whole content of the positive arguments set forth so cogently by his
pastor, Dr. Smith. When he called this argument "unanswerable," it
need not imply that his every doubt was satisfied, his every misgiving
reassured. It is entirely possible that there lingered in his mind
some vestiges of what he had read in writers opposed to the doctrine
of the inspiration of the Scriptures as it was then taught; indeed,
that doctrine in the form in which it was currently stated was not
one by which a modern man's orthodoxy ought to be tested. But he read
the Bible, honored it, quoted it freely, and it became so much a
part of him as visibly and permanently to give shape to his literary
style and to his habits of thought. When Mrs. Speed presented him an
Oxford Bible in 1841, he declared his intention to read it regularly,
believing it to be "the best cure for the blues"; and he kept and loved
and constantly used his mother's Bible. How he would have defined his
theory of its transmission and of the relation of its divine and human
elements we do not know, and we need not be too curious to inquire.
It is more than possible that Mr. Lincoln never made this definition
in his own mind. His attitude toward the Bible was a thoroughly
practical one. We do not know that he ever heard Coleridge's pragmatic
affirmation, but we have every reason to believe that he would have
accepted it, namely, that he valued the Bible because "it finds me as
no other book."
Concerning his opinion of Jesus Christ our material for constructive
hypothesis is exceedingly scanty.[69] Herndon says he does not believe
the name of Jesus can be found in any of Lincoln's authentic writings.
I have found it in his writings but I must confess that I have not
found it frequently in any which I count to be certainly genuine.[70]
There are, however, a number of references to Jesus Christ in his
writings and published addresses, and they are both positive and
reverent.
On July 4, 1864, the colored people of Baltimore presented him a
beautiful copy of the Bible of the usual pulpit size, bound in
violet-colored velvet. The corners were bands of solid gold and there
was a thick plate of gold upon the cover, bearing this inscription:
"To Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, the friend of
universal freedom. From the loyal colored people of Baltimore, as a
token of respect and gratitude. Baltimore, July 4, 1864."
In accepting this gift, which was presented in person by a committee of
five, the President said:
"In regard to this great book, I have only to say it is the best
gift which God has ever given man. All the good from the Saviour of
the world is communicated to us through this book."--CARPENTER: _Six
Months in the White House_, p. 199; also NICOLAY and HAY: _Works of
Lincoln_, twelve volume edition, X, 217-18.
Such references as this show to us the instinctive place which he
accorded Jesus Christ in his own unpremeditated thinking. This was the
best thing he had to say about the Bible, that through it alone we have
knowledge of the Saviour of the world.
Herndon tells us that Lincoln ridiculed the doctrine of the virgin
birth of Jesus. If this is true, I am very sorry. But Abraham Lincoln's
faith in Christ did not depend wholly or even primarily upon his
interpretation of the mystery of our Lord's birth. I approach a
discussion of this question with some hesitation, for it is one which,
as related to Lincoln we do not know very much about, but it is a
subject which we are not free to pass over in silence.
It is a sad fact that the argument for the divinity of our Lord Jesus
Christ should ever have been based on the mystery of his birth. Not
thus does the New Testament establish the doctrine of his divinity.
The wonderful story of the birth of Jesus is told in two places
only,--in the introduction to the two Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and
these are the very two that contain genealogies tracing his descent
through Joseph. The theory that one of these gives the family tree of
Mary is unsupported by any evidence. So far as we know, Jesus never
referred to the mystery of his birth, or attached any importance to
it. His two brothers, James and Jude, each wrote a book which we have
in the New Testament, and there is no reference in either of them to
this doctrine. Peter preached his mighty sermons at Pentecost and
afterwards, proclaiming the faith on which the Church was established,
and he grounded his argument for the divinity of Jesus not upon his
birth, but upon his resurrection from the dead. Paul preached the
gospel of Christ throughout the Roman world, and neither in any
recorded sermon nor in any letter did he make any reference to that
dogma. Mark, earliest of the gospels, and for we know not how long a
period the only one, is silent as to the birth of Jesus; and John,
the most definitely spiritual of them all, begins and concludes his
profound philosophy of the person of Christ without a word concerning
the manner of his birth.
It is, therefore, a wholly unwarranted dogmatism which grounds the
divinity of Jesus in a question of the domestic relations of Joseph and
Mary. Jesus Christ is to be accepted for what He was and is, not for
some opinion as to how He became what He was.
We do not know whether Abraham Lincoln ever considered the question of
the birth of Christ in any personal thought he may have had concerning
his own birth. We may not forget, however, that if Herndon is right,
Lincoln lived and died without knowing all the facts about his own
mother which later research has made certain. The marriage certificate
of his parents was recorded in another county than that in which he
supposed it would have been recorded, and he appears never to have been
certain that he himself was begotten in lawful wedlock. We know that
Nancy Hanks and Thomas Lincoln were married a year before the birth of
their eldest daughter, who was older than Abraham Lincoln, but he is
believed not to have known that.
What then? Should a man in 1860 or 1864 refuse to vote for Abraham
Lincoln because he did not feel certain when or whether his parents
were married?
The man who said, "I believe in Abraham Lincoln," did not commonly have
in mind any question of his parentage, but believed in his integrity,
his patriotism, his moral leadership. Even so the man who believes in
Jesus Christ may believe in Him without ever asking, much less ever
answering, any dubitable question in metaphysics.
Scant as are the references to Jesus in the authentic utterances of
Abraham Lincoln, they do not seem to me unimportant. They testify to a
faith that was valid as far as it went. They manifest a spirit which is
fundamentally Christian.
Unable to define his own views in terms that would have been acceptable
to those who believed themselves the rightful guardians of orthodoxy
in his day, it is not surprising that Lincoln was guarded in his
references to a dogma which might have involved him in greater
difficulties than he was prepared to meet. It was true in that day
unhappily as it was in the days of Paul, "Some indeed preach Christ
even of envy and strife; and some also of good-will." It is occasion
for profound sorrow that Christ has been so preached as that men have
sometimes found it difficult to confess their faith in Him without
provoking strife and envy.
That Lincoln was unwilling to make his doubt the occasion of dogmatic
negation is evident from one or more of the acquaintances of Lincoln,
whom Herndon interviewed in an effort to adduce testimony against his
faith, and whom Lamon quoted in that part of his book in which he made
his attack upon the religion of Lincoln. The following from I. W.
Keys, the man who loaned to him _Vestiges of Creation_, is interesting
in itself and especially interesting in its relation to the group of
testimonies which these two men assembled:
"In my intercourse with Mr. Lincoln, I learned that he believed in
a Creator of all things, who had neither beginning nor end, and,
possessing all power and wisdom, established a principle, in obedience
to which worlds move, and are upheld, and animal and vegetable life
come into existence. A reason he gave for his belief was that, in
view of the order and harmony of all nature which we behold, it would
have been created and arranged by some great thinking power. As to
the Christian theory, that Christ is God, or equal to the Creator,
he said that it had better be taken for granted; for, by the test of
reason, we might become infidels on that subject, for evidence of
Christ's divinity came to us in a somewhat doubtful shape; but that
the system of Christianity was an ingenious one at least, and perhaps
was calculated to do good."--LAMON: _Life of Lincoln_, p. 490.
Emphatic proof of Mr. Lincoln's faith is to be found in the positive
declaration of the two men who have done most to destroy the world's
confidence in it, Lamon and Herndon. In Lamon's later book of
_Reminiscences_, he did much to counteract the harsh and to my mind
incorrect impression given in his earlier book. But even in that book
he affirmed that while Lincoln rejected the New Testament as a book of
divine authority, he accepted its precepts as binding upon him and was
a believer in the supernatural even to credulity (p. 503, 504).
In that same work Herndon set forth that Lincoln was a firm believer in
God and attempted, as he said, "to put at rest forever the charge that
Mr. Lincoln was an atheist." He declared, however, that Lincoln did not
believe in a special creation, but in an "evolution under law"; not in
special revelation, "but in miracles under law"; and that "all things
both matter and mind were governed by laws universal, absolute, and
eternal" (p. 494).
To this Herndon gives even more emphatic testimony in his own book.
It must then be remembered that while in the loose nomenclature of
these authors Mr. Lincoln was an "infidel" it is these same authors
that assure us, as Lamon does, that "his theological opinions were
substantially those expounded by Theodore Parker."--LAMON: _Life of
Lincoln_, p. 486.
The question whether Lincoln's views underwent any substantial change
after leaving Springfield, has been answered in the negative by John G.
Nicolay, his private secretary at the White House; who affirmed that
"Mr. Lincoln did not, to my knowledge, in any way change his religious
views, opinions, or beliefs, from the time he left Springfield to the
day of his death."
This probably is correct. Mr. Lincoln was not conscious of any radical
change; but Mrs. Lincoln noticed a change in him after Willie's death,
which grew more pronounced after his visit to Gettysburg, and his own
faith, while undergoing no sudden and radical transformation, manifests
a consistent evolution.
But we are not sure how much Mr. Nicolay believed Lincoln's views to
have been in need of change. He said in another place:
"Benevolence and forgiveness were the very basis of his character. His
nature was deeply religious, but he belonged to no denomination; he
had faith in the eternal justice and boundless mercy of Providence,
and made the Golden Rule of Christ his practical creed."--JOHN G.
NICOLAY, in article "Abraham Lincoln" in _Encyclopedia Britannica_,
ninth edition, XIV, 662.
Lincoln believed in divine destiny. He could hardly have believed
otherwise. The preaching to which he listened was such as to make it
all but impossible for him to hold any other views. He believed so
strongly that his own life was under divine guidance that Lamon and
Herndon speak of it in a thinly veiled scorn as though it were in
Lincoln's mind a mark of conscious superiority. Whether it was such
a mark or not does not now concern us. Lincoln believed in divine
guidance. He had faith in prayer and his practice of prayer is attested
by many and credible witnesses. A man of his temperament and training
and sense of responsibility could not well have been kept from praying.
Prayer was a necessary part of his life.
Lincoln not only had faith in prayer considered as a means of obtaining
results from God; he believed in it as establishing a relation with
God, a covenant relation, such as Abraham of old established. If such a
faith seems inconsistent with any other elements in the faith or doubt
of Abraham Lincoln, then the inconsistency must stand, for he did not
hold his views in entire consistency. In no respect does this faith in
the covenant relation emerge more strongly than in connection with the
issue of the Emancipation Proclamation. Fortunately, the evidence here
is incontestable. The Proclamation immediately became historic. Lincoln
had to autograph many copies to be sold at sanitary fairs--copies which
now sell at one thousand dollars each. Every incident relating to the
event became of immediate interest; and members of the Cabinet had to
group themselves for Carpenter's historic painting, of which he has
left so valuable a literary monument in his _Six Months in the White
House_. The members of the Cabinet had no time to invent or imagine
a set of incidents mythical in character, for each of them had to
describe many times, and immediately, the circumstances which attended
the reading of the Proclamation to the Cabinet on Monday, September 22,
1862.
This is the important and incontestable fact, that Lincoln did not
bring the Proclamation to the Cabinet for discussion, except as to
minor details. He had already determined to issue it. He had promised
God that he would do so.
This was the statement which profoundly impressed the members of the
Cabinet,--the President told them that he had already promised God that
he would free the slaves.
The Diary of Gideon Welles was first published in full in the _Atlantic
Monthly_ in 1909, portions of it having earlier appeared in the
Century; but it was written day by day as the events occurred. His
record for Monday, September 22, 1862, begins thus:
"We have a special Cabinet meeting. The subject was the Proclamation
concerning emancipating slaves after a certain date in States that
should then be in rebellion. For several weeks the subject has been
suspended, but, the President says, never lost sight of. When the
subject was submitted in August, and indeed in taking it up, the
President stated that the matter was finally decided, but that he
felt it to be due to us to make us acquainted with the fact and
invite criticism of the Proclamation. There were some differences in
the Cabinet, but he had formed his own conclusions, and made his
own decisions. He had, he said, made a vow, a covenant, that if God
gave us the victory in the approaching battle (which had just been
fought) he would consider it his duty to move forward in the cause of
emancipation. We might think it strange, he said, but there were times
when he felt uncertain how to act; that he had in this way submitted
the disposal of matters when the way was not clear to his mind what he
should do. God had decided this question in favor of the slave. He was
satisfied it was right--was confirmed and strengthened in his action
by the vow and its results; his mind was fixed, his decision made; but
he wished his paper announcing his course to be as correct in terms as
it could be made without any attempt to change his determination. For
that was fixed."--"The Diary of Gideon Welles," _Atlantic Monthly_,
1909, p. 369.
