Sometimes his familiarity with the Scriptures came out very amusingly as when a deputation of bankers called on him, to negotiate for a loan to the Government, and one of them said to him: "You know, Mr.President, where the treasure is, there will the heart be also." "I should not wonder," replied Lincoln, "if another text would not fit the case better, 'Where the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together,'" His innumerable jests contained more wisdom than many a philosopher's maxims, and underneath his plebeian simplicity, dress and manners, this great child of nature possessed the most delicate instincts of the perfect gentleman.

The only just scale by which to measure any man is the scale of actual achievement; and in Lincoln's case some of the most essential instruments had to be fabricated by himself.
The first account in the measurement of the man is that with a sublime reliance on God, he conducted an immense nation through the most tremendous civil war ever waged, and never committed a single serious mistake.

The Illinois backwoodsman did not possess Hamilton's brilliant genius, yet Hamilton never read the future more sagaciously.

He made no pretension to Webster's magnificent oratory; yet Webster never put more truth in portable form for popular guidance.

He possessed Benjamin Franklin's immense common sense, and gift of terse proverbial speech, but none of his lusts and sceptical infirmities.