to surprise you. Why it was almost like Robinson Crusoe out there--wild
land, havin’ to make everything for yourself--hunt your meat and grow
your cotton, mighty excitin’ life for a boy--lots to do--lots of fun,
too, winter and summer. Somehow when you grow up in the country you
can’t make out that God ain’t kind, if he is severe. I reckon that was
the way Mr. Lincoln sized it up early; world might be a vale of tears,
like they taught, but he saw it was mighty interestin’ too, and a good
deal of fun to be got along with the tears.
“Trouble was later to keep things balanced. The older he grew, the more
he read, and he begun to run up against a kind of thinkin’ along about
the time he was twenty-one or twenty-two that was a good deal different
from that he’d been used to, books that made out the Bible wa’n’t so,
that even said there wa’n’t any God. We all took a turn at readin’ Tom
Paine and Voltaire out here, and there was another book--somebody’s
‘Ruins’--I forget the name.”
“Volney?”
“Yes, that’s it. Volney’s Ruins.”
“Do you know I think that book took an awful grip on Mr. Lincoln.
I reckon it was the first time he had ever realized how long the
world’s been runnin’; how many lots of men have lived and settled
countries and built cities and how time and time again they’ve all
been wiped out. Mr. Lincoln couldn’t get over that. I’ve heard him
talk about how old the world was time and time again, how nothing
lasted--men--cities--nations. One set on top of another--men comin’
along just as interested and busy as we are, in doin’ things, and then
little by little all they done passin’ away.
“He was always speculatin’ about that kind of thing. I remember in ’48
when he came back from Congress he stopped to see Niagara Falls. Well,
sir, when he got home he couldn’t talk about anything else for days,
seemed to knock politics clean out of his mind. He’d sit there that
fall in that chair you’re in and talk and talk about it. Talk just like
it’s printed in those books his secretary got up. I never cared myself
for all those articles they wrote. Wrong, am I? Mebbe so, but there
wa’n’t enough of Mr. Lincoln in ’em to suit me. I wanted to know what
he said about everything in his own words. But I tell you when I saw
the books with the things he had said and wrote all brought together
nice and neat, and one after another, I just took to that. I’ve got
’em here in my desk, often read ’em and lots of it sounds just as
natural, almost hear him sayin’ it, just as if he was settin’ here by
the stove.
“Now what he tells about Niagara in the book is like that--just as if
he was here. I can hear him sayin’: ‘Why, Billy, when Columbus first
landed here, when Christ suffered on the Cross, when Moses crossed
dry-shod through the Red Sea, even when Adam was first made, Niagara
was roarin’ away. He’d talk in here just as it is printed there; how
the big beasts whose bones they’ve found in mounds must have seen the
falls, how it’s older than them and older than the first race of men.
They’re all dead and gone, not even bones of many of ’em left, and
yet there’s Niagara boomin’ away fresh as ever.
“He used to prove by the way the water had worn away the rocks that
the world was at least fourteen thousand years old. A long spell, but
folks tell me it ain’t nothin’ to what is bein’ estimated now.
“Makes men seem pretty small, don’t it? God seems to wipe ’em out as
careless like as if He were cleanin’ a slate. How could He care and
do that? It made such a mite of a man, no better’n a fly. That’s what
bothered Mr. Lincoln. I know how he felt. That’s the way it hit me when
I first began to understand all the stars were worlds like ours. What I
couldn’t see and can’t now is how we can be so blame sure ours is the
only world with men on. And if they’re others and they’re wiped out
regular like we are, well it knocked me all of a heap at first, ’peared
to me mighty unlikely that God knew anything about _me_.
“I expect Mr. Lincoln felt something like that when he studied how old
the world was and how one set of ruins was piled on top of another.
“Then there was another thing. Lots of those old cities and old nations
wa’n’t Christian at all, and yet accordin’ to the ruins it looked as if
the people was just as happy, knew just as much, had just as good laws
as any Christian nation now; some of them a blamed sight better. Now
how was a boy like Lincoln going to handle a problem like that? Well I
guess for a time he handled it like the man who wrote about the Ruins.
Never seemed queer to me he should have written a free-thinkin’ book
after that kind of readin’. I reckon he had to write something to get
his head clear. Allus had to have things clear.
“You know that story of course about that book. First time I ever heard
it was back in 1846 when him and Elder Cartwright was runnin’ for
Congress. You know about Cartwright? Well, sir, he made his campaign
against Lincoln in ’46, not on politics at all--made it on chargin’ him
with bein’ an infidel because he wa’n’t a church member and because he
said Mr. Lincoln had written a free thought book when he was a boy. He
kept it up until along in the fall Mr. Lincoln shut him up good. He’d
gone down to where Cartwright lived to make a political speech and
some of us went along. Cartwright was runnin’ a revival, and long in
the evening before startin’ home we went in and set in the back of the
church. When it came time to ask sinners to come forward, the elder got
pretty excited. ‘Where be you goin’?’ he shouted. ‘To Hell if you don’t
repent and come to this altar.’ At last he began to call on Mr. Lincoln
to come forward. Well, you know nobody likes to be called out like
that right in meetin’. Mr. Lincoln didn’t budge, just set there. The
elder he kept it up. Finally he shouted, ‘If Mr. Lincoln ain’t goin’
to repent and go to Heaven, where is he goin’?’ Intimatin’, I suppose,
that he was headed for Hell. ‘Where be you goin’, Mr. Lincoln?’ he
shouted.
“Well, sir, at that Mr. Lincoln rose up and said quiet like:
“‘I’m goin’ to Congress.’
“For a minute you could have heard a pin drop and then--well, I just
snorted--couldn’t help it. Ma was awful ashamed when I told her, said I
oughtin’ to done it--right in meetin’, but I couldn’t help it--just set
there and shook and shook. The elder didn’t make any more observations
to Mr. Lincoln that trip.
“Goin’ home I said, ‘Mr. Lincoln, you just served the elder right,
shut him up, and I guess you’re right; you be goin’ to Congress.’
“‘Well, Billy,’ he said, smilin’ and lookin’ serious. ‘I’ve made up my
mind that Brother Cartwright ain’t goin’ to make the religion of Jesus
Christ a political issue in this District if I can help it.’
“Some of the elder’s friends pretended to think Mr. Lincoln was mockin’
at the Christian religion when he answered back like that. Not a bit.
He was protectin’ it accordin’ to my way of thinkin’.
“I reckon I understand him a little because I’m more or less that way
myself--can’t help seein’ things funny. I’ve done a lot of things Ma
says people misunderstand. A while back comin’ home from New York I did
somethin’ I expect some people would have called mockin’ at religion;
Mr. Lincoln wouldn’t.
“You see I’d been down to buy drugs and comin’ home I was readin’
the Bible in the mornin’ in my seat in the sleepin’ car. Allus read a
chapter every mornin’, Ma got me in the way of it, and I like it--does
me good--keeps me from burstin’ out at somebody when I get mad, that
is, it does for the most part.
“Well, as I was sayin’, I was readin’ my chapter, and I reckon mebbe I
was readin’ out loud when I looked up and see the porter lookin’ at me
and kinda snickerin’.
“‘See here, boy,’ I says, ‘you smilin’ at the Bible. Well, you set down
there. Set down,’ I says. I’m a pretty stout man as you can see, weigh
200, and I reckon I can throw most men my size. Why, I’ve wrestled with
Mr. Lincoln, yes, sir, wrestled with Abraham Lincoln, right out there
in the alley. You see, I ain’t used to bein’ disobeyed, and that nigger
knew it, and he just dropped.
“‘Boy,’ I says, ‘I’m goin’ to read you a chapter out of this Bible,
and you’re goin’ to listen.’ And I did it. ‘Now,’ I says, ‘down with
you on your knees, we’re goin’ to have prayers,’ Well, sir, you never
seen such a scared darky. Down he went, and down I went, and I prayed
out loud for that porter’s soul and before I was through he was sayin’
‘Amen.’
