Nearly all the pious stories relating to Lincoln, while palpably false in the eyes of those who knew him, are yet of such a nature as to render a complete refutation of them extremely difficult. The story under consideration, however, is of a different character. Its truthfulness or falsity could at the time of its publication have been easily ascertained. If true, any member of Lincoln's cabinet could have verified it. I knew that it was untrue--at least I knew that a Cabinet meeting had never been transformed into a prayer meeting at Lincoln's suggestion. I finally resolved to demonstrate its falsity if possible. But a quarter of a century had passed away, and every member of Lincoln's Cabinet was dead save one, Hugh McCulloch, his last Secretary of the Treasury. With the aid of a friend, Mr. N. P. Stockbridge, of Ft. Wayne, Ind., an old acquaintance of Mr. McCulloch's, I succeeded in bringing the matter before this only surviving witness, and received from his pen, in February, 1891, the following prompt denial: "The description of what occurred at the Executive Mansion, when the intelligence was received of the surrender of the Confederate forces, which you quote from the _Western Christian Advocate_, is not only absolutely groundless, but absurd. After I became Secretary of the Treasury I was present at every Cabinet meeting, and I never saw Mr. Lincoln or any of his ministers upon his knees or in tears. "We were not especially jubilant over Lee's surrender, for this we had been prepared for some days. The time for our great rejoicing was a little earlier. After Sherman had commenced his celebrated march to the sea, and long and weary days had passed without any reliable reports from him, we were filled with anxiety and apprehension. It was when the news came that he and his army, in excellent condition, were in the neighborhood of Charleston, that our joy was irrepressible; not only because of their safety, but because it was an assurance that the days of the Confederacy were nearly ended. With Grant before Richmond in command of superior forces, and Sherman with the finest army in the world, ready to move northward, everybody felt that the war must be soon concluded, and that the Union was safe. "We were, of course, happy when General Lee and his severely tried soldiers laid down their arms, but this, as I have said, was not unexpected. It was when our anxiety in regard to Sherman was succeeded by hopefulness and confidence that our joy became exuberant. But there was no such exhibition of it as has been published by the _Advocate._"