"Out in our country," continued Lincoln, "when a parson made a pastoral call it was always the custom for the folks to ask him to lead in prayer, and I should like to ask you to pray with me to-day; pray that I may have strength and wisdom." The two men knelt side by side before a settee and the clergyman offered the most fervent appeal to the Almighty Power that ever fell from his lips. As they rose, Lincoln grasped his visitor's hand and remarked in a satisfied sort of way,-- "I feel better." In July, 1863, in Washington, D. C., on the Sunday after the battle of Gettysburg, General Sickles, who had lost a leg, was brought to Washington. Lincoln called upon him at the hospital, with his son Tad, and remained an hour or more. He greeted Sickles heartily and complimented him on his stout fight at Gettysburg. Sickles asked whether he was not anxious during the Gettysburg campaign. Lincoln gravely replied that he was not; that some of his Cabinet and many others in Washington were, but that he himself had had no fears. General Sickles inquired his reasons. Lincoln hesitated, but finally replied,-- "Well, I will tell you how it was. In the pinch of your campaign up there, when everybody seemed panic-stricken and nobody could tell what was going to happen, I went into my room one day and locked the door, and got down on my knees before Almighty God and prayed to Him mightily for a victory at Gettysburg. I told God that if we were to win the battle He must do it, for I had done all I could. I told Him this was His war, and our cause was His cause, but that we couldn't stand another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville. And then and there made a solemn vow to Almighty God that if He would stand by our boys at Gettysburg I would stand by Him. And He did, and I will. And after that--I don't know how it was, and I can't explain it, but soon--a sweet comfort crept into my soul that things would go all right at Gettysburg, and that is why I had no fears about you." Presently General Sickles asked what news he had from Vicksburg. The President answered that he had none worth mentioning, but that Grant was still "pegging away" down there. He said he thought a good deal of him as a general and was not going to remove him, although urged to do so. "Besides," he added, "I have been praying over Vicksburg also, and believe our Heavenly Father is going to give us victory there, too, because we need it to bisect the Confederacy and have the Mississippi flow unvexed to the sea." John G. Nicolay, who probably knew Lincoln as thoroughly and was as familiar with his opinions as any one, said,--