“ON THE LORD’S SIDE.”
President Lincoln made a significant remark to a clergyman in the early days of the War.
“Let us have faith, Mr. President,” said the minister, “that the Lord is on our side in this great struggle.”
Mr. Lincoln quietly answered: “I am not at all concerned about that, for I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right; but it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation may be on the Lord’s side.”
WANTED TO BE NEAR “ABE.”
It was Lincoln’s custom to hold an informal reception once a week, each caller taking his turn.
Upon one of these eventful days an old friend from Illinois stood in line for almost an hour. At last he was so near the President his voice could reach him, and, calling out to his old associate, he startled every one by exclaiming, “Hallo, ‘Abe’; how are ye? I’m in line and hev come for an orfice, too.”
Lincoln singled out the man with the stentorian voice, and recognizing a particularly old friend, one whose wife had befriended him at a peculiarly trying time, the President responded to his greeting in a cordial manner, and told him “to hang onto himself and not kick the traces. Keep in line and you’ll soon get here.”