books on the shelves, two globes, celestial and terrestrial, in the
corners of the room, a plain table with writing materials upon it, a
pitcher of cold water, and glasses, but no wines or liquors. There was
humor in the invitation to take a glass of water, which was explained to
me by a citizen, who said that when it was known that the committee was
coming, several citizens called upon Mr. Lincoln and informed him that
some entertainment must be provided.
"'Yes, that is so. What ought to be done? Just let me know and I will
attend to it,' he said.
"'Oh, we will supply the needful liquors,' said his friends.
"'Gentlemen,' said Mr. Lincoln, 'I thank you for your kind intentions,
but must respectfully decline your offer. I have no liquors in my house,
and have never been in the habit of entertaining my friends in that way.
I cannot permit my friends to do for me what I will not myself do. I
shall provide cold water--nothing else.'"
Colonel John Hay, one of his secretaries and biographers, says, "Mr.
Lincoln was a man of extremely temperate habits. He made no use of
either whiskey or tobacco during all the years I knew him."
Mr. John G. Nicolay, his private secretary, says, "During all the five
years of my service as his private secretary I never saw him drink a
glass of whiskey and I never knew or heard of his taking one."
There is not the slightest doubt that Lincoln believed in a special
Providence. That conviction appears frequently in his speeches and
in his private letters. In the correspondence which passed between
him and Joshua Speed during a period of almost hopeless despondency
and self-abasement, Lincoln frequently expressed the opinion that God
had sent their sufferings for a special purpose. When Speed finally
acknowledged his happiness after marriage, Lincoln wrote, "I always was
superstitious. I believe God made me one of the instruments of bringing
your Fanny and you together, and which union I have no doubt He had
foreordained. Whatever He designs He will do for me yet. Stand still and
see the salvation of the Lord is my text just now."
Later in life, writing to Thurlow Weed, he said, "Men are not flattered
by being shown that there is a difference of purpose between the
Almighty and themselves. To deny it, however, in this case, is to deny
that there is a God governing the world."
In one of his speeches he said, "I know that the Lord is always on the
side of the right; but it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and
this nation should be on the Lord's side."
When he learned that his father was very ill and likely to die, he wrote
his step-brother, John Johnston, regretting his inability to come to his
bedside because of illness in his own family, and added,--
"I sincerely hope that father may yet 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.
Say to him that if we could meet now it is doubtful whether it would not
be more painful than pleasant; but that if it be his lot to go now, he
will soon have a joyous meeting with the many loved ones gone before,
and where the rest of us, through the help of God, hope ere long to join
them."
At Columbus, Ohio, he said to the Legislature of that State, convened in
joint session in the hall of the Assembly, "I turn, then, and look to
the American people, and to that God who has never forsaken them."
In the capital of New Jersey, to the Senate, he said, "I am exceedingly
anxious that this Union, the Constitution, and the liberties of the
people shall be perpetuated in accordance with the original idea for
which the struggle was made, and I shall be most happy indeed if I shall
be an humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, and of this,
His almost chosen people, for perpetuating the object of that great
struggle."
That he believed in the efficacy of prayer there is no doubt. "I
have been driven many times to my knees," he once remarked, "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."
A clergyman came to Washington from a little village in Central New York
to recover the body of a gallant young captain who had been killed at
the second battle of Bull Run. Having accomplished his errand, he was
presented at the White House by the representative from his district.
The Congressman at once retired, leaving him alone with Lincoln, who
asked in a pleasant tone what he could do for his visitor.
"I have not come to ask any favors of you, Mr. President," the latter
replied. "I have only come to say that the loyal people of the North are
sustaining you and will continue to do so. We are giving you all that we
have,--the lives of our sons as well as our confidence and our prayers.
You must know that no pious father or mother ever kneels in prayer these
days without asking God to give you strength and wisdom."
The tears filled Lincoln's eyes as he thanked his visitor and said, "But
for those prayers I should have faltered and perhaps failed long ago.
Tell every father and mother you know to keep on praying and I will
keep on fighting, for I am sure that God is on our side."
As the clergyman started to leave the room, Lincoln held him by the hand
and said, "I suppose I may consider this a sort of pastoral call."