We have no present concern with the question whether Lincoln's method
of determining the divine will was a reasonable method, or wholly
consistent with some of his own questions and doubts; what concerns
us is that the President invited no discussion of the Proclamation in
its essential elements; any disposition which any of the members of
the Cabinet might have felt to discuss the instrument itself or seek
to dissuade the President from issuing it was stopped by his quiet and
emphatic declaration that he had made a covenant with God, and must
keep his vow; and that he was strengthened in his own conviction that
the Proclamation was in accord with the will of God.
We must not pass lightly over the religious aspects of the Emancipation
Proclamation. Lincoln had submitted his first draft of the Proclamation
to the Cabinet on Tuesday, July 22, 1862, and it met with strong
opposition. Only two members of the Cabinet favored it; Seward and
Chase were strongly against it and the others thought it inopportune.
With the memory of this opposition, which in July had practically voted
the President down, Mr. Lincoln brought the matter again on September
22, not for discussion, for as he said he knew the view already of
every member of the Cabinet, but he had promised God that he would
do this thing. That very night Secretary Chase wrote in his diary an
account of the meeting, which is condensed as follows:
"_Monday, September 22, 1862._
"To Department about nine. State Department messenger came with
notice to heads of Departments to meet at twelve. Received sundry
callers. Went to White House. All the members of the Cabinet were in
attendance. There was some general talk, and the President mentioned
that Artemus Ward had sent him his book. Proposed to read a chapter
which he thought very funny. Read it, and seemed to enjoy it very much.
"The President then took a graver tone, and said, 'Gentlemen: I have,
as you are aware, thought a great deal about the relation of this
war to slavery; and you all remember that, several weeks ago, I read
to you an order I had prepared on this subject, which, on account of
objections made by some of you, was not issued. Ever since then my
mind has been much occupied with this subject, and I have thought, all
along, that the time for acting on it might probably come. I think the
time has come now. I wish it was a better time. I wish that we were in
a better condition. The action of the army against the Rebels has not
been quite what I should best like. But they have been driven out of
Maryland, and Pennsylvania is no longer in danger of invasion. When
the Rebel Army was at Frederick, I determined, as soon as it should be
driven out of Maryland, to issue a Proclamation of Emancipation, such
as I thought most likely to be useful. I said nothing to anyone, but I
made the promise to myself, and [hesitating a little] to my Maker. The
Rebel Army is now driven out, and I am going to fulfill that promise.
I have got you together to hear what I have written down. I do not
wish your advice about the main matter, for that I have determined for
myself. This, I say, without intending anything but respect for any
one of you. But I already know the views of each on this question.
They have been heretofore expressed, and I have considered them as
thoroughly and carefully as I can. What I have written is that which
my reflections have determined me to say. If there is anything in the
expressions I use, or in any minor matter, which any one of you thinks
had best be changed I shall be glad to receive the suggestions. One
other observation I will make. I know very well that many others
might, in this matter as in others, do better than I can; and if I was
satisfied that the public confidence was more fully possessed by any
one of them than by me, and knew of any constitutional way in which he
could be put in my place, he should have it. I would gladly yield it
to him. But though I believe that I have not so much of the confidence
of the people as I had some time since, I do not know that, all things
considered, any other person has more; and however this may be, there
is no way in which I can have any other man put where I am. I am here;
I must do the best I can, and bear the responsibility of taking the
course which I feel I ought to take.'"--WARDEN: _Life of S. P. Chase_,
pp. 481-82, quoted in Nicolay and Hay, VI, 159-60.
In the diaries of Secretaries Welles and Chase we have incontrovertible
testimony. The two records were made independently and on that
very night, and were not published for years afterward. There was
no possible collusion or reshaping of the testimony in the light
of subsequent events, no time for imagination to play any part in
enlarging upon the incident. The President recognized that the time was
not wholly propitious, that a majority of the Cabinet probably would
not be disposed to adopt his Proclamation if put to vote, that the
people's support of the administration was wavering and unpredicable
and none too certain to approve this measure. Under these conditions it
is impossible to consider the Emancipation Proclamation solely from the
standpoint either of political expediency or of military necessity. The
fact which silenced all opposition in the Cabinet was the President's
solemn statement that he had made a covenant with God, and that he must
keep it.
There is a sense in which the solemnity is heightened by the grotesque
incident of the chapter from Artemus Ward read at the beginning. There
is an aspect in which the sublimity of that Cabinet meeting's ending
is heightened by the ridiculousness of its beginning. In any event,
it shows that the mind of Abraham Lincoln that morning was in what
for him was a thoroughly healthy condition. However incongruous it
might have been for another man to begin so solemn a meeting with a
chapter from Artemus Ward, it was a mark of sanity, of thorough normal
psychology, when done by Abraham Lincoln. It showed that the moral
overstrain was finding its relief from excessive tension in what for
Lincoln was an entirely normal way.
As before stated, these two contemporary accounts by Welles and Chase,
though made at the time, were not published until years afterward; but
there was another publication that was virtually contemporary. Frank
B. Carpenter, the artist, began almost immediately his noted painting
of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, and in the course of
his six months in the White House had long and repeated interviews with
all members of the Cabinet, and talked with them about every incident
connected with that event. He published his account in his book in
1866, while all the members of the Cabinet were living, and, so far as
known, was never objected to or proposed to be modified by any member
of the Cabinet. According to his statement, Lincoln told the Cabinet
that he had promised God that he would do this, uttering the last part
of this sentence in a low voice. Secretary Chase, who was sitting near
the President, asked Mr. Lincoln if he had correctly understood him,
and the President repeated what he had affirmed before, saying:
"I made a solemn vow before God, that if General Lee was driven back
from Pennsylvania, I would crown the result by the declaration of
freedom for the slaves."--_Six Months in the White House_, pp. 89, 90.
In this threefold attestation we have irrefutable testimony that
the determining motive of President Lincoln in his issue of the
Emancipation Proclamation was the keeping of his solemn covenant with
God.
It is all but impossible to exaggerate the significance of this
incident. The essential fact is as fully proved as human testimony
can possibly prove a fact. When we remember the extreme reticence of
Abraham Lincoln on all such matters, and the fact of which he must
have been painfully conscious that his Cabinet was not very favorably
disposed toward the thing that he proposed to do, his quiet, outspoken,
and repeated declaration that he had promised this thing to God is
sufficient in itself to settle forever the essentially religious
character of Abraham Lincoln. If we had no other word from his lips
touching on the subject of religion but this one, we should be assured
of his unfaltering belief in God, in a profound sense of his own
personal responsibility to God, in prayer, and a personal relation with
God.
This was no platitude uttered to meet the expectation of the religious
people of the United States; it was no evasive generality intended to
fit whatever religious desire might lie in the minds of those who heard
him. It was no play to the gallery; it was no masquerade; every motive
of pretense or hypocrisy or duplicity was absent. It was the sincere
expression of the abiding faith of Abraham Lincoln in God, and prayer,
and duty.
* * * * *
Lincoln was a believer in the immortality of the soul.[71] Herndon
affirms this and declares that any attempt to deny it would imply
that Lincoln was a dishonest man. He believed in the preservation of
identity beyond the grave so that we shall be conscious of our own
identity and be able to recognize our loved ones.
He believed in future punishment, but not in endless punishment.
Punishment seemed to him so inevitable a part of an inexorable divine
law that he sometimes objected to the preaching of the doctrine of
forgiveness as being subversive of the fact of law, which he held must
continue its sway in this world and in every world; but in eternal
punishment he did not believe. His old neighbors in New Salem, his
friends in Springfield, and those who knew him in Washington agree in
this. We have already quoted from the letter of Isaac Cogdal to Mr. B.
F. Irwin, April 10, 1874, who tells of a conversation he had with Mr.
Lincoln in the latter's office in Springfield about 1859, concerning
Mr. Lincoln's religious faith. Mr. Herndon was present. He says:
"Mr. Lincoln expressed himself in about these words: He did not nor
could not believe in the endless punishment of anyone of the human
race. He understood punishment for sin to be a Bible doctrine;
that the punishment was parental in its object, aim, and design,
and intended for the good of the offender; hence it must cease
when justice was satisfied. He added that all that was lost by the
transgression of Adam was made good by the atonement; all that was
lost by the fall was made good by the sacrifice. And he added this
remark, that punishment being a provision of the gospel system, he was
not sure but the world would be better if a little more punishment was
preached by our ministers, and not so much pardon for sin."
William H. Hannah, in Lamon's group of citations, says:
"Since 1856 Mr. Lincoln told me that he was a kind of immortalist;
that he never could bring himself to believe in eternal punishment;
that man lived but a little while here; and that, if eternal
punishment were man's doom, he should spend that little life in
vigilant and ceaseless preparation by never-ending prayer."--LAMON:
_Life of Lincoln_, p. 489.
Some who have known of Lincoln's particular utterances on certain of
these points have been misled, as it appears to me, by the similarity
of some of these points to doctrines held by particular religious
sects and have sought to identify Lincoln more or less with those
denominations. The fact that he took portions of his positive thinking
from Theodore Parker and William Ellery Channing, does not necessitate
that he was a Unitarian; nor does the fact that he did not believe
in eternal punishment compel his classification with Universalists.
Theodore Parker and William E. Channing chanced to be the authors
whose writings came into his possession at a time when they served
to define particular aspects of his own faith. Horace Bushnell, or
Henry Ward Beecher might have served him quite as well and possibly in
some respects better. For Lincoln's Calvinism was too deep-rooted to
be eradicated; and a positive faith, both liberal and constructive,
that could have been grafted on to that root might very possibly have
served him better than anything so radical as in its nature to deny any
essential part of what he felt he must continue to believe. Parker and
Channing served him as James Smith's _Christian's Defence_ and Robert
Chambers' _Vestiges of Creation_ served him in assuring him that a man
could hold the views he held and know more about them than he knew and
still be a reverent Christian. Such a Christian Abraham Lincoln appears
to me to have been.
I do not think that any claim which I am here making for the faith of
Abraham Lincoln can be denied on the basis of any authentic utterance
of his. If at any point he is known to have said or written anything
which is apparently inconsistent with these affirmations, that
utterance I think will be found somewhere in this volume and the reader
will have no difficulty in finding it and in giving it its proper
weight. But I do not think the general position which this chapter sets
forth can be seriously shaken. In the sense which this chapter has
endeavored truthfully to set forth, Abraham Lincoln believed in God, in
Christ, in the Bible, in prayer, in duty, and in immortality.
Religion is one thing and theology is another. A love of flowers is one
thing and a knowledge of botany is another. A man may love a flower
and call it by the wrong name, or know no name for it. A man may have
the religion of Christ, and hold very wrong opinions or conjectures
concerning Christ. We are saved by faith, not by conjecture. No man
is saved or lost because of the correctness of his opinions. Correct
thinking is important; but it is not so important as a right attitude
toward spiritual realities and practical duties. Faith and opinion are
not unrelated, but neither are they identical.
Too much of the effort to prove that Abraham Lincoln was a Christian
has begun and ended in the effort to show that on certain theological
topics he cherished correct opinions. That would not prove him to be
a Christian, nor would the lack of these certainly prove that he was
not a Christian. Religion is of the heart and life; theology is of the
brain and mind. Each is important, but theology is less important than
religion.
Abraham Lincoln was not a theologian, and several of his theological
opinions may have been incorrect; but there is good reason to believe
that he was a true Christian. The world has need of a few theologians,
and of a great many Christians.
It was Mr. Lincoln's custom when he read a paragraph which deeply
interested him, to draw a pencil line around it in the book; and if it
was something which he wished to commit to memory and meditate upon, he
often copied it upon a scrap of paper. I own a half page of notepaper
containing in Lincoln's handwriting and with his signature, a paragraph
from Baxter's "Saint's Rest." The manuscript was owned by Hon. Winfield
Smith, Lincoln's Attorney-General in 1864, and was among his private
papers when he died. The paragraph reads:
"It is more pleasing to God to see his people study Him and His will
directly, than to spend the first and chief of their effort about
attaining comfort for themselves. We have faith given us, principally
that we might believe and live by it in daily applications of Christ.
You may believe immediately (by God's help) but getting assurance of
it may be the work of a great part of your life."
