22 WEBER LITERARY JOURNAL really concerns me is, are we on God's side?" Truly he reached the position of the meek and was entitled to inherit the world. Lincoln's "Hunger and thirst for righteousness," began when he made his first flat-boat trip from New Orleans. There he saw the cruel separation of father from son, mother from daughter, and the other despicable practices of the slave trade. He made his decision right then to hunt after righteousness, and he expressed it in these words, "If ever I get a chance to hit that thing, I'll hit it hard." He got the opportunity and he hit hard. He hungered and thirsted after righteousness and he was filled. Standing out above all of his other qualities, like the peak of a craggy mountain against a veiled sky, was his quality of mercy. Prominent men ridiculed him for his "chicken heart," common men praised him. His cabinet members laughed at his interest in all of the capital punishment cases, his countrymen honored him as the saviour of their sons and brothers. "It was the baby that did it," one of Mr. Lincoln's secretaries told a woman as she stepped out of the President's office, carrying a little child on one arm and holding firmly in the other hand a pardon for her Confederate husband. His office was filled with hollow-eyed mothers and war-saddened sisters and sweethearts, who had come to appeal to his mercy and they rarely left without their petitions granted. He was a sad man, but he took great pleasure in making others glad whenever it was within his power. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy," Christ said. Can not Lincoln of the merciful spirit and the ready hand, denied mercy by his people, expect it at the hands of his Creator? His heart was as fine as the folded petals of a white rose, and as stainless. His marvelous judgment in the treatment of both Yankees and Confererates marked him as a peace-maker, in spite of the struggle within the national family. Surely he shall be called a Son of God. On the yard-stick of the beatitudes, Abraham Lincoln's broadness of mind, beauty of spirit, and sweetness of soul, brings him near the notch which Christ, himself, set as a measure for a righteous man. I wonder where we should be if we were measured by the same measure? Would we be able to reach even half the way to the mark that "The Great Emancipator" left, or would we fall far below it, hampered by our groundless pride and petty jealousies? WEBER LITERARY JOURNAL 23 The Housewife's Prayer By Barbara Sprague. I gaze a-down the shining halls, And thru the windows bright, That cast upon the smooth, clean floor, Panels of yellow light. I breathe the smell of fresh, damp wood, That tells of coming Spring; I feel the weariness at night, That honest labors bring. My pans and dishes all are bright, My table fresh and set. My porch is painted all and new, And still is white and wet. And, God, I thank Thee for my house, For the work that's here each day. I pray Thee it will always send Me singing on my way!