experiences he brought a great power of patience and a
great power of sympathy. These armed him for his work. He became
invincible against the perversities and follies of men, and the blows of
fate. He ripened into a tenderness such as prompted him, when burdened
with cares beyond measure, to give a sympathetic hearing to every mother
who came to the President with the story of her boy's trouble.

To take another brace of qualities, he was at once a powerful fighter
and an habitual peace-maker. His long, gaunt, sinewy frame, and his
tough courage, made him a formidable antagonist, but it was hard to
provoke him to combat. Lamon,--whose biography is a treasury of good
stories, sometimes lacking in discretion, but giving an invaluable
realistic picture,--relates an encounter with the village bully, Jack
Armstrong. The "boys" at last teased Lincoln into a wrestling match, and
when his victory in the good-natured encounter provoked Jack to unfair
play, Abe shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. Then he made peace with
him, drew out the better quality in him; and the two reigned "like
friendly Caesars" over the village crowd, Abe tempering Jack's
playfulness when it got too rough, and winning the boys to kindly ways.

In that day and region, men were very frank about their religious
beliefs and disbeliefs. The skepticism or unbelief which lies unspoken
in the hearts of a multitude of men,--silent perhaps out of regard to
public opinion, perhaps from consideration for mother or wife--found
free and frequent utterance in the West, long before Robert Ingersoll
gave it eloquent voice. Lincoln, though we have called him an idealist
at heart, habitually guided himself by logic, by hard sense, and by such
evidence as passes in a court of law. He was one of the class to whom
books like Tom Paine's _Age of Reason_ appealed strongly. In early life
he wrote a treatise against Christianity. A politic friend to whom he
showed his manuscript put it in the stove, but the writer was not
changed in his opinions. To Christianity as a supernatural revelation he
never became a convert, but the belief in "a Power that makes for
righteousness" grew with his growth and strengthened with his strength.

With deepening experiences, the awe and mystery of life weighed heavily
on him. When travelling on circuit, his days spent in law-cases,
diversified with sociability and funny stories, he would sometimes be
seen in the early morning brooding by the fi