, March 1, 1835. His earliest
schooling was received at Rising Sun, in Indiana. At the age of
fourteen he was set to learn the printing business in the office of
the _Ohio State Journal_ at Columbus, Ohio, for a brief period, and at
the age of eighteen years first began to write verses. His poems were
chiefly on themes connected with his native West.

SONNET IN 1862

Stern be the Pilot in the dreadful hour
When a great nation, like a ship at sea
With the wroth breakers whitening at her lee,
Feels her last shudder if her helmsman cower;
A godlike manhood be his mighty dower!
Such and so gifted, Lincoln, may'st thou be
With thy high wisdom's low simplicity
And awful tenderness of voted power.
From our hot records then thy name shall stand
On Time's calm ledger out of passionate days--
With the pure debt of gratitude begun,
And only paid in never-ending praise--
One of the many of a mighty land,
Made by God's providence the Anointed One.

[Illustration: PRESIDENT LINCOLN

[Signed: For Mrs. Lucy G. Speed, from whose pious hand I
accepted the present of an Oxford Bible twenty
years ago.

Washington, D. C. October 3, 1861

A. Lincoln ]]

Lincoln once said: "When any church will inscribe over its altar, as
its sole qualification for membership, the Saviour's condensed
statement of the substance of both law and gospel, 'Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all
thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself', that church will I join with
all my heart and all my soul."

LINCOLN, SOLDIER OF CHRIST

_From Macmillan's Magazine, England_

Lincoln! When men would name a man
Just, unperturbed, magnanimous,
Tried in the lowest seat of all,
Tried in the chief seat of the house--

Lincoln! When men would name a man
Who wrought the great work of his age,
Who fought, and fought the noblest fight,
And marshalled it from stage to stage.

Victorious, out of dusk and dark