“Of course the passengers began to take notice, and about the time
I was done along came the conductor, and he lit into me and said he
wa’n’t goin’ to have any such performances in his car.
“Well, you can better guess that gave me a text. He’d a man in that
car fillin’ himself up with liquor half the night, just plain drunk
and disorderly. ‘I ain’t heard you makin’ any loud objections to the
drinkin’ goin’ on in this car,’ I says. ‘If that don’t disturb the
peace, prayin’ won’t.’ And two or three passengers just chimed right
in and said, ‘That’s so. Do us all good if we had more prayin’ and less
drinkin’.’ Fact was, I was quite popular the rest of the trip.
“Now I reckon some would a been shocked by what I done. Ma said when I
told her. ‘Now you know, William, it wasn’t that porter’s soul you was
interested in half as much as gettin’ a little fun out of him.’ Well,
mebbe so. I won’t deny there was some mischief in it. But it wouldn’t
have shocked Mr. Lincoln. He’d understood. Seems a pity I can’t tell
him about that. He’d enjoyed it.
“Well, to go back to Cartwright and the free thought book he said
Lincoln wrote when he was a boy. The elder didn’t pretend he’d seen the
book; said the reason he hadn’t was that it was never printed, only
written, and that not many people ever did see it because Sam Hill,
the storekeeper down to New Salem, thinkin’ it might hurt Lincoln had
snatched it away and thrown it into the stove and burnt it up. Now what
do you think of that?
“Well, Cartwright didn’t get elected--got beaten--beaten bad and nobody
around here ever talked about that book when Mr. Lincoln was runnin’
for President that I heard of. It was after he was dead that somebody
raked up that story again and printed it. It never made much difference
to me. I allus thought it likely he did write something along the lines
he’d been readin’ after. But sakes alive, you ought to seen the fur fly
out here. All the church people riz right up and proved it wa’n’t so;
and those that didn’t profess lit in and proved it was so. They got all
the old inhabitants of Sangamon County who knew Mr. Lincoln to writin’
letters. Lot of them published in the papers.
“One of the most interestin’ accordin’ to my way of thinkin’ was a
letter that came out from Mentor Graham, Lincoln’s old school-master. I
don’t remember it exact, but near as I can recall he said Lincoln asked
him one day when he was livin’ at his house going to school what he
thought about the anger of the Lord, and then he went on to say that he
had written something along that line and wished Mr. Graham would read
it. Well, sir, Mr. Graham wrote in that letter that this thing Lincoln
wrote proved God was too good to destroy the people He’d made, and that
all the misery Adam brought on us by his sin had been wiped out by
the atonement of Christ. Now mind that was an honest man writin’ that
letter, a man who’d been Lincoln’s friend from the start. To be sure
it was some time after the event--pretty near 40 years and I must say
I always suspicion a man’s remembering anything very exact after 40
years. But one thing is sure, Mentor Graham knew Lincoln in those days,
and that’s more than most of them that was arguin’ this thing did.
“Always seemed to me about as reliable testimony as anybody offered. I
contended that most likely Lincoln did write just what Mentor Graham
said he did, and that the brethren thought it was dangerous doctrine to
make out God was that good, and so they called him an infidel. Nothin’
riled those old fellows religiously like tryin’ to make out God didn’t
damn everybody that didn’t believe according to the way they read the
Scriptures. Seemed to hate to think about Mr. Lincoln’s God. I almost
felt sometimes as if they’d rather a man would say there wa’n’t no God
than to make him out a God of Mercy.
“But sakes’ alive, Mentor Graham’s letter didn’t settle it. The boys
used to get to rowin’ about it in here sometimes around the stove
until I could hardly keep track of my perscriptions. The funniest thing
you ever heard was one night when they were at it and an old fellow who
used to live in New Salem dropped in, so they put it up to him; said he
lived in New Salem in ’33; said he knew Lincoln. Wanted to know if he
ever heard of his writin’ a book that Sam Hill burned up in the stove
in his store. The old fellow listened all through without sayin’ a
word, and when they was finished he said, solemn like, ‘Couldn’t have
happened. Wa’n’t no stove. Sam Hill never had one.’
