LINCOLN'S LETTER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11508, 2 October 1915, Page 7

LINCOLN'S LETTER.

THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM. . .- i The " Philadelphia Ledger" publishes I a letter written by Abraham Lincoln to j a of Boston, which the I "Leuger," says, ''has been engrossed, framed and hung in one of the Oxford (English) University halls as a ' specimen ' of the purest English and elegant diction extant." Tho letter has an additional interest. It is peculiarly appropriate now, when so many mothers are mourning their sons killed in battlo. The letter is as follows: Dear Madam, —I have been shown in ~ the files of the War Department a statement of the adjutant-general of Massachusetts that you are the motner of five sons who* have died gloriously in the field of battlo. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a- loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may bo lound in the thanks of tho republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon tho altar, of freedom.—Yorlrs very sincerely and repectfully,' Abraham Lincoln. j