“I would not use the money just as you have indicated,” then added the judge.

“Why not?”

‘Your stepmother is getting old, and will not live many years. I would settle the property upon her for her use during her lifetime, to revert to you upon her death.”

“I shall do no such thing,” answered Lincoln, decidedly. “It is a poor return, at the best, for the good woman’s devotion and fidelity to me, and there is not going to be any half-way business about it.”

As soon as he could he purchased the quarter-section, and settled it upon his stepmother.

On hearing of his father’s serious illness in January 1851, at a time when pressing business and the sickness of his own wife rendered it impossible for him to leave her, he wrote a very touching filial letter, addressing it to Johnston. The letter has the following paragraph:—

“You already know I desire that neither father nor mother shall be in want of any comfort, either in health or sickness, while they live; and I fell sure that you have not failed to use my name, if necessary, to procure a doctor or anything else for father in his present sickness. I sincerely hope father may yet recover his health; but, at all events, tell him to remember and call upon and confide in our great and good and merciful Maker, who will not turn away from him in any extremity. He notes the fall of a sparrow, and numbers the hairs of our heads; and He will not forget the dying man who puts his trust in Him. Say to him that, if we could meet now, it is doubtful whether it would not be more painful than pleasant; but that, if it be his lot to go now, he will soon have a joyous meeting with loved ones gone before, and where the rest of us, through the help of God, hope ere long to join them.”

That the reader may know we have not spoken with partiality of Mr. Lincoln as a lawyer, the following tribute of two of the most distinguished jurists of his day, spoken after his tragic death, will prove.

Judge David Davis said: “In all the elements that constitute the great lawyer he had few equals. The framework of his mental and moral being was honesty. He never took from a client, even when the cause was gained, more than he thought the service was worth and the client could reasonably afford to pay. He was loved by his brethren of the bar.”

Judge Drummond said: “With a probity of character known to all, with an intuitive insight into the human heart, with a clearness of statement which was in itself an argument, with uncommon power and felicity of illustration,—often, it is true, of a plain and homely kind,—and with that sincerity and earnestness of manner which carried conviction, he was one of the most successful lawyers in the State.”