It would be interesting to know just what was in Lincoln's mind when
he read this paragraph, and sat down with pen and ink to copy and
meditate upon it. The "comfort" which Baxter was referring to in
this passage was the comfort of assurance of salvation in Christ. It
was a theme on which Mr. Lincoln heard many sermons, first and last,
by Predestinarian preachers, both Baptist and Presbyterian. If a
man was among the elect, how could he be sure of it, and what means
could he take to make the assurance more certain? Baxter's answer was
that assurance in this matter is less important than to study and
obey God's will; and that faith is given us as something in whose
exercise we may live daily without greatly troubling ourselves about
fathomless mysteries. It was good doctrine for a man who had been
reared as Lincoln had been reared, and the remainder of the passage was
especially in line with his needs. He could believe immediately, even
though the assurance of faith was long delayed. That assurance might
be the work of a lifetime, but faith was something that might be lived
upon now. The thought is akin to that in the fine lines of Lizzie York
Case:
"_There is no unbelief:
For thus by day and night unconsciously
The heart lives by the faith the lips deny,--
God knoweth why._"
A man can live by a faith of which he has not full assurance--so said
the sensible old Puritan, Richard Baxter--he can live on it though it
take him nearly all his life to gain assurance; and I am certain he
would have added, had he been asked, that if assurance never came, and
our heart condemn us, "God is greater than our heart."
The carefully written paragraph in Lincoln's hand appears to indicate
that the thought was one which deeply impressed Lincoln. Perhaps he
felt that his own faith was of that sort, a faith on which a man could
live, while going forward in the study and pursuit of the will of God,
not seeking one's own comfort or the joy of complete assurance, but
finding in the daily performance of duty the essential quality of true
faith.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE CREED OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ABRAHAM LINCOLN made no effort, so far as we know, to formulate a
creed. It would have been an exceedingly difficult thing for him to
have accomplished. His utterances on religious subjects were not made
as dogmatic affirmations. He merely uttered as occasion seemed to him
to demand such sentiments and principles as expressed those aspects of
truth which he felt and believed to need expression at those particular
times. Nevertheless, these utterances together cover a somewhat wide
range; and while they were not intended to epitomize any system of
Christian doctrine, they make a nearer approach to an epitome of this
character than on the whole might reasonably have been expected.
It will be interesting and profitable to close this study with a
series of short quotations from documents, letters, and addresses,
certified as authentic and touching directly upon points of Christian
doctrine. In most instances these have been quoted already, with their
context, but they are here brought together in briefer form in order to
facilitate our inquiry whether they afford any material out of which
might be made some approach to a statement of Christian faith.
_Materials for a Lincoln creed_:
I sincerely hope father may recover his health, but, at all events,
tell him to remember to call upon and confide in our great and good
and merciful Maker, who will not turn away from him in any extremity.
He notes the fall of a sparrow, and numbers the hairs of our heads,
and He will not forget the dying man who puts his trust in Him.... If
it be his lot to go now he will soon have a joyous meeting with many
loved ones gone before, and where the rest of us with the help of God
hope ere long to join them.--Letter to his dying father, January 12,
1851. _Complete Works_, I, 165.
Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him
[Washington] I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail.
Trusting in His care who can go with me, and remain with you, and be
everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be
well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will
commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.--Farewell Address,
Springfield, February 11, 1861. _Complete Works_, I, 672.
If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with His eternal truth and justice,
be on our side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth
and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great
tribunal of the American people.... Intelligence, patriotism,
Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken
this favored land, are still competent to adjust in the best way all
our present difficulty.... My dissatisfied fellow countrymen ... you
have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I
have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it.--First
Inaugural, March 4, 1861. _Complete Works_, II, 7.
May God give you that consolation which is beyond all earthly
power.--Letter to parents of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, May 25, 1861.
_Complete Works_, II, 52.
And having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure
purpose, let us renew our trust in God and go forward without fear and
with manly hearts.--First Message to Congress, July 4, 1861. _Complete
Works_, II, 66.
Whereas it is fit and becoming in all people, at all times, to
acknowledge and revere the supreme government of God; to bow in
humble submission to His chastisements; to confess and deplore their
sins and transgressions, in the full conviction that the fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and to pray with all fervency and
contrition for the pardon of their past offenses, and for a blessing
upon their present and prospective action:
And whereas when our own beloved country, once, by the blessing of
God, united, prosperous, and happy, is now afflicted with factions and
civil war, it is particularly fit for us to recognize the hand of God
in this terrible visitation, and in sorrowful remembrance of our own
faults and crimes as a nation and as individuals, to humble ourselves
before Him and to pray for His mercy.--National Fast Day Proclamation,
August 12, 1861. _Complete Works_, II, 73.
In the midst of unprecedented political troubles we have cause
of great gratitude to God for unusual health and most abundant
harvest.... The struggle of today is not altogether for today--it is
for a vast future also. With a reliance on Providence all the more
firm and earnest, let us proceed to the great task which events have
devolved upon us.--Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1861.
_Complete Works_, II, 93 and 106.
Whereas it has seemed to me probable that the unsuccessful application
made for the commutation of his sentence may have prevented the said
Nathaniel Gordon from making the necessary preparation for the awful
change which awaits him: Now therefore be it known that I, Abraham
Lincoln, President of the United States, have granted and do hereby
grant unto him, the said Nathaniel Gordon, a respite of the above
recited sentence, until Friday, the 21st of February, A.D. 1862....
In granting this respite it becomes my painful duty to admonish the
prisoner that, relinquishing all expectation of pardon by human
authority, he refer himself alone to the mercy of the common God and
Father of all men.--Proclamation of Respite for a Convicted Slave
Trader, February 4, 1862. _Complete Works_, II, 121-22.
Being a humble instrument in the hands of our Heavenly Father, as I
am, and as we all are, to work out His great purposes, I have desired
that all my works and acts may be according to His will; and that
it might be so, I have sought His aid.--Reply to Mrs. Gurney and
Deputation from Society of Friends, September [28?], 1862. _Complete
Works_, II, 243.
In full view of my great responsibility to my God and to my country,
I earnestly beg the attention of Congress and the people to the
subject.--Message to Congress recommending Emancipation with
Compensation to Owners, March 6, 1862. _Complete Works_, II, 130.
It has pleased Almighty God to vouchsafe signal victories to the
land and naval forces.... It is therefore recommended to the people
of the United States that at their next weekly assemblages ... they
especially acknowledge and render thanks to our Heavenly Father
for these inestimable blessings; that they then and there implore
spiritual consolation in behalf of all who have been brought into
affliction by the casualties and calamities of sedition and civil war;
and that they reverently invoke the Divine guidance to our national
counsels, to the end that they may speedily result in restoration of
peace, harmony, and unity.--Special Thanksgiving Proclamation, April
10, 1862. _Complete Works_, II, 143.
The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act
in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be,
wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time.
In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is
something different from the purpose of either party; and yet the
human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best
adaptation to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say that
this is probably true; that God wills this contest, and wills that
it shall not end yet. By His mere great power on the minds of the
now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union
without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And, having begun, He
could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest
proceeds.--A Meditation on the Divine Will in the handwriting of Mr.
Lincoln, formulated about September 30, 1862, and not written for the
eye of men but apparently in the effort to define the moral aspects
of the subject and to clarify his own spiritual outlook.--_Complete
Works_, II, 243-44.
Whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their
dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins
and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that
genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize
the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proved by all
history, that those nations only are blest whose God is the Lord; And
inasmuch as we know that by His Divine law nations, like individuals,
are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may
we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now
desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our
presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as
a whole people?--Fast Day Proclamation, March 30, 1863. _Complete
Works_, II, 319.
It is meet and right to recognize and confess the presence of the
Almighty Father and the power of His hand equally in these triumphs
and in these sorrows.... I invite the people of the United States
... to render the homage due to the Divine Majesty for the wonderful
things He has done in the nation's behalf, and invoke the influence
of his Holy Spirit to subdue the anger which has produced and so long
sustained a needless and cruel rebellion.--Thanksgiving Proclamation,
July 15, 1863. _Complete Works_, II, 370.
In regard to the Great Book, I have only to say, it is the best
gift which God has ever given man. All the good from the Saviour
of the world is communicated to us through this book.--Response to
Presentation of Bible. _Complete Works_, Nicolay and Hay's new and
enlarged edition, twelve volumes, N. Y., 1905, X, 217-18.
Signal successes ... call for devout acknowledgment to the Supreme
Being in whose hand are the destinies of nations.--Thanksgiving
Proclamation, September 3, 1864. _Complete Works_, II, 571.
God knows best ... surely He intends some great good to follow this
mighty convulsion, which no mortal could make and no mortal can
stave.... That you believe this I doubt not; and believing it, I shall
still receive for our country and myself your earnest prayers to our
Father in Heaven.--Letter to Mrs. Gurney, September 4, 1864. _Complete
Works_, II, 573-74.
I do further recommend to my fellow citizens aforesaid, that they do
reverently humble themselves in the dust, and from thence offer up
penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the Great Disposer
of events for a return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union,
and harmony.--Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 20, 1864. _Complete
Works_, II, 587.
I am thankful to God for this approval of the people; ... I give
thanks to the Almighty for this evidence of the people's resolution
to stand by free government and the rights of humanity.--Response to
Serenade following Re-election, November 9, 1864. _Complete Works_,
II, 595.
I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is
wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think and feel, and
yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me
an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and
feeling.... I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly
that events have controlled me. Now at the end of three years'
struggle, the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man,
devised or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending
seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills
also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay
fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find
therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of
God.--Letter to A. G. Hodges, April 4, 1864. _Complete Works_, II,
508-09.
Enough is known of army operations within the last five days to claim
an especial gratitude to God, while what remains undone demands our
most sincere prayers to, and reliance upon, Him without whom all
human effort is vain.--Recommendation of Thanksgiving, May 9, 1864.
_Complete Works_, II, 519.
I invite and request ... all loyal and law-abiding people ... to
render to the Almighty and merciful Ruler of the universe homages and
confessions.--Proclamation of Day of Prayer, July 7, 1864. _Complete
Works_, II, 544.
Again the blessings of health and abundant harvest claim our
profoundest gratitude to Almighty God.--Annual Address to Congress,
December 6, 1864. _Complete Works_, II, 604.
You all may recollect that in taking up the sword thus forced into
our hands, this government appealed to the prayers of the pious and
good, and declared that it placed its whole dependence upon the favor
of God. I now humbly and reverently, in your presence, reiterate the
acknowledgment of that dependence, not doubting that, if it shall
please the Divine Being who determines the destinies of nations, this
shall remain a united people, and that they will, humbly seeking the
Divine guidance, make their prolonged national existence a source of
new benefits to themselves and their successors, and to all classes
and conditions of mankind.--Address to Committee from Evangelical
Lutheran General Synod, May 6, 1862. _Complete Works_, II, 148.
Relying, as I do, upon Almighty Power, and encouraged, as I am, by
the resolutions which you have just read, with the support which
I receive from Christian men, I shall not hesitate to use all the
means at my control to secure the termination of this rebellion,
and will hope for success.--Address to Committee of Sixty-five from
Presbyterian General Assembly, May 30, 1863. _Complete Works_, II, 342.
I expect [my Second Inaugural] to wear as well as--perhaps better
than--anything I have produced; but I believe it is not immediately
popular. Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been
a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them. To deny it,
however, in this case, is to deny that there is a God governing the
world. It is a truth which I thought needed to be told, and, as
whatever of humiliation there is in it falls most directly on myself,
I thought others might afford for me to tell it.--Letter to Thurlow
Weed, March 15, 1865. _Complete Works_, II, 661.
It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's
assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's
faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged.... The Almighty
has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses! For
it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the
offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of
those offenses which, in the Providence of God, must needs come, but
which having continued through His appointed time, He now will remove
and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the
woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein
any departure from those Divine attributes which the believers in a
living God always ascribe to Him. Fondly do we hope--perfectly do we
pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if
God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's
two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and
until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another
drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still
must it be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous
altogether."
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the
right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the
work we are in.--Second Inaugural, March 4, 1865. _Complete Works_,
II, 657.
No one of the foregoing quotations is taken from a private
conversation, nor copied from an unauthorized source. Some
very pleasing selections might have been made from reasonably
well-accredited sources, but all of the foregoing selections, without
any exception, are taken from the authentic writings and addresses
of Lincoln as compiled, edited, and authenticated by his private
secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John Hay.
