"Mrs. Rebecca R. Pomeroy, a Christian woman from Chelsea, Massachusetts, who had come to nurse the Lincoln children in their sickness, speaks of Lincoln's great affliction and sadness. On the morning of the funeral she assured him that many Christians were praying for him. With eyes suffused with tears, he replied: 'I am glad to hear that. I want them to pray for me. I need their prayers.' Mrs. Pomeroy expressed her sympathy with him as they were going out to the burial. Thanking her gently, he said, 'I will try to go to God with my sorrows.' She asked him a few days after if he could not trust God. With deep religious feeling, he replied: 'I think I can, and I will try. I wish I had that childlike faith you speak of, and I trust He will give it to me.' Then the memory of his mother filled his mind with tenderest recollections, and he said: 'I had a good Christian mother, and her prayers have followed me thus far through life.'"--_Lincoln Scrapbook_, Library of Congress, p. 54. Mrs. Pomeroy was a Baptist, and had recently buried her husband. She volunteered for service as a nurse in the soldiers' hospitals in Washington, and in the serious illness of Mr. Lincoln's two sons she was installed as nurse in the White House and remained these several months. She relates that she frequently saw him reading his mother's Bible, and that he found especial comfort in the Psalms. Mrs. Pomeroy relates: "On July 9, 1863, while sitting at the dinner table he could not eat, for he seemed so full of trouble as he said, 'The battle of Port Hudson is now going on, and many lives will be sacrificed on both sides, but I have done the best I could, trusting in God, for if they gain this important point, we are lost; and, on the other hand, if we could only gain it we shall have gained much; and I think we shall, for we have a great deal to thank God for, for we have Vicksburg and Gettysburg already.' Mrs. Pomeroy said, 'Mr. Lincoln, prayer will do what nothing else will; can you not pray?' 'Yes, I will,' he replied, and while the tears were dropping from his face he said, 'Pray for me,' and picked up a Bible and went to his room. 'Could all the people of the nation have overheard the earnest petition that went up from that inner chamber as it reached the ears of the nurse, they would have fallen upon their knees with tearful and reverential sympathy.' That night he received a dispatch announcing a Union victory. He went directly to Mrs. Pomeroy's room, his face beaming with joy, saying: 'Good news! Good news! Port Hudson is ours! The victory is ours, and God is good.' When the lady replied, 'Nothing like prayer in times of trouble,' Mr. Lincoln said, 'Yes, O yes--praise--prayer and praise go together.' Mrs. Pomeroy in relating this incident, said, 'I do believe he was a true Christian, though he had very little confidence in himself.'"