In The Boyhood of Lincoln

called simply the "meeting-house." It stood in the timber, whose columns and aisles opened around it like a vast cathedral, where the rocks were altars and the bir

Pestalozzi, that made the German army victorious over France in the late war. And it was the New England school-master that built the great West, and made Plymouth Rock the crown-sto

r" in the community. The news flew for miles that "an old Tunker" was to preach. No event had awakened a greater interest since Elder Elkins, from Kentucky, had come to the settlement to preach Nancy Lincoln's funeral sermon under t

rded as a long Sabbath-day journey in those days in Indiana. When the log meeting-house was found too small to hold the people, such preachers would exhort under the trees. There used to be held religious meetings in the cabins, after the manner of the

led the air and bird-songs the trees. The notes of the

duty, while b

praise as I went

f walnut and "sassafrax" in the tides of the sunny air. Cowslips and violets margined the str

a-like head-gears there might now and then be seen the vanity of a ribbon. The girls carried their shoes in their hands until they came in sight of the meeting-house, when they would sit down on some mossy plat under an old tree

nd horses. Some of the people had come from twenty miles away. Those who came from the longest distances

e came, Thomas

out under the trees, where all the people can hear ye. It looks mighty pleasant there. With our old sing-song preachers it don't make so much difference. We could hear one

e trees. I love the trees. They

here, and the other travelin' ministers. Seems kind o' holy over there. Nancy was a good woman, a

there, by that lonely

He led the way to the great cathedral of giant trees, which were clouded with

r all religious occasions she "tarried behind," to discuss the sermon with the minister. She usually led the singing. Her favorite hymns were, "Am I a soldier of the Cross," "Come, thou Fount of every ble

on, pr

wers of

he sang hymns of a more persuasive character. These were oddly appropriate

brethren,

little

urden t

d let us

s that cast

is that gr

let the wor

may rel

eculiar motion of the body, a forward-and-backward movement, with

we have met

re the Lor

ay with all

wait upon

in unless

ly One co

ray, and he

howered a

ll you join

ter help-e

er rose to speak under the great trees. It was like an Easter, and, indeed, the hy

morning my Sav

mortality fu

are over, he's

y Saviour will

y comforting to many of the toiling people, and cau

ins over-looking Galilee, are the hope of the world. They are the final words of our all-loving Father to his children. Times may change, but these words will never be exceeded or superseded; nothing can ever go beyond th

the people sank down on the grass. Once or twice Aunt Olive's corn-field bonnet rose up, and out of it came a shout of "Glory!" One enthusiastic brother shouted

finished his quotations from the

he forest? I will tell you. A true life has no secrets-it needs none; it is open to all like the revelatio

ach the orphans made by the war. He studied with them, learned with them, ate with them; he saw with their eyes and felt wit

ce sai

ty of my fellow-men for want of decent clothes. Many and many times I have gone without a dinner, and eaten in bitterness a dry crust of bread on the road, at a time when e

ch. My wife died, and my two children. Then I said: 'I will live for the soul. That is all that has any lasting worth. I will give up everything for the good of others, and go over the sea, and teach the children of the for

rn-field bonnet rose up, and

er, I wis

r, I wish

d calls, I

d in the pr

I wish you

s, I wish yo

doctrine, but he never forgot the teachings of the Teacher of Galilee. In the terrible duties that fell to his lot the principles of the Galilean teachings came home to his heart, and he came to know in experience what he had not accepted f