"In his memorable second inaugural address, he said, 'With malice
toward none, with charity to all, with firmness in the right, as God
gives us to see the right, let us finish the work.'

"In those tumultuous times, he often seemed to stand almost alone,
like a lighthouse away out from the rock-bound coast, lashed by the
fierce waves, driven by furious winds. [Draw the lighthouse in brown
and the waves in blue, completing Fig. 35.]

[Illustration: Fig. 35]

"But the fiercest storms never moved our human lighthouse! Nor did
the light which was to finally guide the Ship of State into a safe and
peaceful harbor fail to send out its clear, pure rays.

"The lighthouse which we have drawn must stand upon a firm and solid
foundation to endure the force of the storm. Abraham Lincoln must have
stood upon a firm and solid foundation in order to endure the fierce
storms of the darkest years of the nation's history. Let us see what
this foundation was made of.

"We must go away back to the early days of his life until we come, in
1816, to a little cabin in Gentryville, Indiana--a one-room log cabin
with a dirt floor and with no glass in the windows. Here lived Thomas
Lincoln and his wife and two children, Sarah, aged ten years, and
Abraham, eight years old. They had recently come from Kentucky.

"Although Thomas Lincoln could neither read nor write, the mother
taught her children to read the one book which they had, a Bible. The
sweetness of the character of this gentle mother was reflected in the
lives of her children. For three or four months, Abraham managed to
attend the rude school of the neighborhood. He soon learned to know
much of the Bible by heart. When he was ten years of age, the greatest
calamity of his life occurred; his mother, always frail and delicate,
passed from earth. Abraham Lincoln never recovered from the shock. The
rude casket was placed in a grave near the cabin. Nine months after
that sad day, Parson Elkins, whom the family had known in Kentucky,
answered the repeated appeal of Abraham to come one hundred miles on
horseback to preach a funeral sermon at the grave of Mrs. Lincoln.

"Many years afterward, when the cares of state weighed heavily upon
him, President Lincoln spoke the words which tell us the secret of his
wonderful calmness and steadfastness. Listen to them: 'All that I am
and all that I hope to be, I owe to my mother. Blessings on her
memory!'

"Do you understand, boys and girls, t