Annotation
[1] Copy, DLC-RTL. The copy of the interview preserved in the Lincoln Papers is in an unknown handwriting and bears the date 1862, ``Sept (28?)'' having been inserted in a different handwriting. Under this date Lincoln's reply is printed in the Complete Works (VIII, 50-51). The New York Tribune, October 28, 1862, however, gives an account of the interview as occurring on October 27, but Lincoln's letter to Mrs. Gurney, September 4, 1864, infra, specifies Sunday, September 26. Mrs. Gurney was the widow and third wife of Joseph J. Gurney, English Quaker, philanthropist and religious writer. Her address to the president as reproduced in the copy of the interview in the Lincoln Papers is in effect a sermon, at the conclusion of which Mrs. Gurney knelt ``and uttered a short but most beautiful, eloquent, and comprehensive prayer that light and wisdom might be shed down from on high, to guide our President . . . . After a brief pause the President replied.'' No newspaper which gives a verbatim report similar to the copy in the Lincoln Papers has been found.