tions for it
with indomitable spirit. It was to be grounded on manly virtues. It
seems as though the boy felt the consecration of a high destiny from the
very dawn of his intelligence, and it set him apart, secure amid the
temptations and safe from the vices that corrupt many men. In the rough
garb of the backwoodsman he preserved the instincts of a gentleman. He
was the companion of bullies and boors. He shared their work and their
sports, but he never stooped to their vulgarity. He very seldom drank
with them, and they never heard him speak an oath. He could throw the
stoutest in a wrestling match, and was ready, when brought to it, to
whip any insolent braggart who made cruel use of his strength. He never
flinched from hardship or danger, yet his heart was as soft and tender
as a woman's. The great gentle giant had a feeling of sympathy for every
living creature. He was not ashamed to rock a cradle, or to carry a pail
of water or an armful of wood to spare a tired woman's arms. Though
destitute of worldly goods, he was rich in friends. All the people of
his acquaintance knew they could count on his doing the right thing
always, so far as he was able. Hence they trusted and loved him; and the
title of "Honest Abe," which he bore through life, was a seal of
knighthood rarer and prouder than any king or queen could confer with
the sword. Abraham Lincoln was one of nature's noblemen. He showed
himself a hero in every circumstance of his boyhood and youth. The
elements of greatness were visible even then. The boy who was true to
duty, patient in privation, modest in merit, kind to every form of
distress, determined to rise by wresting opportunities from the
grudging hand of fate, was sure to make a man distinguished among his
fellows,--a man noted among the great men of the world, as the boy had
been among his neighbors in the wilds of Spencer County and New Salem.

The site of the town where Lincoln spent the last three years of the
period covered in this portion of his biography is now a desolate waste.
A gentleman who visited the spot during the summer of 1885 thus
describes the mournful scene: "From the hill where I sit, under the
shade of three trees whose branches make one, I look out over the
Sangamon river and its banks covered apparently with primeval forests.
Around are fields overgrown with weeds and stunted oaks. It was a town
of ten or twelve years only. It began in 1824 and ended in 1836. Yet in
that time it