“Well, sir, you ought to seen their jaws drop. Just set starin’ at him
and I thought I’d die a laffin’ to see ’em collapse. I wish Mr. Lincoln
could have heard that old fellow, ‘Wa’n’t no stove.’ How he’d enjoyed
that--‘Wa’n’t no stove.’
“But for all that I never regarded that witness over high. Of course
Sam Hill must have had a stove otherwise there wouldn’t have been a
place for folks to set around.
“It ain’t important to my mind what was in that book. What’s important
is that Abraham Lincoln was wrestlin’ in those days to find out
the truth, wa’n’t content like I was to settle down smotherin’ any
reservations that I might a had. He never did that, grappled hard
with everything touchin’ religion that came up, no matter which side
it was. He never shirked the church if he wa’n’t a member, went
regular, used to go to revivals and camp meetings too in those days
when he was readin’ the ‘Ruins.’ Most of the boys who didn’t profess
went to camp meetings for deviltry--hang around on the edges--playin’
tricks--teasin’ the girls--sometimes gettin’ into regular fights. Mr.
Lincoln never joined into any horse play like that. He took it solemn.
I reckon he wouldn’t ever hesitated a minute to go forward and ask
prayers if he’d really believed that was the way for him to find God.
He knew it wa’n’t. The God he was searchin’ for wa’n’t the kind they
was preachin’. He was tryin’ to find one that he could reconcile with
what he was findin’ out about the world--its ruins--its misery. Clear
as day to me that that was what he was after from the start--some kind
of plan in things, that he could agree to.
“He certainly did have a lot to discourage him--worst was when he lost
his sweetheart. I’ve allus figured it out that if Ann Rutledge had
lived and married him he’d been a different man--leastwise he’d been
happier. He might have even got converted and joined the church, like I
did after I courted Ma. A good woman sort of carries a man along when
he loves her. It’s a mighty sight easier to believe in the goodness of
the Lord and the happiness of man when you’re in love like I’ve allus
been, and like he was with that girl.
“‘There was no doubt she was a fine girl--no doubt he loved her. When
she died he was all broke up for days. I’ve heard his old friends
tell how he give up workin’ and readin’--wandered off into the fields
talkin’ to himself. Seemed as if he couldn’t bear to think of her
covered over with snow--beaten on by rain--wastin’ away--eaten by
worms. I tell you he was the kind that saw it all as it was. That’s the
hard part of bein’ so honest you see things just as they are--don’t
pretend things are different--just as they are. He couldn’t get over
it. I believe it’s the Lord’s mercy he didn’t kill himself those days.
Everybody thought he was goin’ crazy, but I rather think myself he
was wrestlin’ with himself, tryin’ to make himself live. Men like him
want to die pretty often. I reckon he must have cried out many a night
like Job did, ‘What is mine end that I should prolong my life? My soul
chooseth strangling and death rather than life. I loathe it. I would
not live alway.’
“He pulled out, of course, but he never got over havin’ spells of
terrible gloom. I expect there was always a good many nights up to the
end when he wondered if life was worth keepin’. Black moods took him
and he’d go days not hardly speakin’ to people--come in here--set by
the stove--not sayin’ a word--get up--go out--hardly noticin’ you. Boys
understood, used to say ‘Mr. Lincoln’s got the blues.’
“Curious how quick things changed with him. He’d be settin’ here,
laffin’ and jokin’, tellin’ stories and somebody’d drop some little
thing, nobody else would think about, and suddent his eyes would go sad
and his face broodin’ and he’d stop talkin’ or like as not get up and
go out. I don’t mean to say this happened often. Of course that wa’n’t
so; as I’ve told you no end of times, he was the best company that ever
was--the fullest of stories and jokes, and nobody could talk serious
like him. You could listen forever when he’d get to arguin’, but spite
of all that you knew somehow he was a lonely man who had to fight hard
to keep up his feelin’ that life was worth goin’ on with. Gave you
queer feelin’ about him--you knew he was different from the others, and
it kept you from bein’ over-familiar.