We might go much farther and could find a considerable body of
additional material, but this is sufficient and more than sufficient
for our purpose. In these utterances may be found something of the
determinism that was hammered into Lincoln by the early Baptist
preachers and riveted by James Smith, along with some of the
humanitarianism of Parker and Channing, and much which lay unstratified
in Lincoln's own mind but flowed spontaneously from his pen or dropped
from his lips because it was native to his thinking and had come to be
a component part of his life. Anyone who cares to do so may piece these
utterances together and test his success in making a creed out of them.
They lend themselves somewhat readily to such an arrangement.
In the following arrangement no liberties have been taken except to
change the past tense to the present, or the plural to the singular,
and to add connectives, and preface the words "I believe." Except for
changes such as these, which in no way modify the sense or natural
force of the utterances, the creed which follows is wholly in the words
of Abraham Lincoln. A very little tampering with the text would have
made smoother reading, but this is not necessary. It has the simplicity
and the rugged honesty of the man who said these words.
THE CREED OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN HIS OWN WORDS
I believe in God, the Almighty Ruler of Nations, our great and good and
merciful Maker, our Father in Heaven, who notes the fall of a sparrow,
and numbers the hairs of our heads.
I believe in His eternal truth and justice.
I recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and
proven by all history that those nations only are blest whose God is
the Lord.
I believe that it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own
their dependence upon the overruling power of God, and to invoke the
influence of His Holy Spirit; to confess their sins and transgressions
in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will
lead to mercy and pardon.
I believe that it is meet and right to recognize and confess the
presence of the Almighty Father equally in our triumphs and in those
sorrows which we may justly fear are a punishment inflicted upon us for
our presumptuous sins to the needful end of our reformation.
I believe that the Bible is the best gift which God has ever given to
men. All the good from the Saviour of the world is communicated to us
through this book.
I believe the will of God prevails. Without Him all human reliance is
vain. Without the assistance of that Divine Being, I cannot succeed.
With that assistance I cannot fail.
Being a humble instrument in the hands of our Heavenly Father, I desire
that all my works and acts may be according to His will; and that it
may be so, I give thanks to the Almighty, and seek His aid.
I have a solemn oath registered in heaven to finish the work I am in,
in full view of my responsibility to my God, with malice toward none;
with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives me to
see the right. Commending those who love me to His care, as I hope in
their prayers they will commend me, I look through the help of God to a
joyous meeting with many loved ones gone before.
APPENDICES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
APPENDIX I
EXTRACT FROM NEWTON BATEMAN'S LECTURE ON LINCOLN WITH VARIANTS OF THE
FAREWELL ADDRESS, AT SPRINGFIELD, FEBRUARY 11, 1861.
BOTH for its own value as an incident in the life of Mr. Lincoln
and because it affords us opportunity of understanding the accuracy
of Newton Bateman's verbal memory, the following is quoted from his
lecture on Abraham Lincoln, a lecture delivered many times in the later
years of his life and printed by his family in 1899 after his death:
"On the eleventh of February, 1861, on the day preceding his
fifty-second birthday, Mr. Lincoln set out for Washington. He had
sent special invitations to a few of his old friends to accompany him
as far as Indianapolis. That I was included in the number, I shall
be pardoned for remembering with peculiar pleasure. That note of
invitation is preserved among my most cherished memorabilia of Abraham
Lincoln. I shall ever regret that imperative official duties would not
allow me to join the party.
"But I accompanied him to the railroad station, and stood by his
side on the platform of the car, when he delivered that memorable
farewell to his friends and neighbors. Of those, an immense concourse
had assembled to bid him good-by. The day was dark and chill, and a
drizzling rain had set in. The signal bell had rung, and all was in
readiness for the departure, when Mr. Lincoln appeared on the front
platform of the special car--removed his hat, looked out for a moment
upon the sea of silent, upturned faces, and heads bared in loving
reverence and sympathy, regardless of the rain; and, in a voice broken
and tremulous with emotion and a most unutterable sadness, yet slow
and measured and distinct and with a certain prophetic far-off look
which no one who saw can ever forget, began:
"'My friends, no one, not in my position can appreciate the sadness I
feel at this parting. To this people I owe all that I am. Here I have
lived more than a quarter of a century. Here my children were born,
and here one of them lies buried. I know not how soon I shall see you
again. A duty devolves upon me which is greater, perhaps, than that
which has devolved upon any other man since the days of Washington. He
never would have succeeded, except for the aid of Divine Providence,
upon which he at all times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed
without the same divine aid which sustained him; and upon the same
Almighty Being I place my reliance and support. And I hope you, my
friends, will pray that I may receive that divine assistance, without
which I cannot succeed, and with which success is certain. Again, I
bid you all an affectionate farewell.'
"His pale face was literally wet with tears as he re-entered the
car, and the train rolled out of the city, which Abraham Lincoln
was to enter no more--till, his great work finished he would come
back from the war, a victor and a conqueror though with the seal of
death upon his visage. Some politicians derided the solemn words of
that farewell--but I knew they were the utterances of his inmost
soul--never did speech of man move me as that did. Seeing every
mournful tremor of those lips--noting every shadow that flitted
over that face--catching every inflection of that voice--the words
seemed to drop, every one, into my heart, and to be crystallized in
my memory. I hurried back to my office, locked the door (for I felt
that I must be alone), wrote out the address from memory and had it
published in the city papers in advance of the reporters. And when
the reports of the stenographers were published, they differed from
mine in only two or three words, and as to even those, I have always
believed that mine were right for the speech was engraved on my
heart and my memory, and I had but to copy the engraving."--_Abraham
Lincoln_, an address by Hon. Newton Bateman, LL.D., published by the
Cadmus Club, 1899, Galesburg.
Mr. Lincoln's Farewell Address, as given by Mr. Bateman in the
foregoing quotation, would appear to have undergone some revision by
him after its printing. He says that he furnished it to the press and
that it came out in advance of the version taken down by the reporter.
On this point his memory appears to be correct. The _Illinois State
Journal_ of February 12, 1861, contains a report of Mr. Lincoln's
address, which is almost certainly that furnished by Mr. Bateman.
_Lincoln's Farewell Address as Printed in the Illinois State Journal,
February 12, 1860, probably from the notes of Hon. Newton Bateman._
"Friends, no one who has never been placed in a like position, can
understand my feelings at this hour, nor the oppressive sadness I
feel at this parting. For more than a quarter of a century I have
lived among you, and during all that time I have received nothing but
kindness at your hands. Here I have lived from my youth until now I am
an old man. Here the most sacred ties of earth were assumed; here all
of my children were born, and here one of them lies buried. To you,
dear friends, I owe all that I have, all that I am. All the strange,
checkered past seems now to crowd upon my mind. Today I leave you:
I go to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon
General Washington. Unless the great God who assisted him shall be
with me and aid me, I must fail. But if the same Omniscient Mind and
the same Almighty Arm that directed and protected him shall guide and
support me, I shall not fail; I shall succeed. Let us all pray that
the God of our fathers may not forsake us now. To Him I commend you
all; permit me to ask that with equal sincerity [the word is printed
security but corrected with pen] and faith, you all will invoke His
wisdom and guidance for me. With these few words I must leave you--for
how long I know not. Friends, one and all, I must now bid you an
affectionate farewell."
_The So-called Shorthand Report_
The so-called shorthand report appears on close examination not to
be a shorthand report, but is that which appeared in the Chicago and
other papers from the Hay and Lincoln revision, more or less garbled in
telegraphic transmission.
_The Lincoln-Hay Version of the Farewell Address_
"This address was correctly printed for the first time in the Century
Magazine for December, 1887, from the original manuscript, having
been written down after the train started, partly by Mr. Lincoln's
own hand and partly by that of his private secretary from his
dictation."--NICOLAY AND HAY, _Life of Lincoln_, II, 291.
It is thus apparent that we do not have any verbatim report of the
precise words which Lincoln uttered; but the Illinois Historical
Society has accepted this as the accredited version. It is certainly
that which Lincoln wished to be remembered as having said; but it is
quite possible that in one or two of the variant words Bateman may have
recalled it more accurately than Lincoln himself:
"My friends: No one not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling
of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these
people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century and
have passed from a youth to an old man. Here my children have been
born and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever
I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested
upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who
ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot
fail. Trusting in Him, who can go with me and remain with you and be
everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be
well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will
commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell."
APPENDIX II
"HIGH-HANDED OUTRAGE AT UTICA"[72]
By ARTEMUS WARD
BISHOP FOWLER and other lecturers and authors have drawn for us
beautiful pictures of Lincoln reading to his Cabinet a chapter in the
Bible before submitting his draft of the Emancipation Proclamation.
The true story of that incident is related in the foregoing pages. It
may be that some readers who are unfamiliar with the now little-read
writings of "Artemus Ward" will be glad to know precisely what it was
that the President read on that day; and as the chapter is very short,
it will be given herewith.
No form of literature is more evanescent than humor. The fun-loving
public of one generation labors hard to discover the reasons why other
generations laughed over the old-time jokes. But there are elements
in Artemus Ward that still provoke a smile. The chapter which amused
Lincoln on that day related to the virtue of a community which would
not permit the exhibition of Artemus Ward's famous Wax Works because
the reproduction of the Last Supper contained the figure of Judas.
Some reader may need to be told that there was no such show. The
author of this and the other burlesques that bore the name of Artemus
Ward (Charles F. Browne), presented himself in these sketches as a
good-natured humbug, running a "highly moral show" with "Wax-figgers"
and other attractions. He was never so delightful as when disclosing
his own shams, as when the mob pulled the hay out of the fat man.
Browne's book had a chapter in which he assisted Lincoln to form his
Cabinet. His first assistance was to turn out all the office-seekers
by threatening to turn his "Boy Constrictor" in among them; and then
advised Mr. Lincoln to fill his Cabinet with Showmen, all of whom were
honest and had nary a politic; "for particulars see small bills."
This and other chapters delighted Lincoln; but the one he read to his
Cabinet just before presenting the second draft of the Emancipation
Proclamation, was the following:
_High-handed Outrage at Utica_
In the Faul of 1856, I showed my show in Utiky, a trooly grate sitty in
the State of New York.
The people gave me a cordyal recepshun. The press was loud in her
prases.
1 day as I was giving a description of my Beests and Snaiks in my usual
flowry stile what was my skorn & disgust to see a big burly fellew
walk up to the cage containin my wax figgers of the Lord's Supper, and
cease Judas Iscarrot by the feet and drag him onto the ground. He then
commenced fur to pound him as hard as he cood.
"What under the son are you abowt?" cried I.
Sez he, "What did you brung this pussylanermus cuss here fur?" & he hit
the wax figger another tremjis blow on the hed.
Sez I, "You egrejes ass, that air's a wax figger--a representashun of
the false 'Postle."
Sez he, "That's all very well fur you to say but I tell you, old man,
that Judas Iscarrot can't show hisself in Utiky by a darn site!" with
whuch observashun he caved in Judassis hed. The young man belonged to 1
of the first famerlies in Utiky. I sood him, and the Joory brawt in a
verdick of Arson in the 3rd degree.
APPENDIX III
THE CONVERSION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
By the REV. EDWARD L. WATSON
THE religion of Abraham Lincoln is so much in debate that I feel called
upon to give the following narrative of an event of which little seems
to be known--and which is of real importance in understanding the
man. He has been called an infidel--an unbeliever of varying degrees
of blatancy. That he was a Christian in the real sense of the term is
plain from his life. That he was converted during a Methodist revival
seems not to be a matter of common report. The personal element of this
narrative is necessary to unfold the story. In 1894 I was appointed
to the pastorate of the Hennepin Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church,
Minneapolis, Minn., by Bishop Cyrus D. Foss, being transferred from
Frederick, Md., a charge in Baltimore Conference. It was in October
that we entered the parsonage, which was a double house, the other
half being rented by the trustees. Shortly after our occupancy of the
church house William B. Jacquess moved into the rented half of the
property, and through this fact I became acquainted with Col. James F.
Jacquess, his brother. At this time Colonel Jacquess was an old man of
eighty years or more, of commanding presence and wearing a long beard
which was as white as snow. His title grew out of the fact of his
being the commanding officer of the Seventy-third Illinois Volunteer
Infantry, known as the Preacher Regiment. Its name was given through
the publication in the Cincinnati _Commercial_ in September, 1862, of
the roster of its officers:
Colonel--Rev. James F. Jacquess, D.D., late president of Quincy College.
