According to one source, “In the gloomiest period of the war, President Lincoln had a call from a large delegation of bank presidents.
“In the talk after business was settled, one of the big Dons asked Mr. Lincoln if his confidence in the permanency of the Union was not beginning to be shaken, whereupon the homely President told a little story.
‘When I was a young man in Illinois,’ said he, ‘I boarded for a time with a deacon of the Presbyterian church.
‘One night I was roused from my sleep by a rap at the door, and I heard the deacon's voice exclaiming, “Arise, Abraham! the day of judgment has come!”
‘I sprang from my bed and rushed to the window, and saw the stars falling in great showers; but looking back of them in the heavens I saw the grand old constellations, with which I was so well acquainted, fixed and true in their places.
‘Gentlemen, the world did not come to an end then, nor will the Union now.’"
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