Note 19 — Chapter V

Mr. Barker, the bookseller and publisher of Springfield, has or had an interesting item in a volume which Mr. Lincoln presented to Rev. William A. Chapin, a returned missionary, who lived with the family of his relative, Albert Hale. Mr. Lincoln was on close terms with "Father Hale" and a friend of Mr. Chapin. The book is one volume, the others being lost, of a set entitled "Horae Solitariae, or, Essays on Some Remarkable Names and Titles of the Holy Spirit. First American from the Second London Edition. Philadelphia: Cochran & McLoughlan, 1801." The book bears no name of author. Upon the flyleaf is the autograph of Mr. Chapin in these words, "William A. Chapin, 1844. A present from Abr. Lincoln." How Lincoln obtained the book is not known; nor is it one for which he would have been likely to care. But he cared enough for the book or for the missionary or for both to present the one to the other. His aversion to ministers, which Lamon portrays, may have had some reason in certain cases; but it was not inclusive of all ministers nor of ministers as a class.