ingular pictures which he drew of this
young man in his degradation brought many a smile on the faces of the
congregation. But his chief aim always was to get the youth back to
his father's house again; here his emotions often overpowered him, and
his joy was so great that he hardly knew what he was saying. Many of
the friends still remember him on one occasion at Outlane. He had
brought the poor prodigal to the top of a lane leading down to his
father's house; there he stood, covered in rags and dirt, his head bare
and his shoes gone; he is just timidly stopping at the corner of the
lane debating whether he shall go on or turn back, when at that moment
out comes the old man to look up and down the road; he sees that bit of
human misery at the lane end, and in an instant recognizes him as his
son, "'Mother! mother!' exclaims th' owd man, 'quick! quick! here's aar
Jack standing at top o' th' loin. Oh, run! run my owd legs, tak' me to
him! Here, Jack, my lad, come to me, the' father wants thee--come,
come!' And in another moment the old man is hurrying with tottering
steps and open arms towards his son, and folding him, rags and all, to
his bursting heart." It was so real to Abe, and he was so carried away
with the picture which was before his vivid imagination, that when he
got the lad into the house, he exclaimed, "Put shoes on his hands, and
rings on his feet,"--whereupon a brother in the chapel called out,
"Nay, nay, Abe lad, thaa mun't put shoes on th' lad's hands, and th'
rings on his feet; put um on roight, man." But Abe responded at the
top of his voice, while tears came rolling over his face, "Put um on
theesen and let me aloan! 'This, my son, was dead, and is alive again,
he was lost and is faand!'" By that genuine burst of feeling, he
reached a climax of eloquence that has seldom been surpassed in the
history of preaching.

CHAPTER XVI.

"I am a Wonder unto Many."

Such were the words of David in olden times, and with propriety did
"Little Abe" frequently adopt them in his day. Considering his
condition prior to his conversion,--a wild, thoughtless, and wicked
young man, having neither fear of God nor man before his eyes, and then
contrasting it with what he had become by the grace of God; remembering
his want of education, that he never could write, and by that means
commit his thoughts to paper, and yet that his preaching was acceptable
and profitable to the people, that he drew large cong