“Our Sunday-school in the Five Points was assembled one Sabbath morning, a few months since, when I noticed a tall and remarkable-looking man enter the room and take a seat among us. He listened with fixed attention to our exercises, and his countenance manifested such genuine interest that I approached him and suggested that he might be willing to say something to the children. “He accepted the invitation with evident pleasure, and, coming forward, began a simple address, which at once fascinated every little hearer, and hushed the room into silence. His language was strikingly beautiful, and his tones musical with intensest feeling. The little faces around would droop into sad conviction as he uttered sentences of warning, and would brighten into sunshine as he spoke cheerful words of promise. Once or twice he attempted to close his remarks, but the imperative shouts of ‘Go on!’ ‘Oh, do go on!’ would compel him to resume. As I looked upon the gaunt and sinewy frame of the stranger, and marked his powerful head and determined features, now touched into softness by the impressions of the moment, I felt an irrepressible curiosity to learn something more about him, and when he was quietly leaving the room, I begged to know his name. He courteously replied: “‘It is Abraham Lincoln, from Illinois!’” It is easy to understand how the sight of these poor children should have touched the heart of the backwoods boy. Doubtless they recalled to his memory his own neglected childhood, and his early privations, when he was not in a position to learn even as well as these poor waifs from the city streets. If only that speech could have been reported, with what interest would we read it to-day. It must have been instinct with sympathy to have made such a powerful impression on these poor children and the teacher who tells the story. CHAPTER XXII. THE INAUGURATION.