“ ‘The short and simple annals of the poor.’ ”

While this apt reply revealed the simplicity of the man, it introduced the biographer at once to the opening of a marvellous life. For, surely, that is a marvellous life, when a boy, reared in a floorless log-cabin, works his way, by dint of perseverance, upward and onward into the highest office of the land.

The chief object of the book is to show how its hero won his position; yet it incidentally exhibits the manners and customs of the times, and section of country, in which he was reared.

Provincialisms are intentionally avoided, as well as that singular perversion of the English language that characterized the unlettered people of Kentucky and Indiana sixty years ago.

When Mr. Lincoln was alive, and the honoured President of the United States, one of his old friends and neighbours wrote to us: “I have known him long and well, and I can say in truth, I think (take him altogether) he is the best man I ever saw. Although he has never made a public profession of religion, I nevertheless believe that he has the fear of God before his eyes, and that he goes daily to a throne of grace, and asks wisdom, light, and knowledge, to enable him faithfully to discharge his duties.” The reader will find abundant confirmation of the friend’s eulogy in this volume.

W. M. T.