"Mr. Lincoln and a minister, whose name is kept in the dark, had a conversation about religion. It appears that Mr. Lincoln said that when his son--bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, and blood of his own heart--died, though a severe affliction, it did not arouse him to think of Christ; but when he saw the graves of so many soldiers--strangers to him--... that sad sight aroused him to love Jesus.... It is a fine thing for the reputation of the 'Illinois Clergyman' that his name is to the world unknown. It is a most heartless thing, this supposed conversation of Lincoln with the Illinois clergyman. What! Lincoln feel more for the _graves_ of strangers than for the death of his once living, loving, and lovable son, now dead, moldering to ashes in the silent tomb! The charge is barbarous. To make Lincoln a lover of Jesus, whom he once ridiculed, this minister makes him a savage." "I wish to give an illustration of the uncertainty and unreliability of those loose things that float around in the newspapers of the day, and how liable things are to be inaccurate--so made even by the best of men. Mr. Lincoln on the morning he started for Washington to take the oath of office, and be inaugurated President of this great Republic, gave a short farewell address to his old friends. It was eloquent and touching. That speech is copied in Holland's 'Life of Lincoln,' in Arnold's 'Lincoln and Slavery,' and in Lamon's 'Life of Lincoln,' and no two are exactly alike. If it is hard to get the exact truth on such an occasion as this, how impossible is it to get at Mr. Lincoln's sayings which have been written out by men weeks and months after what he did say have passed by! All these loose and foolish things that Mr. Lincoln is supposed to have said are like the cords of driftwood, floating on the bosom of the great Mississippi, down to the great gulf of--Forgetfulness. Let them go." Herndon's "Life of Lincoln," is a most important contribution to biographical literature. It will enable the present and future generations to become better acquainted with Lincoln the man than with any other prominent American. The author has performed substantially the same work for Lincoln that Boswell performed for Johnson; only he has performed it more faithfully. Political partisans and religious bigots may condemn the work, but impartial critics are almost unanimous in their praise of it. The metropolitan journals of Lincoln's and Hern-don's own state commend the work. The Chicago Tribune says: "All these loving adherents [of Lincoln] will hail Herndon's 'Lincoln' with unmixed, unbounded joy." The Chicago _Times_ says: "Herndon's 'Life' is the best yet written." The _Inter Ocean_ says that Herndon "knew more of Lincoln's inner life than any living man." The Chicago _Herald_ says: "It enables one to approach more closely to the great President." The Chicago _Evening Journal_ says: "It presents a truthful and living picture of the greatest of Americans."