Browne's book had a chapter in which he assisted Lincoln to form his Cabinet. His first assistance was to turn out all the office-seekers by threatening to turn his "Boy Constrictor" in among them; and then advised Mr. Lincoln to fill his Cabinet with Showmen, all of whom were honest and had nary a politic; "for particulars see small bills." This and other chapters delighted Lincoln; but the one he read to his Cabinet just before presenting the second draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, was the following:
In the Faul of 1856, I showed my show in Utiky, a trooly grate sitty in the State of New York.
The people gave me a cordyal recepshun. The press was loud in her prases.
1 day as I was giving a description of my Beests and Snaiks in my usual flowry stile what was my skorn & disgust to see a big burly fellew walk up to the cage containin my wax figgers of the Lord's Supper, and cease Judas Iscarrot by the feet and drag him onto the ground. He then commenced fur to pound him as hard as he cood.
"What under the son are you abowt?" cried I.
Sez he, "What did you brung this pussylanermus cuss here fur?" & he hit the wax figger another tremjis blow on the hed.
Sez I, "You egrejes ass, that air's a wax figger--a representashun of the false 'Postle."
Sez he, "That's all very well fur you to say but I tell you, old man, that Judas Iscarrot can't show hisself in Utiky by a darn site!" with whuch observashun he caved in Judassis hed. The young man belonged to 1 of the first famerlies in Utiky. I sood him, and the Joory brawt in a verdick of Arson in the 3rd degree.
THE religion of Abraham Lincoln is so much in debate that I feel called upon to give the following narrative of an event of which little seems to be known--and which is of real importance in understanding the man. He has been called an infidel--an unbeliever of varying degrees of blatancy. That he was a Christian in the real sense of the term is plain from his life. That he was converted during a Methodist revival seems not to be a matter of common report. The personal element of this narrative is necessary to unfold the story. In 1894 I was appointed to the pastorate of the Hennepin Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, Minneapolis, Minn., by Bishop Cyrus D. Foss, being transferred from Frederick, Md., a charge in Baltimore Conference. It was in October that we entered the parsonage, which was a double house, the other half being rented by the trustees. Shortly after our occupancy of the church house William B. Jacquess moved into the rented half of the property, and through this fact I became acquainted with Col. James F. Jacquess, his brother. At this time Colonel Jacquess was an old man of eighty years or more, of commanding presence and wearing a long beard which was as white as snow. His title grew out of the fact of his being the commanding officer of the Seventy-third Illinois Volunteer Infantry, known as the Preacher Regiment. Its name was given through the publication in the Cincinnati _Commercial_ in September, 1862, of the roster of its officers: