but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be dedicated here to do the great task remaining before us; that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
EDUCATION A GROWTH
Mr. Lincoln himself told the following story of his life.—“When I was about eighteen years old I went into an office to study law. After a while I saw that a lawyer’s business was largely to prove things, and I said to myself, “Lincoln, when is a thing proved?” That was a poser. I could not answer that question. What constitutes a proof? Not evidence, that was not to the point. There may be evidence enough, but wherein consists the proof? I was reminded of the story of the German who was tried for some crime, and they brought half-a-dozen respectable men who swore that they saw the prisoner commit the crime. “Vel, vot of dot?” said the Teuton; “six men schvears dot dey sees me do the pishness, I prings more as two tozen good men, who schvears dey did not see me do it.” So, wherein is the proof? I fairly groaned over the question and finally said to myself, “Ah, Lincoln, you can’t tell.” Then I thought, what use is it for me to be in a law office, if I can’t tell when a thing is proved? So I gave it up and went back home over in Kentucky. Soon after I returned to the old log cabin, I fell in with a copy of Euclid. I had not the slightest notion what Euclid was, and I thought I would find out. I found out; but it was no easy job. I looked into the book and I found it was all about lines, angles, surfaces, and solids; but I could not understand it at all. I therefore began very deliberately at the beginning. I learned the definitions and axioms, I demonstrated the first proposition; I said that is simple enough. I went on to the next, and before spring I had gone through that old Euclid and could demonstrate every proposition in it. I knew it from beginning to end; you could not stick me on the hardest of them. One day in the spring, when I had got through with it, I said to myself, “Ah, do you know now when a thing is proved?”; and I answered out loud, “Yes, sir, I do, and you may go back to the law shop.” In a few weeks I went, and to this circumstance I owe all the logical acumen that I possess. I dug it out of that old geometry, often by the light of pine knots; but I got it, and I think that nothing but geometry will teach a man the power of abstract reasoning.”
JUSTICE TEMPERED WITH MERCY.
[Little Blossom’s Visit to President Lincoln.]
“Well, my little child,” he said, in his pleasant, cheerful tone, “what do you want, so bright and early in the morning?”
“Bennie’s life, please, sir,” faltered Blossom.
“Bennie? Who is Bennie?”
“My brother, sir. They are going to shoot him for sleeping at his post.”
“Oh, yes;” and Mr. Lincoln ran his eye over the papers before him. “I remember. It was a fatal sleep. You see, child, it was a time of special danger. Thousands of lives might have been lost for his culpable negligence.”
“So my father said,” replied Blossom, gravely; “but poor Bennie was so tired and Jemmie so weak. He did the work of two, sir, and it was Jemmie’s night, not his; but Jemmie was too tired, and Bennie never thought about himself, that he was tired, too.”
“What is this you say, child? Come here; I do not understand,” and the kind man caught eagerly, as ever, at what seemed to be a justification of an offense.
Blossom went to him; he put his hand tenderly on her shoulder and turned up the pale, anxious face towards his. How tall he seemed! and he was President of the