Lieutenant-Colonel--Rev. Benjamin F. Northcott.
Major--Rev. William A. Presson.
Captains--Company B, Rev. W. B. M. Colt; Company C, Rev. P. McNutt;
Company F, Rev. George W. Montgomery; Company H, Rev. James I.
Davidson; Company I, Rev. Peter Wallace; Company K, Rev. R. H. Laughlin.
Six or seven of the twenty lieutenants were also licensed Methodist
preachers. Henry A. Castle, sergeant-major, was the author of the
article and a son-in-law, if I mistake not, of Colonel Jacquess.
The history of this regiment is in brief, as follows: It was organized
at the instance of Governor Dick Yates, under Colonel Jacquess, in
August, 1862, at Camp Butler, in Illinois, and became part of General
Buell's army. It fought nobly at Perryville, and in every battle in
which the Army of the Cumberland was engaged, from October, 1862,
to the rout of Hood's army at Nashville. Its dead were found at
Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, where Colonel Jacquess
won especial distinction, and in the succession of battles from
Chattanooga to the fall of Atlanta. It was frequently complimented by
the commanding generals and was unsurpassed in bravery and endurance.
It left the State one of the largest, and returned one of the smallest,
having lost two-thirds of its men in its three years' service.
Colonel Jacquess was its only colonel and came home disabled by wounds
received at Chickamauga, where two horses were shot under him. He
refused to the last (1897) to receive a pension, until in his extreme
old age, at the urgent request of the Society of the Survivors of
the Seventy-third Illinois, he allowed it to be applied for. He
pathetically said: "My grandfathers were Revolutionary soldiers and
you could get up a row if you mentioned pensions. My father and my
uncles were in the War of 1812, and would take none. I had hoped not
to receive one--but I am unable now to do anything, and it has been my
desire, and not the fault of the government, that I have never received
a pension." These words were spoken in 1897--and not long afterward
Colonel Jacquess went to his reward.
Toward the end of the war President Lincoln sent Colonel Jacquess as a
secret emissary to arrange for peace and the settlement of the slave
question, so as to avert further shedding of blood. His adventures in
this role are of thrilling interest. The foregoing is told to show
the quality of the man whom it was my privilege to meet in 1896, when
he was in extreme old age. The honors conferred upon him by President
Lincoln and the confidence reposed in him grew out of events which
preceded the war. This was no other than the conversion of Mr. Lincoln
under the ministry of the Rev. James F. Jacquess, at Springfield, Ill.,
in the year 1839. The Rev. James F. Jacquess was stationed at this new
town--then of but a few thousand inhabitants--in 1839, when Lincoln
met him during a series of revival services conducted in the Methodist
Episcopal Church. Lincoln had but recently come to the town--having
removed from New Salem, which was in a decadent state. As a member
of the Legislature, Lincoln had been a chief agent in establishing
the State capital at Springfield, and though in debt and exceedingly
poor, he hoped to find friends and practice in the growing town. He
was then thirty years of age and had had few advantages of any sort.
It was on a certain night, when the pastor preached from the text, "Ye
must be born again," that Lincoln was in attendance and was greatly
interested. After the service he came round to the little parsonage,
and like another Nicodemus, asked, "How can these things be?" Mr.
Jacquess explained as best he could the mystery of the new birth and at
Lincoln's request, he and his wife kneeled and prayed with the future
President. It was not long before Mr. Lincoln expressed his sense of
pardon and arose with peace in his heart.
The narrative, as told thus far, is as my memory recalled it. Since
writing it, the same as told by Colonel Jacquess has recently been
discovered by me in Minutes of the Proceedings of the Eleventh
Annual Reunion Survivors Seventy-third Regiment, Illinois Infantry,
Volunteers (page 30), a copy of which is before me. This meeting, the
last (probably), that Colonel Jacquess attended, was held Tuesday and
Wednesday, September 28, 29, 1897, in the Supreme Court room of the
State Capitol Building, Springfield, Ill. To quote Colonel Jacquess:
"The mention of Mr. Lincoln's name recalls to my mind an occurrence
that perhaps I ought to mention. I notice that a number of lectures
are being delivered recently on Abraham Lincoln. Bishop Fowler has
a most splendid lecture on Abraham Lincoln, but they all, when they
reach one point run against a stone wall, and that is in reference
to Mr. Lincoln's religious sentiments. I happen to know something on
that subject that very few persons know. My wife, who has been dead
nearly two years, was the only witness of what I am going to state to
you as having occurred. Very soon after my second year's work as a
minister in the Illinois Conference, I was sent to Springfield. There
were ministers in the Illinois Conference who had been laboring for
twenty-five years to get to Springfield, the capital of the State.
When the legislature met there were a great many people here, and it
was thought to be a matter of great glory among the ministers to be
sent to Springfield. But I was not pleased with my assignment. I felt
my inability to perform the work. I did not know what to do. I simply
talked to the Lord about it, however, and told Him that unless I had
help I was going to run away. I heard a voice saying to me, 'Fear not,'
and I understood it perfectly. Now I am coming to the point I want to
make to you. I was standing at the parsonage door one Sunday morning,
a beautiful morning in May, when a little boy came up to me and said:
'Mr. Lincoln sent me around to see if you was going to preach today.'
Now, I had met Mr. Lincoln, but I never thought any more of Abe Lincoln
than I did of any one else. I said to the boy: 'You go back and tell
Mr. Lincoln that if he will come to church he will see whether I am
going to preach or not.' The little fellow stood working his fingers
and finally said: 'Mr. Lincoln told me he would give me a quarter if I
would find out whether you are going to preach.' I did not want to rob
the little fellow of his income, so I told him to tell Mr. Lincoln that
I was going to try to preach. I was always ready and willing to accept
any assistance that came along, and whenever a preacher, or one who had
any pretense in that direction, would come along I would thrust him
into my pulpit and make him preach, because I felt that anybody could
do better than I could.
"The church was filled that morning. It was a good-sized church, but
on that day all the seats were filled. I had chosen for my text the
words: 'Ye must be born again,' and during the course of my sermon I
laid particular stress on the word 'must.' Mr. Lincoln came into the
church after the services had commenced, and there being no vacant
seats, chairs were put in the altar in front of the pulpit, and Mr.
Lincoln and Governor French and wife sat in the altar during the
entire services, Mr. Lincoln on my left and Governor French on my
right, and I noticed that Mr. Lincoln appeared to be deeply interested
in the sermon. A few days after that Sunday Mr. Lincoln called on me
and informed me that he had been greatly impressed with my remarks on
Sunday and that he had come to talk with me further on the matter. I
invited him in, and my wife and I talked and prayed with him for hours.
Now, I have seen many persons converted; I have seen hundreds brought
to Christ, and if ever a person was converted, Abraham Lincoln was
converted that night in my house. His wife was a Presbyterian, but from
remarks he made to me he could not accept Calvinism. He never joined my
church, but I will always believe that since that night Abraham Lincoln
lived and died a Christian gentleman."
Here ends the narrative of Colonel Jacquess. Now compare that which
my memory preserved for the past thirteen years and the Colonel's own
printed account, and the discrepancies are small. It is with pleasure
I am able to confirm my memory by the words of the original narrator.
It is with no small degree of pleasure that I am able to prove that
Methodism had a hand in the making of the greatest American. Colonel
James F. Jacquess has gone to his reward, but it is his honor to have
been used by his Master to help in the spiritualization of the great
man who piloted our national destinies in a time of exceeding peril. It
is an honor to him, and through him to the denomination of which he was
a distinguished member.
BALTIMORE, MD.
_Methodist Christian Advocate_
November 11, 1909.
APPENDIX IV
THE REED LECTURE
THE LATER LIFE AND RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN[73]
WHILE the fate and future of the Christian religion in nowise depends
upon the sentiments of Abraham Lincoln, yet the life and character
of this remarkable man belong to the public, to tell for evil or for
good on coming generations; and as the attempt has been made to impute
to him the vilest sentiments, even to his dying day, it is fitting
and just that the weakness and infidelity charged upon his later life
should not go down unchallenged to posterity. The latest biography of
Mr. Lincoln, published under the name of Col. W. H. Lamon, but with
the large co-operation of Mr. W. H. Herndon, concerns itself with the
endeavor to establish certain allegations injurious to the good name of
the illustrious man, whose tragic and untimely death has consecrated
his memory in the hearts of a grateful nation. Two charges in this
biography are worthy of especial notice and disproof,--the charge
that he was born a bastard, and the charge that he died an infidel.
Mr. Lamon begins his pleasing task by raising dark and unfounded
insinuations as to the legitimacy of his hero, and then occupies from
twenty-five to thirty pages with evidence to prove that Mr. Lincoln was
a confirmed infidel, and died playing a "sharp game on the Christian
community"; that, in his "morbid ambition for popularity," he would
say good Lord or good Devil, "adjusting his religious sentiments to
his political interests." In meeting these insinuations and charges I
shall necessarily have recourse to political documents and papers,
but it shall not be my aim to parade Mr. Lincoln's political opinions,
further than to eliminate from his writings and speeches his religious
sentiments.
As to the ungracious insinuation that Mr. Lincoln was not the child
of lawful wedlock, I have only to say that it is an insinuation
unsupported by a shadow of justifiable evidence. The only thing on
which Mr. Lamon bases the insinuation is, that _he_ has been unable to
find any record of the marriage Mr. Lincoln's parents. Just as if it
would be any evidence against the fact of their marriage if no record
could be found. If every man in this country is to be considered as
illegitimate who cannot produce his parents' certificate of marriage,
or find a record of it in a family Bible anywhere, there will be
a good many very respectable people in the same category with Mr.
Lincoln. Such an insinuation might be raised with as much plausibility
in the case of multitudes of the early settlers of the country. It
is a questionable act of friendship thus to rake "the short and
simple annals of the poor," and upon such slender evidence raise an
insinuation so unfounded. But I am prepared to show that if Mr. Lamon
has found no record of the marriage of Mr. Lincoln's parents, it is
simply because he has not extended his researches as faithfully in
this direction as he has in some others. It appears that there is a
well-authenticated record of the marriage of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy
Hanks, and, in the same connection, the birth of Abraham Lincoln and
Sarah Lincoln. Hearing that the Hon. J. C. Black, of Champaign, Ill.,
a warm personal friend of Mr. Lincoln, had in his possession several
papers given to him soon after Mr. Lincoln's death by a member of the
family, and among them a leaf from the family Bible containing the
record of the marriage of Mr. Lincoln's parents, I at once telegraphed
to him in relation to this record, and have in my possession the
following letter, which will explain itself:
CHAMPAIGN, ILL., Jan. 8th, 1873.
J. A. REED:
DEAR SIR--Your telegram of the 7th reached me this A. M. In reply
permit me to say that I was in possession of the leaf of which you
speak, and which contained the record of the marriage of Thos. Lincoln
and Nancy Hanks, the birth of Abraham Lincoln and Sarah Lincoln. The
leaf is very old, and is the last page of the Apocrypha. It was given
to me, with certificate of genuineness, by Dennis F. Hanks in 1866.
I have sent both record and certificate to Wm. P. Black, attorney at
law, 131 La Salle Street, Chicago, Ill., and duly by him delivered to
the Illinois Historical Association. Hon. I. N. Arnold called on my
brother and obtained the originals for use in a revised edition of his
life of Lincoln, and I understand that since then they have passed
into the hands of Robt. Lincoln, Esq., where they were when I last
heard from them. Hoping that what I have written may be of some use, I
remain
Very truly yours,
J. C. BLACK.
Presuming that the first of Colonel Lamon's libels upon Mr. Lincoln's
memory is thus sufficiently disposed of, I proceed to consider the
charges against his religious life and character. The best refutation
of these charges lies on the pages of the book in which they are
advanced. However skeptical Mr. Lincoln may have been in his earlier
life, Mr. Lamon persists in asserting and attempting to prove that he
continued a confirmed skeptic to the last: that he was an unbeliever in
the truth of the Christian religion, and died an infidel; that, while
"he was by no means free from a kind of belief in the supernatural,
he rejected the great facts of Christianity as wanting the support
of authentic evidence"; that, "during all the time of his residence
at Springfield and in Washington, he never let fall from his lips an
expression which remotely implied the slightest faith in Jesus Christ,
as the Son of God and the Saviour of men"; that "he was at all times an
infidel." From twenty-five to thirty pages of evidence is produced in
proof of this allegation.