“There was a man in here the other day I hadn’t seen for years--used
to be a conductor between here and Chicago--knew him well. It tickled
him to death to have me set him in that chair you’re in--looked it
all over, said it seemed as if he could just see Mr. Lincoln settin’
there. Well, he got to talkin’ about all the big bugs that used to
travel with him, Little Dug, Judge Davis, Logan, Swett, Welden, and all
the rest; and he said something about Mr. Lincoln that shows how he
struck ordinary people. He said Lincoln was the most folksy of any of
them, but that there was something about him that made everybody stand
a little in awe of him. You could get near him in a sort of neighborly
way, as though you had always known him, but there was something
tremendous between you and him all the time.
“This man said he had eaten with him many times at the railroad eatin’
houses. Everybody tried to get near Lincoln when he was eatin’, because
he was such good company, but they looked at him with a kind of
wonder, couldn’t exactly make him out. Sometimes there was a dreadful
loneliness in his look, and the boys used to wonder what he was
thinkin’ about. Whatever it was, he was thinkin’ all alone. No one was
afraid of him, but there was something about him that made plain folks
feel toward him a good deal as a child feels toward his father, because
you know every child looks upon his father as a wonderful man.
“There ain’t any doubt but there was a good many years after Mr.
Lincoln got started and everybody in the state held him high, when he
was a disappointed man and when he brooded a good deal over the way
life was goin’. Trouble was he hadn’t got a grip yet on anything that
satisfied him. He hadn’t made a go of politics, had quit it. Of course
he had plenty of law practice, but, Lord a mighty, you take a town like
this was along in the ’40’s and ’50’s, when Mr. Lincoln was practicin’
here, and get right down to what was really happenin’, and it was enuff
to make a broodin’ man like him sick, and want to quit. He had to
handle it all, a lawyer does, men fightin’ over a dollar, gettin’ rich
on cheatin’, stingy with their wives, breakin’ up families, quarrelin’
over wills, neglectin’ the old folks and yet standin’ high in the
church, regular at prayer meetin’, and teachin’ in Sunday School. There
was a lot of steady meanness like that all around, and it made him feel
bad.
“And then there was dreadful things happened every now and then, men
takin’ up with girls when they had good wives of their own. There’s
more than one poor child lyin’ over there in the graveyard because some
onery old scoundrel got the better of her, and there’s more than one
good man been put to shame in this town because some woman who was no
better than she ought to be run him down. Lord, it makes you sick, and
then every now and then right out of a clear sky there’d be a murder
somewhere in the country. Nobody would talk of anything else for days.
People who hardly ever opened their mouths would find their tongues and
tell the durnedest things.
“It was so all the time Mr. Lincoln was practicin’ out here. And it
made him pretty miserable sometimes, I reckon, to see so much meanness
around. I never knew a man who liked people better’n Mr. Lincoln
did--seemed as if he felt the world ought to be happy, and that it
could be if people would only do the right thing. You’ve heard people
tellin’ how he’d refuse a case often if he didn’t think it ought to be
brought. Well, sir, that’s true. I’ve heard him argue time and again
with the boys about the duty of lawyers to discourage lawsuits. ‘It’s
our business to be peacemakers,’ he used to tell ’em, ‘not to stir up
quarrels for the sake of makin’ a little money.’ I remember somebody
tellin’ how they heard him lecturin’ a man who’d brought him a case,
and pointed out that by some sort of a legal trick, he could get $600.
Made Lincoln mad all through. ‘I won’t take your case,’ he said, ‘but
I’ll give you some free advice. You’re a husky young man. Go to work
and _earn_ your $600.’
“I’ve always figured it out that he was a sight more contented after
he got his grip on the slavery question. You know how he felt about
slavery; thought it was wrong, and when he began to see there was a
chance to fight it in a way that would count, he felt different towards
his life, saw it did mean something, began to feel he was some real
use. I reckon he began to believe God had a place for him--that he was
put into the world for a good and sufficient reason. Now as I see Mr.
