y. Mr. Lincoln never did such a thing. Why, Mary Lincoln
never had a silk dress in her life until she went to Washington."

[Illustration: REV. CHARLES DRESSER.

From a daguerreotype owned by his son, Dr. T.W. Dresser, Springfield,
Illinois. The Rev. Charles Dresser, who was the officiating clergyman
at the wedding of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd, was born at Pomfret,
Connecticut, February 24, 1800. He was graduated from Brown University
in 1823, and went to Virginia, where he studied theology. In 1829 he
became an ordained minister in the Protestant Episcopal Church. He was
married in 1832 in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, to Louisa W. Withers.
Upon his removal to Springfield, Illinois, in 1838, he became the
rector of the Protestant Episcopal church there, and remained so until
1858, when failing health caused his retirement. In 1855, Jubilee
College elected him Professor of Divinity and Belles-Lettres, but he
held this position only a short time. He died March 25, 1865.--_J.
McCan Davis._]

As Mr. Joshua Speed was, all through this period, Mr. Lincoln's
closest friend, no thought or feeling of the one ever being concealed
from the other, Mrs. Joshua Speed, who is still living in Louisville,
Kentucky, was asked if she knew of the story. Mrs. Speed listened
in surprise to Mr. Herndon's tale. "I never heard of it before," she
declared. "I never heard of it. If it is true, I never heard of it."

In all of these cases the opinion of only those persons intimately
connected with Mr. Lincoln and Miss Todd has been asked. Care has been
taken, too, to apply only to persons whose character put them beyond
the suspicion of distorting facts.

Quite unexpectedly, some months ago, a volunteer witness to the
falsity of the story appeared. The Hon. H.W. Thornton of Millersburg,
Illinois, was a member of the Twelfth General Assembly, which met in
Springfield in 1840. During that winter he was boarding near Lincoln,
saw him almost every day, was a constant visitor at Mr. Edwards's
house, and he knew Miss Todd well. He wrote to this magazine declaring
that Mr. Herndon's statement about the wedding must be false, as he
was closely associated with Miss Todd and Mr. Lincoln all winter, and
never knew anything of it. Mr. Thornton went on to say that he knew
beyond a doubt that the sensational account of Lincoln's insanity
was untrue, and he quoted from the House journal to show how it was
impossible that, as Lamon says, using Herndon's n