A woman came to the Honorable Francis Kernan, member of Congress, with a pitiful tale, with which he went to the President. Her husband was a soldier who had been away from home a year. He deserted in order to have a glance at the family, and was captured on his way back to the front. But the rules of war are imperative, and without compassion. The President was interested, as in all such cases where a deserving life and a sorrowing woman were at stake. He said: "Of course, this man wanted to see his family! They ought not to shoot him for that!" He telegraphed for action in the matter to cease, and finally pardoned the deserter. "A fellow-feeling"--for all his thoughts reverted to _his_ family life at Springfield. * * * * * A RULE WITHOUT EXCEPTION. Lincoln's Amnesty Proclamation, issued in December, 1863, exemplifies the perpetual attempt to infuse mercy into that intestine warfare, which always grows more fierce by oil thrown on the flames, and only once, in our case, terminated in the brothers becoming brothers again. He replied thus to a public criticizer of the document: "When a man is sincerely penitent for his misdeeds, and gives satisfactory evidence of the same, he can safely be pardoned, and there is no exception to the rule." * * * * * EVEN REBELS MIGHT BE SAVED. A Mr. Shrigley, of Philadelphia, having been appointed hospital chaplain, the President sent in his name to the Senate, and his confirmation was imminent. A deputation came on to protest on the grounds that he was a Universalist, a large-minded man, who did not believe in endless punishment. Logically, he believed that "even the rebels will be saved," concluded the opposition, horrified. "Well, gentlemen," determined the President gravely, "if that be so, and there is any way under heaven whereby the rebels can be saved, then, for God's sake and for their sakes, let the man be appointed." * * * * * WHIPPING AROUND THE STUMP. On New-year's morning, 1864, President Lincoln entered the War Department building. His sensitive nature, more than ever strained to the utmost tension, was irritated by hearing a woman wailing over a child in her arms at an office door. Major Eckert requested to ascertain the cause of the grief brought back the painful but not unexampled explanation. A soldier's wife had come to Washington with her babe, expecting to have no difficulty in going on under pass to the camp where her husband was under the colors. But she learned, to her dismay, that, while an officer's wife has few obstacles to meet in communing with her husband under like circumstances, the private's is dissimilarly situated. This poor soul, with little money anyway, was perplexed how to wait in the expensive city till her wish was granted. "Come, Eckert," blurted out the chief in his frank manner, "let's send the woman down there!"