Confused at an inquiry so foreign to the topic under discussion, the soldier replied he did not attend much of any church himself, but his folks were Methodists. "How odd!" said. Lincoln, "I thought you were an Episcopalian. You swear just like Seward, and Seward is an Episcopalian." But I should be sorry to believe there was any trouble with Seward but a surface blemish. Though in '61 he advocated a foreign war as a means for bringing together North and South, and desired to shelve practically Lincoln while he himself stood at the front to manage the turmoil, he made no more mistakes than statesmen in general. He had been powerful for good before the war, and during its course, with what virile stiffness of the upper lip did he face and foil the frowning foreign world! He had the insight and candour to do full justice at last to Lincoln, whom at first he depreciated. Then the purchase of Alaska! Writing as I do on the western coast I am perhaps affected by the glamour of that marvellous land. When news of the bargain came in the seventies, the scorners sang: "Hear it all ye polar bears, Waltz around the pole in pairs. All ye icebergs make salaam, You belong to Uncle Sam. Lo, upon the snow too plain Falls his dark tobacco stain." We thought that very funny and very apt,--but now! I am glad I have his image vivid, in the pulpit beside my grandfather scratching a match for a too careless cigar. Between smokes he had done, and was still to do, some fine things. * * * * *