THOUGHT GOD WOULD HAVE TOLD HIM.
Professor Jonathan Baldwin Turner was one of the few men to whom Mr. Lincoln confided his intention to issue the Proclamation of Emancipation.
Mr. Lincoln told his Illinois friend of the visit of a delegation to him who claimed to have a message from God that the War would not be successful without the freeing of the negroes, to whom Mr. Lincoln replied: “Is it not a little strange that He should tell this to you, who have so little to do with it, and should not have told me, who has a great deal to do with it?”
At the same time he informed Professor Turner he had his Proclamation in his pocket.
LINCOLN AND A BIBLE HERO.
A writer who heard Mr. Lincoln’s famous speech delivered in New York after his nomination for President has left this record of the event:
“When Lincoln rose to speak, I was greatly disappointed. He was tall, tall, oh, so tall, and so angular and awkward that I had for an instant a feeling of pity for so ungainly a man. He began in a low tone of voice, as if he were used to speaking out of doors and was afraid of speaking too loud.
“He said ‘Mr. Cheerman,’ instead of ‘Mr. Chairman,’ and employed many other words with an old-fashioned pronunciation. I said to myself, ‘Old fellow, you won’t do; it is all very well for the Wild West, but this will never go down in New York.’ But pretty soon he began to get into the subject; he straightened up, made regular and graceful gestures; his face lighted as with an inward fire; the whole man was transfigured.