But all this positive statement as to Mr. Lincoln's persistent and
final infidelity is contradicted by the admissions of the book itself.
It is admitted that there did come a time in Mr. Lincoln's life at
Springfield when he began to affiliate with Christian people, and to
give his personal presence and support to the Church. It is admitted
that he did so plausibly identify himself with the Christian community
that "his New Salem associates and the aggressive deists with whom he
originally united at Springfield gradually dispersed and fell away from
his side." Here is the fact, openly and squarely stated by Mr. Lamon,
that Mr. Lincoln, even while at Springfield, did make such a change in
his sentiments and bearing toward the Christian community, that "the
aggressive deists and infidels with whom he originally united gradually
dispersed and fell away from his side." He no sooner turned away from
them in sentiment than they turned away from him in fact.
But how does the biographer attempt to explain this? How does he
account for this admitted and observable change in Mr. Lincoln's life,
that relieved him of the presence of so much aggressive deistical
company? Why, by means of an explanation that kills the accusation
itself--an explanation that fastens upon Mr. Lincoln the very charge
of hypocrisy against which he professes to defend him. He accounts for
this admitted and observable change in the attitude of Mr. Lincoln
towards the Christian community, not by supposing that there was any
sincerity about it, but by affirming that he was trying "to play a
sharp game on the Christians of Springfield!" It was because "he was
a wily politician, and did not disdain to regulate his religious
manifestations with reference to his political interests"; and because,
"seeing the immense and augmenting power of the churches, he aspired
to lead the religious community, foreseeing that in order to his
political success he must not appear an enemy within their gates." And
yet, if we are to believe Colonel Lamon, he was an enemy all the while
at heart; and while attending church, and supporting the Gospel, and
making Sabbath school speeches, and speeches before the Bible Society,
he was at heart a disbeliever of the truth and an antagonist of the
cause which he professed to be supporting. In other words, he was all
these years playing the arrant hypocrite; deceiving the Christian
community and wheedling it for political purposes; playing the role
of a gospel hearer in the sanctuary, and a hail fellow well met with
profane fellows of the baser sort in the private sanctum of infidelity
or "aggressive deism."
Strangely enough, however, Colonel Lamon and his companion in
authorship not only praise Mr. Lincoln's greatness, but laud
his singular conscientiousness and integrity of motive almost
to perfection. Says Mr. Herndon, "He was justly entitled to the
appellation, Honest Abe"; "honesty was his pole star; conscience, the
faculty that loves the just and the right, was the second great quality
and _forte_ of Mr. Lincoln's character." "He had a deep, broad, living
conscience. His great reason told him what was true and good, right and
wrong, just or unjust, and his conscience echoed back the decision,
and it was from this point he spoke and wove his character and fame
among us. His conscience ruled his heart." [See Herndon's letter in
Carpenter's _Life of Lincoln_.]
In confirmation of this, Mr. Lamon goes on to show that Mr. Lincoln
scorned everything like hypocrisy or deceit. In fact he makes his hero
to be such a paragon of honesty and conscious integrity of motive
that he would not undertake to plead a bad cause before a jury if he
could possibly shift the responsibility over on to some other lawyer,
whose conscience was not quite so tender. He brings in the testimony
of a most reputable lawyer of another place in confirmation of this,
who states: "That for a man who was for a quarter of a century both a
lawyer and a politician, Mr. Lincoln was the most honest man I ever
knew. He was not only morally honest but intellectually so. He could
not reason falsely; if he attempted it he failed. In politics he never
would try to mislead. At the bar, when he thought he was wrong, he was
the weakest lawyer I ever saw." "In a closely contested case where Mr.
Lincoln had proved an account for a client, who was, though he knew it
not, a very slippery fellow, the opposing attorney afterward proved a
receipt clearly covering the entire case. By the time he was through
Mr. Lincoln was missing. The court sent for him to the hotel. 'Tell the
judge,' said Mr. Lincoln, 'that I can't come; my hands are dirty and I
came over to clean them.'"
Page after page is thus taken to show Mr. Lincoln's singular
conscientiousness and honesty, his incapability of hypocrisy or deceit,
as a lawyer, a politician and a gentleman. And yet these consistent
biographers go back on all this testimony of their own mouths when they
come to explain the admitted change in his life when he began to lean
toward the church, and the "aggressive deists" parted company with him.
Then they find it convenient to call him a "wily politician," who is
"playing a sharp game with the Christians"; "the cautious pretender
who does not disdain to regulate his religious manifestations with
reference to his political interests." They saddle upon him the vilest
hypocrisy and deceit, and make him "act the liar's part," in order to
send him down to posterity an infidel. On one page they reason that Mr.
Lincoln could not have made any such admissions of his belief in the
Christian religion as have been maintained, as such admissions would be
contrary to his well-known character; on the next page they affirm that
Mr. Lincoln could not act the hypocrite; and on a third they do not
hesitate to attribute to him the very grossest duplicity, in their zeal
to fasten on him the charge of permanent skepticism. They go back on
their own logic, eat their own argument, and give the lie to the very
charge they are laboring with such considerable pains to establish.
The book, therefore, I repeat, bears on its own pages the best
refutation of the charge it makes against Mr. Lincoln. Surely, such
serious inconsistency of statement, such illogical absurdity, even,
could hardly have escaped the notice of the biographers if some
preconceived opinion had not prejudiced their minds and blinded their
eyes. The _animus_ of the book and the purpose for which it was written
are only too apparent.
Perhaps it might suffice to rest the refutation of this charge against
Mr. Lincoln's religious character on the internal evidence of Colonel
Lamon's volume with which I have thus far been occupied. But there is
something to be said concerning the authenticity and accuracy of the
testimony by which the charge seems to be supported.
I have been amazed to find that the principal persons whose testimony
is given in this book to prove that their old friend lived and died
an infidel, never wrote a word of it, and never gave it as their
opinion or allowed it to be published as covering their estimate of
Mr. Lincoln's life and religious views. They were simply familiarly
interviewed, and their testimony misrepresented, abridged and distorted
to suit the purpose of the interviewer, and the business he had on hand.
The two gentlemen whose names are most relied upon, and who stand first
on the list of witnesses to establish the charge these biographers
have made, are the Hon. John T. Stuart, and Col. Jas. H. Matheny, of
Springfield, old and intimate friends of Mr. Lincoln.
Hon. John T. Stuart is an ex-member of Congress, and was Mr. Lincoln's
first law partner,--a gentleman of the highest standing and ability in
his profesion, and of unimpeachable integrity. Mr. Lamon has attributed
to Mr. Stuart testimony the most disparaging and damaging to Mr.
Lincoln's character and opinions,--testimony which Mr. Stuart utterly
repudiates, both as to language and sentiment, as the following letter
shows:--
SPRINGFIELD, Dec. 17th, 1872.
REV. J. A. REED:
DEAR SIR--My attention has been called to a statement in relation to
the religious opinions of Mr. Lincoln, purporting to have been made by
me and published in Lamon's _Life of Lincoln_. The language of that
statement is not mine; it was not written by me, and I did not see it
until it was in print.
I was once interviewed on the subject of Mr. Lincoln's religious
opinions, and doubtless said that Mr. Lincoln was in the earlier part
of his life an infidel. I could not have said that "Dr. Smith tried
to convert Lincoln from infidelity so late as 1858, and couldn't do
it." In relation to that point, I stated, in the same conversation,
some facts which are omitted in that statement, and which I will
briefly repeat. That Eddie, a child of Mr. Lincoln, died in 1848 or
1849, and that he and his wife were in deep grief on that account.
That Dr. Smith, then Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of
Springfield, at the suggestion of a lady friend of theirs, called upon
Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, and that first visit resulted in great intimacy
and friendship between them, lasting till the death of Mr. Lincoln,
and continuing with Mrs. Lincoln till the death of Dr. Smith. I stated
that I had heard, at the time, that Dr. Smith and Mr. Lincoln had much
discussion in relation to the truth of the Christian religion, and
that Dr. Smith had furnished Mr. Lincoln with books to read on that
subject, and among others one which had been written by himself, some
time previous, on infidelity; and that Dr. Smith claimed that after
this investigation Mr. Lincoln had changed his opinion, and become
a believer in the truth of the Christian religion: that Mr. Lincoln
and myself never conversed upon that subject, and I had no personal
knowledge as to his alleged change of opinion. I stated, however, that
it was certainly true, that up to that time Mr. Lincoln had never
regularly attended any place of religious worship, but that after that
time he rented a pew in the First Presbyterian Church, and with his
family constantly attended the worship in that church until he went to
Washington as President. This much I said at the time, and can now add
that the Hon. Ninian W. Edwards, the brother-in-law of Mr. Lincoln,
has, within a few days, informed me that when Mr. Lincoln commenced
attending the First Presbyterian Church he admitted to him that his
views had undergone the change claimed by Dr. Smith.
I would further say that Dr. Smith was a man of very great ability and
on theological and metaphysical subjects had few superiors and not
many equals.
Truthfulness was a prominent trait in Mr. Lincoln's character, and it
would be impossible for any intimate friend of his to believe that he
ever aimed to deceive, either by his words or his conduct.
Yours truly,
JOHN T. STUART.
Similar testimony, to the extent of a page or more of finely printed
matter, Mr. Lamon attributes to Col. Jas. H. Matheny, of Springfield,
Ill., an old acquaintance of Mr. Lincoln, an able lawyer and of high
standing in the community. Mr. Matheny testifies that he never wrote a
word of what is attributed to him; that it is not a fair representation
of either his language or his opinions, and that he never would have
allowed such an article to be published as covering his estimate of Mr.
Lincoln's life and character. Here is what this gentleman has to say,
given over his own signature:--
SPRINGFIELD, Dec. 16th, 1872.
REV. J. A. REED:
DEAR SIR--The language attributed to me in Lamon's book is not from
my pen. I did not write it, and it does not express my sentiments of
Mr. Lincoln's entire life and character. It is a mere collection of
sayings gathered from private conversations that were only true of Mr.
Lincoln's earlier life. I would not have allowed such an article to
be printed over my signature as covering my opinion of Mr. Lincoln's
life and religious sentiments. While I do believe Mr. Lincoln to have
been an infidel in his former life, when his mind was as yet unformed,
and his associations principally with rough and skeptical men, yet
I believe he was a very different man in later life; and that after
associating with a different class of men, and investigating the
subject, he was a firm believer in the Christian religion.
Yours truly,
JAS. H. MATHENY.
It is unnecessary that I occupy more space with the rest of the
testimony, as there is none of it given over the signature of anybody,
save that which is given over the signature of W. H. Herndon. All aside
from this bears evidence of having been manipulated to suit the purpose
for which it is wanted, and is either contradictory, or fails to cover
the whole of Mr. Lincoln's life. Judge Davis, for instance, is made to
say: "I don't know anything about Lincoln's religion, nor do I think
anybody else knows anything about it." Of what value can the testimony
be that is prefaced with such declarations of knowing nothing about the
matter?
John G. Nicolay is made to testify, that "to his knowledge Mr. Lincoln
did not change his views after he came to Washington"; and yet he
states in immediate connection that "he does not know what his views
were, never having heard him explain them."
Jesse W. Fell either testifies, or is made to testify, to Mr. Lincoln's
skeptical notions. And yet Mr. Fell admits that it "was eight or ten
years previous to his death" that he believed him to be entertaining
the views of which he speaks, "and that he _may have changed his
sentiments_ after his removal from among us." All this would be strange
kind of testimony on which to convict Mr. Lincoln of murder in the
presence of a judge and jury. But with such evidence it is sought to
convict him of infidelity.
We are enabled to see, therefore, in the light of this revelation,
of what "trustworthy materials" this book is composed; how much Mr.
Lamon's "names and dates and authorities, by which he strengthens his
testimony," are to be depended upon; and what reason unsuspecting or
sympathizing critics and journalists have for arriving at the sage
conclusion that Mr. Lincoln "was, in his habit of thought, heterodox
in the extreme to the close of his life, and a very different man from
what he was supposed to be." The evidence of this book, so far as the
prominent witnesses are concerned, and so far as it relates to the
later years of Mr. Lincoln's life, is not only utterly untrustworthy,
but even an ingenious and romantic invention.
