* * * * * "THE HIGHEST MERIT TO THE SOLDIER." "This extraordinary war in which we are engaged falls heavily upon all classes of people, but the most heavily upon the soldier. For it has been said, 'All that a man hath he will give for his life;' and, while all contribute of their substance, the soldier puts his life at stake, and often yields it up in his country's cause. The highest merit, then, is due to the soldier." * * * * * "HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE?" If Lincoln did not possess a wide range of reading, he had the habit of committing to memory entire pages of the text he delighted in. The consequence was his invariable ability to not only utter apt quotations at length, but to cap them, if need be. Joining a group of visitors to Washington, at the Soldiers' Home, during the war, he suddenly, but in an undertone, murmured: How sleep the brave who sink to rest By all their country's wishes blest? The women were affected to tears by their susceptible nature, the surroundings of the cemetery with its graves, the evening dusk, and the touching voice with its apposite lines. An effect he redoubled by concluding: And women o'er the graves shall weep, Where nameless heroes calmly sleep! * * * * * THE STOKERS AS BRAVE AS ANY. The first troops arriving by way of the Potomac River were the volunteers of the first call, ninety-day men; the steamship _Daylight_--name of good omen! It was torrential rain, but the President and Secretary Seward came out to welcome them on the wharf. As he would give a reception then and there, four sailors held a tarpaulin over his head like a canopy, and he shook hands all around, including the firemen and stokers out of the coal-hole. Grasping their smutty hands, he declared that they were as brave as any one! --(By General Viele, present.) * * * * * TRY AND GO AS FAR AS YOU CAN! On the President, indefatigable in visiting the soldiers anywhere to see "how the boys are getting on," telling the head surgeon at City Point Hospital that he had come to shake hands with _all_ the inmates, the medical authority demurred. There were several thousands in the wards, and any man would be tired before he had gone the grand rounds. "I think," protested Lincoln, with his set smile and dogged determination to have his own way, "I am quite equal to the task. At any rate, I can try, and go as far as I can!" It was on this, at another time--there were many of them, alas!--that it being found that the patients in one ward were clamoring because they had been passed over, he insisted on shaking off the fag and going to pay them respect also. "The brave boys must not be disappointed in their 'Father Abraham!'" * * * * * ARGUMENT OF "THE STUB-TAILED COW."