Lincoln, that was all he ever needed to reconcile him to things. As he
began to see more and more that he had his argument sound, and that
it was takin’ hold in the country, that men was listenin’ to him and
sayin’ he had it right, why more and more he was something like happy.
He made up his mind that the time had come when God meant to say to
slavery, ‘Thus far and no farther,’ and he was ready to put in his best
licks to help Him.
“He wrestled with that question till he drove it clean out of politics
right down onto bed rock of right and wrong, and there he stood;
slavery was wrong, and accordin’ to his way of lookin’ at it, people
who pretended to regulate their lives on religion ought to be agin it.
Allus troubled him a lot and sometimes made him pretty bitter that so
many folks that stood high as Christians was for slavery. I remember
Newt Bateman tellin’ how Lincoln came in his office one day after
his nomination--Newt was State School Superintendent, and he and Mr.
Lincoln was always great friends,--well, he said Mr. Lincoln came in
with a report of a canvass of how people in Springfield were goin’ to
vote, and he said:
“‘Let’s see how the ministers in this town are goin’ to vote,’ and he
went through the list pickin’ ’em out and settin’ ’em down, and, would
you believe it now, he found that out of 23 ministers 20 were against
him. He was dreadfully upset, and talked a long time about it. Newt
said he pulled a New Testament out of his pocket.
“‘What I don’t understand,’ he said, ‘is how anybody can think this
book stands for slavery. Human bondage can’t live a minute in its
light, and yet here’s all these men who consider themselves called
to make the teachin’ of this book clear votin’ against me. I don’t
understand it.
“‘They know Douglas don’t care whether slavery’s voted up or down, but
they ought to know that God cares and humanity cares and they know I
care. They ain’t been readin’ their Bibles right.
“‘Seems to me sometimes as if God had borne with this thing until the
very teachers of religion had come to defend it out of the Bible. But
they’ll find the day will come when His wrath will upset it. I believe
the cup of iniquity is full, and that before we get through God will
make the country suffer for toleratin’ a thing that is so contrary to
what He teaches in this Book.’
“As I see it, that idee grew in him. You know how he hated war. Seemed
as if he couldn’t stand it sometimes, but there ain’t no doubt that
more and more he looked at it as God’s doin’--His way of punishin’
men for their sin in allowin’ slavery. He said that more’n once to
the country. Remember what he wrote in his call for a fast-day in the
spring of ’63? No? Well, I’ve got it here--just let me read it to you.”
Billy rose, and after lingering long enough at the window to remark
that the “storm wa’n’t lettin’ up any,” went to a scratched and worn
desk, a companion piece to “Mr. Lincoln’s chair,” and took from the
drawer where he kept his precious relics a bundle of faded yellow
newspapers and selected a copy of the New York _Tribune_ of March 31,
1863.
“Now you listen,” said Billy, “and see if I ain’t right that his idee
when he talked to Newt had takin’ hold of him deep.” So Billy read
sonorously the sentences which seemed to him to demonstrate his point:
“‘Insomuch as we know that by His divine law nations, like individuals,
are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may
we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now
desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our
presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a
whole people.’
“Isn’t that just what he said to Newt Bateman,” Billy stopped long
enough to remark.
“‘We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We
have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have
grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown;
but we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which
preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened
us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts,
that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and
virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become
too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving
grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.
“‘It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power,
to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.’
* * * * *
“The longer the war went on, the more and more sure he was that God was
workin’ out something, and hard as it was for him, the more and more
reconciled he got to God’s Government. Seems to me that’s clear from
what he said in his last Inaugural. You remember:
“The Almighty has His own purposes. ‘Woe unto the world because of
offenses! For it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man
by whom the offense cometh.’ Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray
that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away, yet if God
wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two
hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until
every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn
with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must
be said, ‘The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’
“I like to say that just like he said it. Seems kinda like music. He
was that way sometimes, swung into sort of talk and made your heart
stop to listen; it was so sweet and solemn-like.
“Makes me ache though to think what he had to go through to come out
where he could talk so sure and calm about things; for certain as he
was that God had a purpose in it all, he wa’n’t so sure always that
he was proceedin’ along the lines the Almighty approved of. He never
got over that struggle long as he was President, always askin’ himself
whether he was on God’s side. Puzzled him bad that both sides thought
God was with ’em. He pointed out more than once how the rebel soldiers
was prayin’ for victory just as earnest as ours--how the rebel people
got the same kind of help out of prayer that the Union people did. And
both couldn’t be right.
“There isn’t any doubt he often tested out whether God agreed with
his argument or not, by the way things swung. It was that way about
the Emancipation Proclamation. You know how he thought about that for
months, and for the most part kept it to himself. He didn’t want to
do it that way, was dead set on the North buying the slaves instead
of takin’ ’em. But he had the Emancipation Proclamation ready,
and he’d told God he’d let it loose if He’d give us the victory.
Sounds queer, mebbe, but that’s what he did. He told the Cabinet so,
and they’ve told about it. A little mite superstitious, some would
say. But Mr. Lincoln was a little superstitious, interested in things
like signs and dreams--specially dreams, seemed to feel they might be
tryin’ to give him a hint. He’s told me many a time about dreams he’d
had, used to have same dream over and over, never got tired studyin’
what it meant. You remember that happened in the war. He’d used to
dream he saw a curious lookin’ boat runnin’ full speed toward a shore
he couldn’t make out clear, had that dream before nearly all the big
battles--had it the night before they killed him, and told the Cabinet
about it--thought it meant there’d be good news from Sherman.
“He got powerful discouraged sometimes, for it did seem the first three
years of the war as if the Almighty wa’n’t sympathizin’ over much with
the North. You remember how I told you once of havin’ a long talk with
him at night that time I went down to Washington to see him. Things
was bad, awful bad. Country just plumb worn out with the war. People
was beginnin’ to turn against it. Couldn’t stand the blood lettin’,
the sufferin’, and the awful wickedness of it. There was a lot of that
feelin’ in ’64. People willin’ to give up anything--let the South
go--let her keep her slaves--do anything to put an end to the killin’.
I tell you a man has to keep his eyes ahead in war--keep tellin’
himself over and over what’s it all about. Mr. Lincoln had to. They
were talkin’ peace to him, riotin’ about the drafts, stirrin’ up more
kinds of trouble for him than he ever knew there was, I reckon. And he
felt it--felt it bad; and that night it seemed to do him good to talk
it out. You see I come from home, and I didn’t have no connection with
things down there, and ’twas natural he’d open up to me as he couldn’t
to them on the ground; and he did.
“‘I’ve studied a lot, Billy,’ he said, ‘whether this is God’s side of
this war. I’ve tried my best to figure it out straight, and I can’t see
anything but that He must be for us. But look how things is goin’.
“‘One thing sure all I can do is to follow what I think’s right.
Whatever shall appear to be God’s will, I’ll do. There’s quite a number
of people who seem to think they know what God wants me to do. They
come down every now and then and tell me so. I must say as I’ve told
some of them that it’s more’n likely if God is goin’ to reveal His will
on a point connected with my duty He’d naturally reveal it to me. They
don’t all lay it up against me when I talk that way. Take the Quakers.
They’re good people, and they’ve been in a bad fix for they don’t
believe in slavery, and they don’t believe in war, and yet it seems
to have come to the point that out of this war started to save free
government, we’re going to get rid of slavery. But they can’t accept
that way. Still they don’t lay it up against me that I do, and they
pray regular for me.
“‘We’ve been wrong, North and South, about slavery. No use to blame it
all on the South. We’ve been in it too, from the start. If both sides
had been willin’ to give in a little, we might a worked it out, that is
if we’d all been willin’ to admit the thing was wrong, and take our
share of the burden in puttin’ an end to it. It’s because we wouldn’t
or mebbe couldn’t that war has come.
“‘It’s for our sins, Billy, this war is. We’ve brought it on ourselves.
