Short Biographies for the People
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SHORT BIOGRAPHIES FOE THE PEOPLE BY VARIOUS WRITERS. VOL. VII. Nos. 73-84. LONDON: THE EELIGIOUS TEACT SOCIETY, 56 PATEENOSTEE EOW, 65 ST. PAUL'S CHIJECnYAED, AND 164 PICCADILLY. PREFACE. The issues of the New Biographical Series for the year that is finishing are again gathered together in a volume—the Seventh of this Series—and the interest and importance of the subjects and the skill of the writers will be found equal to any previous year's tracts. It is only necessary to mention Peter Waldo, Sir Edward Parry, Sir James Simpson, Archbishop Whately, James Hamilton, and Eobert Moffat, to show the wide range of subjects. It is hoped and expected that the usefulness of this Series will be greatly extended by the issue of this and each succeeding yearly volume. The Society has reason to be thankful for the appreciation already so widely shown in this effort to provide sound readable and instructive literature for the People. Odoher, 1890. CONTENTS. Lxxm. LXXIX. By the Rev. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By the Eev. Eichaed DR. JOHN ABERCROMBIE. LOYETT, M.A. George Wilson, M.A., F.L.S. LXXIV. LXXX. PETER WALDO. By the Rev. E. Comba, ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. Bj the Rev. D.D. Translated by the Rev. L. Bokbett Thomas Hamilton, D.D. White, D.D. LXXV. LXXXL CHARLES SIMEON OF CAMBRIDGE. By JAMES HAMILTON, D.D., F.L.S. By the the Rev. Horace Noel, M.A. Rev. Alex. H. Deysdale, M.A. LXXVL LXXXII. B.^rt.. REAR - ADMIRAL SIR W. EDWARD SIR JAMES YOUNG SIMPSON, PARRY. By James Macaulay, Esq., M.D. By James Macaulay, Esq., 31 A., M.A., M.D. M.D. LXXVII. LXXXIII. DR. EDMUND CALAMY. By the Rev. GEORGE WISHART. By the Rev. W. G. Alex. H. Drysdalb, M.A. Blaikie, D.D., LL.D. LXXVIIL LXXXIV. ARCHBISHOP USSHER. By James Macau- ROBERT MOFFAT, D.D. By Miss Jane G. lay, Esq., M.A., M.D. Moffat. ABEAHAM LINCOLN. '^^^-.^^/z/ New BiograpMoal Series.—No. 73. t- ; ABEAHAM LINCOLN. the body of his victim. I. he stood over The youngest of the three sons, Thomas EARLY YEARS. by name, married in 1806. A year later small farm in Hardin County, The career of Abratam Lincoln affords he moved to a and as Lincoln's biographers a most striking illustration of the Kentucky, " settled to a deeper possibilities of lite in the United States. tell us, down Sprung from the humblest grade of poverty than any of his name had ever ; there, in the midst of society, by a wise and right use of the known and circumstances privileges and opportunities he shared the most unpromising ever witnessed the advent of a hero with all his fellow-citizens, he attained that Lincoln was the highest station in his country at the into this world, Abraham 12th day of February, 1809." great crisis of her history. Playing as born on the prominent a part in a vaster and more In 1813, the family moved to a farm and in 1816 they again tragic struggle, he has received with on Knob Creek, Little Pigeon Washington the patriot's undying fame. journeyed westward to here, on Lincoln came of a good stock, although Creek in Indiana; and October the early age of thirty-five, rank, Avealth and learning were unrepre- 5th, 1818, at Life in those sented among his immediate ancestors. Lincoln's mother died. settled regions was a hard It is not certain, but highly probable, newly barest existence. Pri- that he was a descendant of the Samuel struggle for the Lincoln who, about 1638, left Norwich vations and the absence of the com- childhood probably in England for Hingham in what is now monest advantages of lay the Stale of Massachusetts. Thence the produced that melancholy which at family moved to Virginia, and, in 1780, the foundation of Lincoln's character; but Abraham Lincoln, his grandfather, left they also matured in him a sturdy of resource Virginia for Kentucky, which was then self-reliance and a fertility being opened up by the famous pioneer, to which in later days he owed much Daniel Boone. Kentucky, is one of the of his success. romance lands of the West, and the His mother is described as handsome in those parts story of her settlement is full of deeds and—rare accomplishments able to read and of heroism and endurance, but is also at that date—as being not wholly free from dark stains of write. She was probably too delicate to treachery and cruelty. The fate of the stand the rough wear and tear of frontier in her early prime. pioneer Lincoln is an illustration of the life, and