Mr. Lincoln once remarked to Mr. Noah Brooks, one of his most intimate personal friends: “I should be the most presumptuous blockhead upon this footstool if I for one day thought that I could discharge the duties which have come upon me, since I came to this place, without the aid and enlightenment of One who is stronger and wiser than all others.”
He said on another occasion: “I am very sure that if I do not go away from here a wiser man, I shall go away a better man, from having learned here what a very poor sort of a man I am.”
TURNED TEARS TO SMILES.
One night Schuyler Colfax left all other business to go to the White House to ask the President to respite the son of a constituent, who was sentenced to be shot, at Davenport, for desertion. Mr. Lincoln heard the story with his usual patience, though he was wearied out with incessant calls, and anxious for rest, and then replied:
“Some of our generals complain that I impair discipline and subordination in the army by my pardons and respites, but it makes me rested, after a hard day’s work, if I can find some good excuse for saving a man’s life, and I go to bed happy as I think how joyous the signing of my name will make him and his family and his friends.”
And with a happy smile beaming over that care-furrowed face, he signed that name that saved that life.
LINCOLN’S LAST WRITTEN WORDS.
As the President and Mrs. Lincoln were leaving the White House, a few minutes before eight o’clock, on the evening of April 14th, 1865, Lincoln wrote this note: