No one knew all this, better than Mr. Lincoln. With no Army, no Navy, not even a Revenue cutter left--with forts and arsenals, ammunition and arms in possession of the Rebels, with no money in the National Treasury, and the National credit blasted--the position must, even to his hopeful nature, have seemed at this time desperate. To be sure, despite threats, neither few nor secret, which had been made, that he should not live to be inaugurated, he had passed the first critical point--had taken the inaugural oath--and was now duly installed in the White House. That was something, of course, to be profoundly thankful for. But the matter regarded by him of larger moment--the safety of the Union--how about that? How that great, and just, and kindly brain, in the dim shadows of that awful first night at the White House, must have searched up and down and along the labyrinths of history and "corridors of time," everywhere in the Past, for any analogy or excuse for the madness of this Secession movement--and searched in vain! With his grand and abounding faith in God, how Abraham Lincoln must have stormed the very gates of Heaven that night with prayer that he might be the means of securing Peace and Union to his beloved but distracted Country! How his great heart must have been racked with the alternations of hope and foreboding--of trustfulness and doubt! Anxiously he must have looked for the light of the morrow, that he might gather from the Press, the manner in which his Inaugural had been received. Not that he feared the North--but the South; how would the wayward, wilful, passionate South, receive his proffered olive-branch? Surely, surely,--thus ran his thoughts--when the brave, and gallant, and generous people of that Section came to read his message of Peace and Good-will, they must see the suicidal folly of their course! Surely their hearts must be touched and the mists of prejudice dissolved, so that reason would resume her sway, and Reconciliation follow! A little more time for reflection would yet make all things right. The young men of the South, fired by the Southern leaders' false appeals, must soon return to reason. The prairie fire is terrible while it sweeps along, but it soon burns out. When the young men face the emblem of their Nation's glory--the flag of the land of their birth--then will come the reaction and their false leaders will be hurled from place and power, and all will again be right. Yea, when it comes to firing on the old, old flag, they will not, cannot, do it! Between the Compromise within their reach, and such Sacrilege as this, they cannot waver long. So, doubtless, all the long night, whether waking or sleeping, the mind of this true-hearted son of the West, throbbed with the mighty weight of the problem entrusted to him for solution, and the vast responsibilities which he had just assumed toward his fellow-men, his Nation, and his God.