Having shown what claims Mr. Lamon's book has to being the "only fair
and reliable history" of Mr. Lincoln's life and views, and of what
"trustworthy materials" it is composed, I shall now give the testimony
I have collected to establish what has ever been the public impression,
that Mr. Lincoln was in his later life, and at the time of his death, a
firm believer in the truth of the Christian religion. The infidelity of
his earlier life is not so much to be wondered at, when we consider the
poverty of his early religious instruction and the peculiar influences
by which he was surrounded. Gideon Welles, formerly Secretary of the
Navy, in a recent article in the _Galaxy_, in accounting for the late
and peculiar manifestation of faith which Mr. Lincoln exhibited, says:
"It was doubtless to be attributed in a great measure to the absence
of early religious culture--a want of educational advantages in his
youthful frontier life." This, together with the fact that his youth
and early manhood were spent chiefly among a rough, illiterate and
skeptical class of people, is amply confirmed by Mr. Lamon's narrative.
On the same authority it appears that Mr. Lincoln had in his former
life read but few books, and that everything he had read, of an
intellectual character, bearing on the truth of the Bible, was of an
infidel sort. It does not appear that he had ever seen, much less
read, a work on the evidences of Christianity till his interview with
Rev. Dr. Smith in 1848. We hear of him as reading Paine, Voltaire and
Theodore Parker, but nothing on the other side. The men by whom he
was surrounded in his earlier life, it seems, kept him well supplied
with their kind of literature. He was familiar with some of the master
spirits of infidelity and theism, but had never grappled with the
evidences of Christianity as presented by the great defenders of the
Christian faith.
But then Mr. Lincoln's mind was of too much greatness and intellectual
candor to remain the victim of a false theory in the presence of
clear and sufficient intellectual testimony. And he no sooner, in the
providence of God, was placed in possession of the truth, and led to
investigate for himself, than he stood firmly and avowedly on the side
of the Christian religion.
In proof of this statement, I first of all produce the testimony of
Rev. Dr. Smith, Mr. Lincoln's pastor at Springfield. In relation to Mr.
Lincoln's opinion of Dr. Smith, it is only necessary for me to state
that he stood so high in his esteem, that he gave him the appointment
of Consul to Glasgow. Dr. Smith was in Scotland at the time of Mr.
Lincoln's death, and soon after this sad event, Mr. Herndon conceived
the notion of collecting materials for his intended biography. He
accordingly addressed a letter to Dr. Smith in Scotland, with the view
of getting some information from so respectable a source to prove that
Mr. Lincoln had died an infidel. In this however he was mistaken, to
his evident chagrin and disappointment. I shall give some extracts from
Dr. Smith's printed letter, which is to be found in the Springfield
_Journal_ of March, 1867, in which he gives his opinion of both Mr.
Herndon and Mr. Lincoln.
EAST CAINNO, SCOTLAND, 24th Jan. 1867.
W. H. HERNDON, ESQ.:
SIR--Your letter of the 20th Dec. was duly received. In it you ask me
to answer several questions in relation to the illustrious President
Abraham Lincoln. With regard to your second question, I beg leave to
say it is a very easy matter to prove that while I was pastor of the
First Presbyterian Church of v Springfield, Mr. Lincoln did avow his
belief in the divine authority and inspiration of the Scriptures, and
I hold that it is a matter of the last importance not only to the
present, but all future generations of the Great Republic, and to all
advocates of civil and religious liberty throughout the world, that
this avowal on his part, and the circumstances attending it, together
with very interesting incidents illustrative of the excellence of his
character, in my possession, should be made known to the public. I
am constrained, however, most respectfully to decline choosing you
as the medium through which such a communication shall be made by
me. [Omitting that portion of the letter which bears on Mr. Herndon,
I give what is written in vindication of Mr. Lincoln.--J. A. R.] My
intercourse with Abraham Lincoln convinced me that he was not only an
honest man, but preëminently an upright man--ever ready, so far as in
his power, to render unto all their dues.
It was my honor to place before Mr. Lincoln arguments designed
to prove the divine authority and inspiration of the Scriptures,
accompanied by the arguments of infidel objectors in their own
language. To the arguments on both sides Mr. Lincoln gave a most
patient, impartial, and searching investigation. To use his own
language, he examined the arguments as a lawyer who is anxious
to reach the truth investigates testimony. The result was the
announcement by himself that the argument in favor of the divine
authority and inspiration of the Scriptures was unanswerable. I could
say much more on this subject, but as you are the person addressed,
for the present I decline. The assassin Booth, by his diabolical
act, unwittingly sent the illustrious martyr to glory, honor, and
immortality; but his false friend has attempted to send him down
to posterity with infamy branded on his forehead, as a man who,
notwithstanding all he suffered for his country's good, was destitute
of those feelings and affections without which there can be no real
excellency of character. Sir, I am with due respect your obedient
servant,
JAS. SMITH.
N.B.--It will no doubt be gratifying to the friends of Christianity
to learn that very shortly after Mr. Lincoln became a member of my
congregation, at my request, in the presence of a large assembly at
the annual meeting of the Bible Society of Springfield, he delivered
an address the object of which was to inculcate the importance of
having the Bible placed in possession of every family in the State. In
the course of it he drew a striking contrast between the Decalogue and
the moral codes of the most eminent lawgivers of antiquity, and closed
(as near as I can recollect) in the following language: "It seems to
me that nothing short of infinite wisdom could by any possibility have
devised and given to man this excellent and perfect moral code. It is
suited to men in all conditions of life and includes all the duties
they owe to their Creator, to themselves, and to their fellow-men."
J. S.
Mr. Lamon, aware of the importance of Dr. Smith's testimony, attempts
to break the force of it by the _argumentum ad nauseam_. He alludes
to Dr. Smith as a gentleman of "slender abilities for the conversion
of so distinguished a person, and as having in his zeal composed a
heavy tract out of his own head to suit the particular case, and that
he afterwards _drew_ the acknowledgment from Mr. Lincoln that it was
unanswerable," and that he himself is the only man that can testify
of such an admission on the part of Mr. Lincoln. This is all the
gratuitous assertion of a man who is driven to the wall for evidence
to prove his point. Now John T. Stuart has already testified to Dr.
Smith's abilities as a theologian and a metaphysician having few
superiors. He testifies to the fact that Dr. Smith's work was not
written to suit Mr. Lincoln's case. It was written previously, before
Dr. Smith ever saw Mr. Lincoln. Nor is it true that Dr. Smith is the
only one who can testify to an admission on the part of Mr. Lincoln of
a change of sentiments. There are many residents of Springfield, both
ladies and gentlemen, who can testify to this admission. I give one or
two letters as a sample.
SPRINGFIELD, Dec. 24th, 1872.
REV. JAS. REED:
DEAR SIR--A short time after the Rev. Dr. Smith became pastor of
the First Presbyterian Church in this city, Mr. Lincoln said to
me, "I have been reading a work of Dr. Smith on the evidences of
Christianity, and have heard him preach and converse on the subject,
and I am now convinced of the truth of the Christian religion."
Yours truly,
N. W. EDWARDS.
SPRINGFIELD, Jan. 6th, 1873.
REV. J. A. REED:
DEAR SIR--Not long after Dr. Smith came to Springfield, and I think
very near the time of his son's death, Mr. Lincoln said to me, that
when on a visit somewhere, he had seen and partially read a work of
Dr. Smith on the evidences of Christianity which had led him to change
his views about the Christian religion; that he would like to get that
work to finish the reading of it, and also to make the acquaintance of
Dr. Smith. I was an elder in Dr. Smith's church, and took Dr. Smith
to Mr. Lincoln's office and introduced him, and Dr. Smith gave Mr.
Lincoln a copy of his book, as I know, at his own request.
Yours, &c.,
THOS. LEWIS.
There are many others who can testify that Mr. Lincoln, both publicly
and privately while at Springfield, made the admission of his belief
in the truth of the Christian religion. He did it in most unequivocal
language, in addresses before the Bible Society and in Sabbath school.
I next refer to the testimony of Rev. Dr. Gurley, Mr. Lincoln's pastor
at Washington City. Even if, before his election to the Presidency,
Mr. Lincoln had entertained the sentiments attributed to him, after he
had reached the pinnacle of political elevation, there was certainly
no necessity for him any longer to be "playing a sharp game with the
Christians," and destroying his peace of mind by wearing the mask
of hypocrisy. He was surely free now to worship where he felt most
comfortable. But we no sooner find him in Washington than we find him
settling down under the ministry of Dr. Gurley, a sound and orthodox
minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Dr. Gurley was his intimate
friend, and spiritual counselor and adviser, during the most trying
and difficult time of his life. He was with him not only in the hours
of his personal family bereavement, but when his heart was heavy and
perplexed with the welfare of his country. Having been associated
with Dr. Gurley in the charge of his pulpit for a time previous to
his death, and being intimately acquainted with him, I have had the
opportunity of knowing what his views of Mr. Lincoln's sentiments were.
In the funeral oration which Dr. Gurley delivered in Washington, he
says:
"Probably since the days of Washington no man was ever so deeply and
firmly embedded and enshrined in the hearts of the people as Abraham
Lincoln. Nor was it a mistaken confidence and love. He deserved
it--deserved it all. He merited it by his character, by his acts,
and by the whole tone and tenor of his life.... His integrity was
thorough, all-pervading, all-controlling and incorruptible. He saw his
duty as the Chief Magistrate of a great and imperiled people, and he
determined to do his duty, seeking the guidance, and leaning on the
arm of Him of whom it is written: 'He giveth power to the faint, and
to them that have no might He increaseth strength.'
"Never shall I forget the emphatic and deep emotion with which he said
in this very room, to a company of clergymen who called to pay their
respects to him in the darkest days of our civil conflict: 'Gentlemen,
my hope of success in this struggle rests on that immutable
foundation, the justness and the goodness of God; and when events are
very threatening I shall hope that in some way all will be well in the
end, because our cause is just and God will be on our side.'"
This was uttered when Dr. Gurley was not aware, as I suppose, that Mr.
Lincoln had ever been charged with entertaining infidel sentiments.
While sitting in the study one day with him, conversing on Mr.
Lincoln's character, I asked him about the rumor of his infidelity
then being circulated by Mr. Herndon. He said, "I do not believe a
word of it. It could not have been true of him while here, for I
have had frequent and intimate conversations with him on the subject
of the Bible and the Christian religion, when he could have had no
motive to deceive me, and I considered him sound not only on the truth
of the Christian religion but on all its fundamental doctrines and
teaching. And more than that: in the latter days of his chastened
and weary life, after the death of his son Willie, and his visit
to the battlefield of Gettysburg, he said, with tears in his eyes,
that he had lost confidence in everything but God, and that he now
believed his heart was changed, and that he loved the Saviour, and
if he was not deceived in himself, it was his intention soon to make
a profession of religion." Language to this effect Mr. Lincoln, it
appears, used in conversation with other persons, and I refer next
to the corroborating testimony of Noah Brooks, Esq., now associated
with the New York _Tribune_. This gentleman has already published most
interesting testimony in relation to Mr. Lincoln's religious sentiments
in _Harper's Monthly_ of July, 1865. In order that his testimony may
be fully appreciated, I will here state, on the authority of a mutual
friend, that "Mr. Brooks is himself an earnest Christian man, and
had the appointment of private secretary to the President, to which
office he would have acceded had Mr. Lincoln lived. He was so intimate
with the President that he visited him socially at times when others
were refused admission, took tea with the family, spending evenings
with him, reading to him, and conversing with him freely on social and
religious topics, and in my opinion knows more of the secret inner life
and religious views of Mr. Lincoln, at least during the term of his
presidency, than any man living." The following is a letter which I
have received from Mr. Brooks in relation to his views of Mr. Lincoln's
religious sentiments:
NEW YORK, Dec. 31st, 1872.
REV. J. A. REED:
MY DEAR SIR--In addition to what has appeared from my pen, I will
state that I have had many conversations with Mr. Lincoln, which were
more or less of a religious character, and while I never tried to
draw anything like a statement of his views from him, yet he freely
expressed himself to me as having "a hope of blessed immortality
through Jesus Christ." His views seemed to settle so naturally around
that statement, that I considered no other necessary. His language
seemed not that of an inquirer, but of one who had a prior settled
belief in the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion. Once
or twice, speaking to me of the change which had come upon him, he
said, while he could not fix any definite time, yet it was after he
came here, and I am very positive that in his own mind he identified
it with about the time of Willie's death. He said, too, that after
he went to the White House he kept up the habit of daily prayer.
