be thankful. If defeated, it will be all the same!"--(Springfield
_Republican_.)


* * * * *


A LIGHTNING-ROD TO PROTECT A GUILTY CONSCIENCE!

One term in the Illinois State legislature only whetted the
predestined politician for a seat again at that table, though it was
not he who won the loaves and the fishes. He was to speak at
Springfield, the more gloriously welcomed as he was prominent in the
movement hereafter realized, of changing the capital from Vandalia to
this more energetic town.

The meeting had foreboded ill, as a serious wrangle between two of the
preceding speakers threatened to end in a challenge to a duel, still
a fashionable diversion. But Lincoln intervened with a speech so
enthralling that the hearers forgot the dispute and heard him out
with rapture. He had found the proper way to manage his voice, never
musical, by controlling the nasal twang into a monotonous but audible
sharpness, "carrying" to a great distance. He was followed by
one George Forquer (Farquhar or Forquier), a facing-both-ways,
profit-taking politician, who had achieved his end by obtaining an
office. This was the land-office register at this town. He had been
a prominent Whig representative in 1834. The turncoat assailed Lincoln
bitterly (much as Pitt was derided in his beginning) and had begun his
piece by announcing that "the young man (Lincoln) must be taken down."
As if to live up to the lucrative berth, Mr. Forquer had finished a