one by one, and as the names were examined, Mr. Lincoln frequently asked if this one and that were not a minister or an elder, or a member of such or such Church, and sadly expressed his surprise on receiving an affirmative answer. In that manner they went through the book, and then he closed it, and sat silently for some minutes regarding a memorandum in pencil which lay before him. At length, he turned to Mr. Bateman, with a face full of sadness, and said:

"Here are twenty-three ministers, of different denominations, and all of them are against me but three; and here are a great many prominent members of the Churches, a very large majority are against me. Mr. Bateman, I am not a Christian— God knows I would be one-but I have carefully read the Bible, and I do not so understand this book;' and he drew forth a pocket New Testament. 'These men well know,' he continued, 'that I am for freedom in the Territories, freedom everywhere as free as the Constitution and the laws will permit, and that my opponents are for slavery. They know this, and yet, with this book in their hands, in the light of which human bondage can not live a moment, they are going to vote against me. I do not understand it at all.'

"Here Mr. Lincoln paused-paused for long minutes his features surcharged with emotion.

Then he rose and walked up and down the reception-room in the effort to retain or regain his selfpossession. Stopping at last, he said, with a trembling voice and cheeks wet with tears: 'I know there is a God, and that he hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that his hand is in it. If he has a place and work for me and I think he has-I believe I am ready. I am nothing, but truth is everything. I know I am right, because I know that liberty is right; for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God. I have told them that a house divided against itself can not stand; and Christ and reason say the same; and they will find it so. Douglas do n't care whether slavery is voted up or down; but God cares, and humanity cares, and I care, and, with God's help, I shall not fail. I may not see the end, but it will come, and I shall be vindicated; and these men will find that they have not read their Bible right.'

"Much of this was uttered as if he was speaking to himself, and with a sad, earnest solemnity of manner impossible to be described. After a pause, he resumed: Does n't it appear strange that men can ignore the moral aspect of this contest? A revelation could not make it plainer to me that slavery or the Government must be destroyed. The future would be something awful, as I look at it, but for this rock on which I stand'-alluding to the Testa

ment which he still held in his hand-especially with the knowledge of how these ministers are going to vote. It seems as if God had borne with this thing [slavery] until the very teachers of religion had come to defend it from the Bible, and to claim for it a divine character and sanction; and now the cup of iniquity is full, and the vials of wrath will be poured out.' After this the conversation was continued for a long time. Everything he said was of a peculiarly deep, tender, and religious tone, and all was tinged with a touching melancholy. He repeatedly referred to his conviction that the day of wrath was at hand, and that he was to be an actor in the terrible struggle which would issue in the overthrow of slavery, though he might not live to see the end.

"After further reference to a belief in Divine providence and the fact of God in history, the conversation turned upon prayer. He freely stated his belief in the duty, privilege, and efficacy of prayer, and intimated, in no mistakable terms, that he had sought in that way the Divine guidance and favor. The effect of this conversation upon the mind of Mr. Bateman, a Christian gentleman whom Mr. Lincoln profoundly respected, was to convince him that Mr. Lincoln had, in his quiet way, found a path to the Christian standpoint-that he had found God, and rested on the eternal truth of God.

As the two men were about to separate, Mr. Bateman remarked: 'I have not supposed that you were accustomed to think so much upon this class of subjects. Certainly your friends generally are ignorant of the sentiments you have expressed to me.' He replied quickly: 'I know they are, but I think more on these subjects than upon all others, and I have done so for years; and I am willing you should know it.'"

Mr. Lincoln, however, did receive the general support of the religious people of the North. Not only did they vote for him, but upon his inauguration as President, prayers were offered in thousands of churches and at many family altars that he might be divinely guided.

"ONE WAR AT A TIME."

EXT to the Emancipation Proclamation, the

NEX

most important act of Mr. Lincoln's Administration was that in regard to England's demand for the release of Mason and Slidell.

These gentlemen were the accredited envoys of the Confederacy to England and France. They ran the blockade at Charleston, and reached Havana. There they took passage on the British Royal Mail steamship Trent, November 7, 1861. Captain Wilkes, of the United States steam sloop-of-war San Jacinto, who knew of their movements, lay in wait for the Trent, and the next day, in the Bahama Channel, fired a shot across her bows and brought her to. He then boarded the vessel, and, against the angry protests of the English captain, took off Messrs. Mason and Slidell, who were soon afterward confined in Fort Warren, Boston Harbor.

Captain Wilkes's action was received with enthusiasm throughout the North, and he was congratulated by the Secretary of the Navy and praised by Secretary Stanton. Congress passed a vote of thanks for his "brave, adroit, and patriotic conduct."