And God ain’t goin’ to stop it because we ask Him to. We’ve got to
fulfill the law. We broke the law, and God wouldn’t be God as I see Him
if He didn’t stand by His own laws and make us take all that’s comin’
to us. I can’t think we won’t win the war. Seems to me that must be
God’s way, but if we don’t, and the Union is broken and slavery goes
on, well, all it means accordin’ to my way of seein’ things is that the
laws ain’t satisfied yet, that we ain’t done our part. There’ll be more
trouble until the reason of trouble ends.
“‘But I don’t lay it up against God, Billy. What it seems to me He’s
tryin’ to do is to get men to see that there can’t be any peace or
happiness in this world so long as they ain’t fair to one another. You
can’t have a happy world unless you’ve got a just world, and slavery
ain’t just. It’s got to go. I don’t know when. It’s always seemed to me
a pretty durable struggle--did back in ’58, but I didn’t see anything
so bad then as we’ve come to. Even if I’d known I couldn’t have done
different, Billy. Even if we don’t win this war and the Confederates
set up a country with slavery in it, that ain’t going to end it for me.
I’ll have to go on fightin’ slavery. I know God means I should.
“‘It takes God a long time to work out His will with men like us,
Billy, bad men, stupid men, selfish men. But even if we’re beat,
there’s a gain. There are more men who see clear now how hard it is for
people to rule themselves, more people determined government by the
people shan’t perish from the earth, more people willin’ to admit that
you can’t have peace when you’ve got a thing like slavery goin’ on.
That’s something, that’s goin’ to help when the next struggle comes.
“‘You mustn’t think I’m givin’ in, Billy. I ain’t, but look how things
are goin’. What if we lose the election, and you must admit it looks
now as if we would, what if we lose and a Copperhead Government makes
peace--gives the South her slaves--lets the “erring sisters” set up for
themselves. I’ve got to think about that, Billy.
“‘Seems to me I can’t bear the idea all this blood-lettin’ should end
that way, for I know lasting peace ain’t in that set of circumstances.
That means trouble, more trouble, mebbe war again until we obey the law
of God, and let our brother man go free.’
“And he just dropped his head and groaned, seemed as if I could hear
him prayin’, ‘Oh, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from
me!’
“Think he prayed? Think Abraham Lincoln prayed?” Billy’s eyes were
stern, and his voice full of reproachful surprise.
“I _know_ he did. You wouldn’t ask that question if you could have
heard him that night he left here for Washington sayin’ good-by to us
in the rain, tellin’ us that without God’s help he could not succeed
in what he was goin’ into--that with it, he could not fail; tellin’ us
he was turnin’ us over to God, and askin’ us to remember him in our
prayers. Why, a man can’t talk like that that don’t pray, leastwise an
honest man like Abraham Lincoln.
“And he couldn’t have stood it without God, sufferin’ as he did, abused
as he was, defeated again and again, and yet always hangin’ on, always
believin’. Don’t you _see_ from what I’ve been tellin’ you that Abraham
Lincoln all through the war was seekin’ to work with God, strugglin’ to
find out His purpose, and make it prevail on earth. A man can’t do that
unless he gets close to God, talks with Him.
“How do you suppose a man--just a common man, like Abraham Lincoln,
could ever have risen up to say anything like he did in ’65 in his
Inaugural if he hadn’t known God:
“‘With malice toward none, with charity for all; with firmness in the
right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the
work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who
shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan--to do
which may achieve a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all
nations.’
“That ain’t ordinary human nature--particularly when it’s fightin’ a
war--that’s God’s nature. If that ain’t what Christ had in mind, then I
don’t read the Bible right.
“Yes, sir, he _prayed_--that’s what carried him on--and, God heard him
and helped him. Fact is I never knew a man I felt so sure God approved
of as Abraham Lincoln.”
Transcriber’s Notes:
--Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
--Illustrations have been moved to follow the text that they
illustrate, so the page number of the illustration may not
match the page number in the List of Illustrations.
--Contents page references refer to the first page of content,
not the story's title page.
--Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
--Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
--Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.