ok, and
soon was absorbed in reading them. A quarter of an hour passed, and on
glancing at the sofa the face of the President seemed more cheerful. The
dejected look was gone, and the countenance was lighted up with new
resolution and hope. The change was so marked that I could not but
wonder at it, and wonder led to the desire to know what book of the
Bible afforded so much comfort to the reader. Making the search for a
missing article an excuse, I walked gently around the sofa, and looking
into the open book, I discovered that Mr. Lincoln was reading that
divine comforter, Job. He read with Christian eagerness, and the courage
and hope that he derived from the inspired pages made him a new man. I
almost imagined that I could hear the Lord speaking to him from out the
whirlwind of battle: "Gird up thy loins now like a man: I will demand of
thee, and declare thou unto me." What a sublime picture was this! A
ruler of a mighty nation going to the pages of the Bible with simple
Christian earnestness for comfort and courage, and finding both in the
darkest hours of a nation's calamity. Ponder it, O ye scoffers at God's
Holy Word, and then hang your heads for very shame!

Frequent letters were received warning Mr. Lincoln of assassination, but
he never gave a second thought to the mysterious warnings. The letters,
however, sorely troubled his wife. She seemed to read impending danger
in every rustling leaf, in every whisper of the wind.

"Where are you going now, father?" she would say to him, as she observed
him putting on his overshoes and shawl.

"I am going over to the War Department, mother, to try and learn some
news."

"But, father, you should not go out alone. You know you are surrounded
with danger."

"All imagination. What does any one want to harm me for? Don't worry
about me, mother, as if I were a little child, for no one is going to
molest me;" and with a confident, unsuspecting air he would close the
door behind him, descend the stairs, and pass out to his lonely walk.

For weeks, when trouble was anticipated, friends of the President would
sleep in the White House to guard him from danger.

Robert would come home every few months, bringing new joy to the family
circle. He was very anxious to quit school and enter the army, but the
move was sternly opposed by his mother.

"We have lost one son, and his loss is as much as I can bear, without
being called upon to make another sacrifice," she would say,