Sometimes he said it was only ten words, but those ten words he had.
There is no possible reason to suppose that Mr. Lincoln would ever
deceive me as to his religious sentiments. In many conversations with
him, I absorbed the firm conviction that Mr. Lincoln was at heart a
Christian man, believed in the Saviour, and was seriously considering
the step which would formally connect him with the visible Church on
earth. Certainly, any suggestion as to Mr. Lincoln's skepticism or
infidelity, to me who knew him intimately from 1862 till the time of
his death, is a monstrous fiction--a shocking perversion.
Yours truly,
NOAH BROOKS.
The following extract I add also from Mr. Brooks's article in _Harper's
Monthly_ of July, 1865: "There was something touching in his childlike
and simple reliance on Divine aid, especially when in such extremities
as he sometimes fell into; then, though prayer and reading the
Scriptures was his constant habit, he more earnestly than ever sought
that strength which is promised when mortal help faileth. He said
once, 'I have been many times driven to my knees by the overwhelming
conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of
all about me, seemed insufficient for that day.' At another time he
said,
'I am very sure that if I do not go away from here a wiser man, I
shall go away a better man for having learned here what a very poor
sort of a man I am.'"
Mr. Carpenter, author of _Six Months in the White House_, whose
intimacy with Mr. Lincoln gives importance to his testimony, says that
"he believed Mr. Lincoln to be a sincere Christian," and among other
proofs of it gives another well-authenticated admission (made by Mr.
Lincoln to an estimable lady of Brooklyn, laboring in the Christian
Commission) of a change of heart, and of his intention at some suitable
opportunity to make a profession of religion.
Mr. Newton Bateman, Superintendent of Public Instruction in the
State of Illinois, a gentleman of rare literary attainments, and of
unquestionable veracity, has given very important testimony in relation
to one particular point, more especially, Mr. Lincoln's belief in the
divinity of Jesus Christ. Both Mr. Herndon and Mr. Lamon persist in
asserting that Mr. Lincoln never used the name of Jesus Christ except
to deny His divinity, and that Mr. Bateman is "the sole and only man
who dare say that Mr. Lincoln believed Jesus Christ to be the Son of
God."
Mr. Bateman testifies that in 1860, Mr. Lincoln in conversation with
him used the following language: "I know that there is a God, and
that He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I
know that His hand is in it. If He has a place and a work for me,
and I think He has, I believe I am ready. I am nothing, but truth is
everything. I know I am right, because I know that liberty is right,
for Christ teaches it and Christ is God. I have told them a house
divided against itself cannot stand; and Christ and reason say the
same, and they will find it so," &c. This testimony was originally
given in Holland's _Life of Lincoln_. Mr. Herndon, at first unwilling
to impeach Mr. Bateman's veracity, suggests a doubt "whether he is
correctly reported in Holland's history"; presently, however, summoning
courage, he ventures the affirmation: "On my word the world may take it
for granted that Holland is wrong; that he does not state Mr. Lincoln's
views correctly." He then goes on to say that "between himself and
Dr. Holland, Mr. Bateman is not in a very pleasant situation." We
have seen, however, that Mr. Herndon's "word," in a matter where
his prejudices are so violent and his convictions so obstinate, is
hardly a sufficient denial with which to oppose the deliberate and
unretracted statement of an intelligent and reputable witness. And Mr.
Bateman has no need to be disturbed, so long as the "unpleasantness"
of his situation is occasioned by no more serious discomfort than
Mr. Herndon's unsupported contradiction. As the matter now stands,
Mr. Herndon offers a denial, based on general impressions as to Mr.
Lincoln's character, against the direct, specific, and detailed
testimony of a careful and competent man as to what he heard with his
own ears. Mr. Herndon simply did not hear what Mr. Bateman did hear;
and is in the position of that Irishman on trial for his life, who,
when one witness swore directly that he saw the accused commit the
crime, proposed to put upon the stand a dozen witnesses who could swear
they did _not_ see him.
Mr. Lamon also states that Mr. Bateman is a respectable citizen, whose
general reputation for truth and veracity is not to be impeached,
but his story, as reported in Holland's _Life of Lincoln_, is so
inconsistent with Mr. Lincoln's whole character that it must be
rejected as altogether incredible. Unfortunately, however, for Mr.
Lamon, he has not so impressed us with the trustworthy nature of the
materials of his own book, as that we can afford to distrust the
honesty and integrity of either Dr. Holland or Mr. Bateman for his
sake. If anybody's story of Mr. Lincoln's life and sentiments is to be
"rejected as inconsistent and altogether incredible," the testimony
thus far would seem to indicate that it is Mr. Lamon's story. At least
that is the "unpleasant situation" in which we shall leave the matter,
so far as Mr. Bateman and Dr. Holland are concerned in it.
But Mr. Bateman is not the only one who can testify that Mr. Lincoln
did use the name of the Saviour, and believed him to be the Christ
of God. I have given several instances already in which he used the
name of Christ as his Saviour, and avowed that he loved Him. Moreover,
he could not have avowed his belief in the truth of the Christian
religion, as many witnesses testify, if he did not believe Jesus to be
the Christ of God.
To the various testimony which we have thus far cited it only remains
for me to add the testimony of his own lips. In his address to the
colored people of Baltimore, on the occasion of the presentation of a
copy of the Bible, Mr. Lincoln said: "In regard to this great Book,
I have only to say, it is the best gift which God has ever given to
man. All the good from the Saviour of the world is communicated to us
through this Book."
To the Hon. H. C. Deming, of Connecticut, he said that the "article of
his faith was contained in the Saviour's condensed statement of both
law and gospel--'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy
mind, and thy neighbor as thyself.'"
Mr. Herndon affirms that Mr. Lincoln did not believe in the "Christian
dogma of the forgiveness of sin": he believed that "God would not
and could not forgive sin. He did not believe in forgiveness through
Christ, nor in fact in any doctrine of forgiveness. In reading Mr.
Lincoln's proclamations, however, we find that he does very distinctly
recognize the doctrine of the forgiveness of sin on the part of God,
and very earnestly implores the people to seek the forgiveness of their
sins. In his proclamation of a fast day, August, 1861, are these words:
"And, whereas, it is fit and becoming in all people, at all times, to
acknowledge and revere the supreme government of God; to bow in humble
submission to his chastisements; to confess and deplore their sins and
transgressions, in the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is
the beginning of wisdom, and to pray with all fervency and contrition
for the _pardon_ of their past offenses, and for a blessing on their
present and prospective action," etc.
Read also his proclamation enforcing the observance of the Christian
Sabbath in the Army and Navy, and ask yourself, Could an infidel have
done this?
The President, Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, desires and
enjoins the orderly observance of the Sabbath by the officers and men
in the military and naval service. The importance for man and beast of
the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian soldiers
and sailors, a becoming deference to the best sentiment of a Christian
people, and a due regard for the Divine will, demand that Sunday labor
in the Army and Navy be reduced to the measure of a strict necessity.
The discipline and character of the National forces should not suffer,
nor the cause they defend be imperiled, by the profanation of the
day and the name of the Most High. At this time of public distress,
adopting the words of Washington in 1776, "Men may find enough to do
in the service of God and their country without abandoning themselves
to vice and immorality." The first general order issued by the Father
of his Country, after the Declaration of Independence, indicates the
spirit in which our institutions were founded and should ever be
defended: "The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man
will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending
the dearest rights and liberties of his country."
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Besides all this, we find Mr. Lincoln often using the very language of
the Saviour, as not only expressing but giving the sanction of Divine
authority to his own views and opinions. What a remarkable instance of
it in the solemn words that fell from his lips in his last inaugural,
as he stood on the steps of the Capitol! Standing upon the verge of his
grave, as he was that day, and addressing his last official words to
his countrymen, his lips touched as with the finger of inspiration, he
said:
"The Almighty has His own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because of
offenses, for it must needs be that offenses will come; but woe unto
the man by whom the offense cometh.' If we shall suppose that American
Slavery is one of these offenses which, in the providence of God, must
needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He
now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this
terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall
we discern any departure therein from those Divine attributes which
the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we
hope, fervently do we pray, that the mighty scourge of war may pass
away. Yet if God will that it continue until all the wealth piled by
the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall
be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be
paid with another drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand years
ago, so must it still be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and
righteous altogether.'"
Thus it appears, that whether Mr. Lincoln was ever accustomed to
blaspheme the name of Jesus Christ or not, or whether he was ever
accustomed to deny His divinity or not, as his defamers allege, he
is willing, in the last eventful days of his life, standing at the
nation's Capitol, in the hearing of the swelling multitude that hangs
upon his lips, to use the sanction of Divine authority to one of the
most remarkable sentences of his official address.
Hon. Isaac N. Arnold, of Chicago, an intimate acquaintance of Mr.
Lincoln, and who is engaged in a review of his work on Mr. Lincoln's
life, writes me that "from the time he left Springfield, with the
touching request for the prayers of his friends and neighbors, to the
day of his death, his words were the words of a Christian, revering
the Bible, and obeying its precepts. A spirit of reverence and deep
religious feeling pervades nearly all the public utterances and state
papers of his later life."
The following interesting testimony from Rev. Dr. Byron Sunderland, of
the First Presbyterian Church of Washington City, gives us a little
insight into the philosophy of Mr. Lincoln's mind and religious
sentiments:
WASHINGTON CITY, Nov. 15th, 1872.
REV. JAS. A. REED:
DEAR BRO.--It was in the last days of 1862, about the time Mr.
Lincoln was seriously contemplating the issuing of the Emancipation
Proclamation, that I, in company with some friends of the President,
called upon him. After some conversation, in which he seemed disposed
to have his joke and fun, he settled down to a serious consideration
of the subject before his mind, and for one half-hour poured forth a
volume of the deepest Christian philosophy I ever heard. He began by
saying--
"The ways of God are mysterious and profound beyond all
comprehension--'who by searching can find Him out?' Now, judging after
the manner of men, taking counsel of our sympathies and feelings, if
it had been left to us to determine it, we would have had no war.
And going further back to the occasion of it, we would have had no
slavery. And tracing it still further back, we would have had no evil.
There is the mystery of the universe which no man can solve, and it
is at that point that the human understanding utterly backs down. And
then there is nothing left but for the heart of man to take up faith
and believe and trust where it cannot reason. Now, I believe we are
all agents and instruments of Divine providence. On both sides we are
working out the will of God; yet how strange the spectacle! Here is
one half the nation prostrated in prayer that God will help them to
destroy the Union and build up a government upon the cornerstone of
human bondage. And here is the other half equally earnest in their
prayers and efforts to defeat a purpose which they regard as so
repugnant to their ideas of human nature and the rights of society, as
well as liberty and independence. They want slavery; we want freedom.
They want a servile class; we want to make equality practical as far
as possible. And they are Christians, and we are Christians. They
and we are praying and fighting for results exactly the opposite.
What must God think of such a posture of affairs? There is but one
solution--self-deception. Somewhere there is a fearful heresy in our
religion, and I cannot think it lies in the love of liberty and in the
aspirations of the human soul.
"What I am to do in the present emergency time will determine. I hold
myself in my present position and with the authority vested in me
as an instrument of Providence. I have my own views and purposes, I
have my convictions of duty, and my notions of what is right to be
done. But I am conscious every moment that all I am and all I have is
subject to the control of a Higher Power, and that Power can use me or
not use me in any manner, and at any time, as in His wisdom and might
may be pleasing to Him.
"Nevertheless, I am no fatalist. I believe in the supremacy of the
human conscience, and that men are responsible beings; that God has a
right to hold them, and will hold them, to a strict personal account
for the deeds done in the body. But, sirs, I do not mean to give you a
lecture upon the doctrines of the Christian religion. These are simply
with me the convictions and realities of great and vital truths,
the power and demonstration of which I see now in the light of this
our national struggle as I have never seen before. God only knows
the issue of this business. He has destroyed nations from the map of
history for their sins. Nevertheless my hopes prevail generally above
my fears for our own Republic. The times are dark, the spirits of ruin
are abroad in all their power, and the mercy of God alone can save us."
So did the President discourse until we felt we were imposing on his
time, and rising we took our leave of him, confident that he would be
true to those convictions of right and duty which were derived from so
deep a Christian philosophy.
Yours truly,
BYRON SUNDERLAND.