[9] I have often been deeply impressed by the charity of primitive preachers for dead people, and their ingenuity in inventing possible opportunities for repentance where no outward sign was given or apparently possible. There was something impressive in their manner of doing it, as well as an exhibition of fine tenderness for the feelings of friends and of generosity toward the dead.
"Between the saddle and the ground,
He pardon sought and pardon found"
is a very precious article of faith in the creed of men who have to preach a stern doctrine to the living, with warning of a hell that yawns for all impenitent sinners.
[10] In my own judgment, it would have been better to have let the first edition stand. It ought not to have included these vulgarities; but they are not so bad as the impression which is created by the knowledge that a new edition had to be made on their account. They are coarse bits of rustic buffoonery.
[11] I do not forget that Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks were married by Rev. Jesse Head, who was a Methodist preacher. But I do not find evidence that Mr. Head exerted any marked influence over them. Mr. Head was not only a minister, but a justice of the peace, an anti-slavery man, and a person of strong and righteous character. I am not sure whether the fact that he performed this marriage is not due in some measure to the fact that he was about the court house, and a convenient minister to find.
[12] Dr. Chapman goes even beyond Johnson in his admiration of these youthful lines. He says:
"It is profoundly significant that this child of destiny, at his life's early morning, in clumsy but impressive verse thus reverently coupled his name with that of his Creator.... I am not claiming for this fragment of a Lincoln manuscript any divine inspiration" (Latest Light on Lincoln, p. 315).
But he stops little short of that, and might about as well have claimed it. The simple truth is that the lines have no significance whatever. They were a current bit of schoolboy doggerel, not original with Lincoln, and were scribbled by him as by other boys, with no real purpose beyond that of working his name into a jingle.
[13] I have seen these and other examples of Lincoln's early penmanship in the library of Mr. Jesse W. Weik.
[14] The story of Johnny Kongapod was one which Lincoln often related in after life. It is found in several collections of his stories, and with some variation. The Indian himself has found a place in literature in "In the Boyhood of Lincoln" by my friend, now deceased, Hezekiah Butterworth. The epitaph more nearly in its ancient English form is found in "David Elginbrod," by George Macdonald: