Europe instead of Africa. They, too, have the tradition mentioned by Livy, Pliny, and Seneca, that Spain and Morocco were once united-an idea which must so naturally suggest itself to any one who has sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar, that it is needless to imagine that it had any foundation in historic memory. If we might here hazard a conjecture, it would be that the same convulsions and upheavals which at the close of the Tertiary epoch indented the southern coasts of Europe at the same time drained the ocean which hitherto had rolled over the plains of the Sahara, and submerged the low-lying lands which probably united the Canaries and Madeira to the main land. The natural history of these islands is so essentially European as to point to an identical center of creation. We may then imagine that, towards the close of the later geological epoch, Barbary was a vast peninsula, linked to Europe by Gibraltar, and washed on the south by the ocean of the Sahara, on the north by that inland lake which is now the Mediterranean. On, hours over the level plain amidst dwarf ABRAHAM LINCOLN. THE name of the late ABRAHAM LINCOLN, greatly lamented President of the United States, is embalmed in the memory of vast multitudes in this land and in other lands, and his character and deeds are recorded in the annals of history for all coming ages, and for the admiration of mankind. It is scarcely necessary to dwell upon But when, leaving the southern slopes his personal history, the great events of of the Atlas, we enter upon the Sahara, his public life, and the terrible scenes the physical and geological characteristics which environed his last hours, or atare changed at once. Upon the surface tempt to describe the funeral obsequies of the secondary and some of the ter- and mourning millions, who gazed with tiary deposits we stumble over beds of sad hearts and moistened eyes at the furounded pebble and large gravel, besides neral train, as it swept along from Washthe extraordinary mountains of pure rock-ington, a distance of some thousand or salt which in various places rises sudden- fifteen hundred miles to his ever memly from the lime-stone. orable mausoleum in the West. Such a life-such a personal and public history To picture the Sahara, imagine what the north-east portion of England would be if completely drained of its streams and denuded of its vegetation; wooded dells transformed into rocky naked nullahs, and tillage plains covered with a soil pulverized by the combined action of heat, wind, and attrition. With all its monotony, the Desert has its varieties. One day you laboriously pick your steps among bare rocks, now sharp enough to wound the tough sole of your camel, now so slippery that the Arab horse can scarce make good his footing. Another day you plunge for miles knee-deep in loose suffocating sanddrifts, ever changing and threatening to bury you when you halt. Sometimes a hard pebbly surface permits a canter for such a death so tragic and awfulsuch a funeral with its attendant circumstances of public grief and sorrow along the avenues of our principal cities, villages and hamlets, gazed at by witnessing and attending millions, presented such a funeral scene, as earth has seldom beheld, or history recorded. His name and biography have been written on many hearts, in many lands. We desire to offer our humble tribute of grateful respect and admiration of his name and character by embellishing this number of the Electic with a fine Portrait of his face and form as a permanent record. A brief biographical sketch is all that will be needful on these pages to accompany his portrait, as a more extended history of his life and character is to be found in numerous forms in the current annals of our land. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, was born in Harden county, Kentucky, February 12, 1809. His ancestors, who were Quakers, went from Berks Co., Penn., to Rockingham Co., Va., and from there his grandfather Abraham removed with his family to Kentucky about 1782, and was killed by Indians in 1784. Thomas Lincoln, the father of Abraham, was born in Virginia, and in 1806 married Nancy Hanks, also a Virginian. In 1816 he removed with his family to what is now Spencer Co., Ind., where Abraham, being large for his age, was put to work with an axe to assist in clearing away the forest, and for the next ten years was mostly occupied in hard labor on his father's farm. He went to school at intervals, amounting in the aggregate to about a year, which was all the school education he ever received. At the age of nineteen he made a trip to New Orleans as a hired hand upon a flat boat. In March 1830, he removed with his father from Indiana and settled in Macon Co., Ill., where he helped to build a log cabin for the family home. In the following year he hired himself at $12 a month to assist in building a flat boat, and afterwards in taking the boat to New Orleans. On his return from this voyage his employer put him in charge as clerk of a store and mill at New Salem, then in Sangamon, now in Menard Co., Ill. On the breaking out of the Black Hawk War in 1832, he joined a volunteer company, and to his surprise was elected captain of it, a promotion which, he says, gave him more pleasure than any subsequent success in life. He served for three months in the campaign, and on his return was in the same year nominated a whig candidate for the legislature. He next opened a country store, which was not prosperous; was appointed a postmaster of New Salem, and now began to study law by borrowing from a neighboring lawyer books which he took in the evening and returned in the morning. The surveyor of Sangamon Co. offering to depute to him that portion of his work which was in his part of the county, Mr. Lincoln procured a compass and chain and a treatise on surveying, and did the work. In 1834 he was elect ed to the legislature by the highest vote cast for any candidate, and was reelected in 1836, 1838, and 1840. In 1836 he obtained a license to practise law, and in April, 1837, removed to Springfield, and opened an office in partnership with Major John F. Stuart. He rose rapidly to distinction in his profession, and was especially eminent as an advocate in jury trials. He did not, however, withdraw from politics, but continued for many years a prominent leader of the whig party in Illinois. He was several times a candidate for presidential elector, and as such, in 1844, he canvassed the entire state, together with part of Indiana, in behalf of Henry Clay, making almost daily speeches to large audiences. 1846 he was elected a representative in Congress from the central district of Illnois, and took his seat on the first Monday of Dec. 1847. In Congress he voted for the reception of anti-slavery memorials and petitions. He voted 42 times in favor of the Wilmot proviso. On Jan. 16, 1849, he offered to the house a scheme for abolishing slavery in the district by compensating the slave-owners from the treasury of the United States, provided a majority of citizens of the district should vote for the acceptance of the proposed act. In 1849 he was a candidate for the U. S. Senate, but the legislature was democratic, and elected Gen. Shields. After the expiration of his congressional term Mr. Lincoln applied himself to his profession till the repeal of the Missouri Compromise called him again into the political arena. He entered with energy into the canvass, which was to decide the choice of a U. S. Senator in place of Gen. Shields, and was mainly to his exertions that the triumph of the republicans and the election of Judge Trumbull to the Senate was attributed. At the Republican National Convention in 1856, by which Col. Fremont was nominated for President, the Illinois delegation ineffectually urged Mr. Lincoln's nomination for the Vice-presidency. On June 2, 1858, the Republican State Convention met at Springfield, and unanimously nominated him as candidate for U.S. senator in opposition to Mr. Douglas. The two candidates canvassed the state together, speaking on the same day at the same place. The result of the elec tion was a vote of 125,275 for the republican candidates, who were pledged to the election of Mr. Lincoln, 121,190 for the Douglas candidates, and 5,071 for the Lecompton candidates. Mr. Lincoln had thus a majority of more than 4,000 on the popular vote over Mr. Douglas; but the latter was elected Senator by the Legislature, in which his supporters had a majority of 8 on joint ballot. On May 16, 1860, the republican National Convention met at Chicago, and on May 18, began the ballot for a candidate for president. The whole number of votes was 465-necessary to a choice, 233. On the first ballot Mr. Seward received 173%, Mr. Lincoln 102. The nomination of Mr. Lincoln was subsequently made unanimous on motion of the chairman of the New York delegation. With the great leading facts and history of Mr.. LINCOLN's administration during his first term of four years, and of his re-election to that high office, the public are familiar. His assassination by wicked hands on the night of April 14, at Ford's theatre in Washington, are known over the civilized world. The history of his life and times will be read for ages to come by an admiring posterity as that of a great and good man. POETRY. THE GREAT CATHEDRAL WINDOW. AN OLD LEGEND. The Great west window was framed and done; Were rolled and labelled, and hid away, But when he saw that shining rood The window was a wondrous thing, A glory lighting it shed from skies What wonder, then, that as he gazed, Fiends that danced and mocked at his fall, But Friar John prayed loud and long, Till heaven opened, and angel and saint BY THE SEA. -Chambers's. This was to have been my wedding-day— It was to have been, ah me! Could it only have been this morning I went out as the day was dawning Gaily I sauntered down to the shore, Stormy and boisterous had been the wind, A death-like chill came over my heart, I stumbled over the yielding sands, At each step groping with outstretched hands, No need to question the garb he wears, Slowly I raise his head to my breast- It was bright with love but yesterday, And I was to be his wife, to-night I lay my cheek to my dead love's lips, K. "CONSIDER THE LILIES OF THE FIELD." Thou, whose sad and darkling brow Seems to tell of care and woe, Dost thou pore upon the cloud Which futurity doth shroud, ray; For the lessons they can yield -Sunday Magazine. FAITHFUL TO THE LAST. The winter-wind blew cold O'er the snow-fields far and near, The sunlight on the wold Was gleaming pale and drear. Slowly I sally forth Beneath th' inclement sky, And wander towards the north In pensive reverie. As I my way pursue Across the leafless wood, Like echo to my thought. Ah, sound of sorrow keen, Too soon bedimmed with tears. Why weave we fondly ties Which death so soon shall rend? Why seek in melting eyes A bliss that ne'er shall end? Shield we 'neath love's soft wing, The closer aye we cling, Thus as with eyelids wet, Recalled my wandering thought. No pomp of grief was there, Of all parade of woe. Within a little cart, Made for glad childhood's play, And framed with rugged art, A little coffin lay. One drew this lowly bier, It seemed that life and death Many a summer day That happy infant, dead, Still faithful to the last That sister's hand doth prove, She draws along the way And I learnt lesson new From the child's simple faith, How in the gloomy day, And how the early dead Leave no sad memory, For One with power hath said, "Let them come unto ME;" And from assault of sin, From sorrow, fears, alarms, The Everlasting Arms. A CRY OF PAIN. A. D. "Light of the world! Why is there all this sadness? What is the mystery of Thy dear love, That we so seldom taste the heavenly glad ness, So slowly lift our hearts to Thee above? "Why must we watch the rosy morning break ing, Yet not for us, who in our pain do lie? Why must we part from those whom Thou art taking? So dear, that in their death we seem to die. 'How can we sow, who never see the reaping? How can we pray, with hearts so full of sin? Blessed the souls, who safe in Thee are sleeping, No strength of ours can hope that goal to win." And who are ye, to raise this loud complaining Up to the Throne, where holy angels bend, Where saints in light (God's love their lips constraining) To One Unseen their mighty anthems send! What skill of yours can summon o'er the ocean, The gath'ring blackness, or the whisp'ring breeze? How march the planets in their stately motion? How breathes the Spring upon the greening trees? Jehovah's path is on the dark'ning waters: When God is silent, man indeed is blind; Yet this His message to His sons and daugh ters Me, if ye humbly seek, ye soon shall find. For God is Light! No clouds with him are dwelling, Who in His Christ is fully reconciled. Faith in His love will soothe the heart's rebelling: Where God is Father, safe must be the child. Ours is a pleasant world, and we should love it, Oh, far too well, if all were smooth and bright; Because its treasures we are apt to covet, The best we have must vanish out of sight. We weep to-day that we may smile to-morrow; Now we are weak, that He may make us strong. He drank it first, who mixed our cup of sorrow, Soon shall we learn to sing the conquerer's song. No sin shall sully then the robes of whiteness And have they told you all? Ah yes, I see I've known a long time now that in that heart, You strove to conquer it, you love her still. "Twas hard to bear-to know that she whose whim Had blighted all the sunshine of your life, Could make your cheek flush and your eye grow dim |