hence died of price that had to be paid in human But she seems to have imparted much and one of lives before the wilderness became her own gentleness to her boy, habitable. Abraham Lincoln had cleared his intimate friends in later life tells us " a small holding, and in 1786,^ while at that Lincoln said, All that I am or work with his three sons extending hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." write the clearing, he was shot dead by an She had taught him to read and Indian concealed in the woods. The she had implanted in him a love for youngest son crouched by his father's truth and justice and for the Word of off to the nearest God which only deepened as the years body ; the second made on. authentic settlers for help; the eldest ran to the of his life rolled One is touching. log-house, seized a rifle, and through incident of this period very custom, his a loop-hole shot his father's assailant as According to the common — ABRAHAM LINCOLN. mother was buried hard by the home- Pilgrim's Progress, a Mstory of the stead, and no religious service was held United States, and Weam's Life of in connection with the funeral, as there George WasJiington were the remaining no minister of the Gospel within was volumes of his library ; and it may be reach. But Lincoln, although only- questioned whether the world's litera- nine years old, could not bear the ture, had it been at his disposal, could thought of his mother's funeral without have provided other books better qualified any religious rites. And so he wrote off to educate him for the great work of his —and possibly this was the first letter life. These he read and re-read until he penned—to David Elkin, one of the they became a permanent part of his frontier itinerant preachers, who, when mental equipment. " But his voracity the winter was over, came and held a for anything printed," we are assured, religious service over the mother's grave. "was insatiable. He would sit in the In 1819, Lincoln's father married a twilight and read a dictionary as long second time. The step-mother's influence as he could see. He used to go to proved of the greatest benefit to the David Turnham's, the town constable, lad. She was an earnest Christian, a and devour the Eevised Statutes of pattern of thrift and industry, and her in- Indiana, as boys in our days do The fluence over the household was wholly for Three Guardsmen. Of the books he did good. She was fully alive to the value not own he took voluminous notes, of education, and so far as it lay in her filling his copy-book with choice ex- power, secured it for all her children. tracts, and poring over them until they But in that wild region, and at that were fixed in his memory. He could early date, education, in the modern sense not afford to waste paper upon his o-^ti of the term, hardly existed. original compositions." Lincoln himself has sketched for us As the years passed, he grew into a this part of his life : tall stalwart man, over six feet high. " There were some schools so-called, but no Many are the stories told illustrative of qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond his kindness of heart, his strict sense of ' readin', ' writin', and cipherin' to the rule of justice, and of his willingness to protect three. If a straggler, supposed to understand the weak. His step-mother's testimony is : Latin, happened to sojourn in the neighbourhood, " he was looked upon as a wizard. There was I can say what scarcely one mother in absolutely nothing to excite ambition for edu- a thousand can say, Abe never gave me cation. Of course, when I came of age, I did not a cross word or look, and never refused know much. Still somehow I could read and in fact or appearance to do anything I write and cipher to the rule of three ; but that asked him." was all. I have not been to school since. The He was always roused to a little advance I now have upon this store of white heat of indignation by the sight of education I have picked up from time to time, any cruelty to animals. He once saved under the of necessity." pressure the life of the town drunkard, whom he But Lincoln had acquired a love of found freezing by the roadside, by carry- study for its own sake, and hence he ing him a long distance, and watching became his own best teacher. He read over him until he regained consciousness. everything that came in his way ; and In the rough work and the rough life fortTinately the bulk of the literature of those days he could hold his own.