"When it gets darkest, the stars come out."
Dr. Karl Menninger, world-famous psychiatrist,
records in his excellent book, "The Vital Balance", that
Abraham Lincoln had, not one, but several, attacks of
severe mental illness. Lincoln's own law partner described
him as a "hopeless victim of melancholy" (one of the most
serious of mental disorders). Indeed, Lincoln's future
wife's relatives considered him "insane" and he reinforced
their beliefs when, on his ~edding day, after all prepara-
tions were made and the rest of the wedding party was
waiting, he did not appear. Finally, after a search, he was
found in his room in deep dejection, ohsessed with ideas
of unworthiness, hopelessness and guilt.
Dale Carnegie, who spent three years doing
research on Lincoln's life and writing Lincoln's biography,
wrote that Lincoln became dangerously ill in body and
mind, and sank into a deep and terrible spell of melancholy,
mumbling incoherent sentences and threatening suicide.
He even wrote a poem about suicide and had it published
in one of the Springfield papers. His friends took his knife
away from him to keep him from killing himself.
Yet... when it was darkest for A braham
Lincoln ... in some mysterious way (perhaps because
there is a Purpose)... the stars came out.
You can see those stars now... stars on a
field of blue in the flag of the United States of America
... "One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice
for all."
In Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln's old home is
preserved as a national shrine. And, because they lived