"We must go away back to the early days of his life until we come, in 1816, to a little cabin in Gentryville, Indiana--a one-room log cabin with a dirt floor and with no glass in the windows. Here lived Thomas Lincoln and his wife and two children, Sarah, aged ten years, and Abraham, eight years old. They had recently come from Kentucky. "Although Thomas Lincoln could neither read nor write, the mother taught her children to read the one book which they had, a Bible. The sweetness of the character of this gentle mother was reflected in the lives of her children. For three or four months, Abraham managed to attend the rude school of the neighborhood. He soon learned to know much of the Bible by heart. When he was ten years of age, the greatest calamity of his life occurred; his mother, always frail and delicate, passed from earth. Abraham Lincoln never recovered from the shock. The rude casket was placed in a grave near the cabin. Nine months after that sad day, Parson Elkins, whom the family had known in Kentucky, answered the repeated appeal of Abraham to come one hundred miles on horseback to preach a funeral sermon at the grave of Mrs. Lincoln. "Many years afterward, when the cares of state weighed heavily upon him, President Lincoln spoke the words which tell us the secret of his wonderful calmness and steadfastness. Listen to them: 'All that I am and all that I hope to be, I owe to my mother. Blessings on her memory!' "Do you understand, boys and girls, that it was the thing which this mother put into the life of her boy that made him a great and a good man? Do you now understand what Paul meant when he said that there is no other foundation on which to build your life 'than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ?' "Let us, then place the word, Christ, upon this rock, the unseen foundation upon which this great life stood so steadfastly. I leave with you the picture as a memory of the secret of a wonderful life. [Draw lines of rock and lower portion of the lighthouse; add the word "Christ," completing Fig. 36.] [Illustration: Fig. 36] THE BLESSEDNESS OF WORK --Labor --Diligence The Truly Happy Life is the One Filled With Honest Employment. THE LESSON--That in childhood and youth we should train ourselves to work. Work is the keynote of the successful life. "An idle brain is the devil's workshop." The talk is designed to catch the attention with a smile and then give an opportunity to present some valuable thoughts in the matter of diligence and the fulfillment of life's mission through honorable employment of the mind and the hands. ~~The Talk.~~