"Yes," replied the clergyman.
"Out in our country," continued Lincoln, "when a parson made a pastoral
call it was always the custom for the folks to ask him to lead in
prayer, and I should like to ask you to pray with me to-day; pray that I
may have strength and wisdom." The two men knelt side by side before a
settee and the clergyman offered the most fervent appeal to the Almighty
Power that ever fell from his lips. As they rose, Lincoln grasped his
visitor's hand and remarked in a satisfied sort of way,--
"I feel better."
In July, 1863, in Washington, D. C., on the Sunday after the battle
of Gettysburg, General Sickles, who had lost a leg, was brought to
Washington. Lincoln called upon him at the hospital, with his son
Tad, and remained an hour or more. He greeted Sickles heartily and
complimented him on his stout fight at Gettysburg. Sickles asked whether
he was not anxious during the Gettysburg campaign. Lincoln gravely
replied that he was not; that some of his Cabinet and many others in
Washington were, but that he himself had had no fears. General Sickles
inquired his reasons. Lincoln hesitated, but finally replied,--
"Well, I will tell you how it was. In the pinch of your campaign up
there, when everybody seemed panic-stricken and nobody could tell
what was going to happen, I went into my room one day and locked the
door, and got down on my knees before Almighty God and prayed to Him
mightily for a victory at Gettysburg. I told God that if we were to
win the battle He must do it, for I had done all I could. I told Him
this was His war, and our cause was His cause, but that we couldn't
stand another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville. And then and there
made a solemn vow to Almighty God that if He would stand by our boys
at Gettysburg I would stand by Him. And He did, and I will. And after
that--I don't know how it was, and I can't explain it, but soon--a sweet
comfort crept into my soul that things would go all right at Gettysburg,
and that is why I had no fears about you."
Presently General Sickles asked what news he had from Vicksburg. The
President answered that he had none worth mentioning, but that Grant
was still "pegging away" down there. He said he thought a good deal of
him as a general and was not going to remove him, although urged to do
so. "Besides," he added, "I have been praying over Vicksburg also, and
believe our Heavenly Father is going to give us victory there, too,
because we need it to bisect the Confederacy and have the Mississippi
flow unvexed to the sea."
John G. Nicolay, who probably knew Lincoln as thoroughly and was as
familiar with his opinions as any one, said,--
"I do not remember ever having discussed religion with Mr. Lincoln, nor
do I know of any authorized statement of his views in existence. He
sometimes talked freely, and never made any concealment of his belief
or unbelief in any dogma or doctrine, but never provoked religious
controversies. I speak more from his disposition and habits than from
any positive declaration on his part. He frequently made remarks about
sermons he had heard, books he had read, or doctrines that had been
advanced, and my opinion as to his religious belief is based upon such
casual evidences. There is not the slightest doubt that he believed in a
Supreme Being of omnipotent power and omniscient watchfulness over the
children of men, and that this great Being could be reached by prayer.
Mr. Lincoln was a praying man; I know that to be a fact. And I have
heard him request people to pray for him, which he would not have done
had he not believed that prayer is answered. Many a time have I heard
Mr. Lincoln ask ministers and Christian women to pray for him, and he
did not do this for effect. He was no hypocrite, and had such reverence
for sacred things that he would not trifle with them. I have heard him
say that he prayed for this or that, and remember one occasion on which
he remarked that if a certain thing did not occur he would lose his
faith in prayer.
"It is a matter of history that he told the Cabinet he had promised his
Maker to issue an emancipation proclamation, and it was not an idle
remark. At the same time he did not believe in some of the dogmas of
the orthodox churches. I have heard him argue against the doctrine of
atonement, for example. He considered it illogical and unjust and a
premium upon evil-doing if a man who had been wicked all his life could
make up for it by a few words or prayers at the hour of death; and he
had no faith in death-bed repentances. He did not believe in several
other articles of the creeds of the orthodox churches. He believed
in the Bible, however. He was a constant reader of the Bible and had
great faith in it, but he did not believe that its entire contents
were inspired. He used to consider it the greatest of all text-books
of morals and ethics, and that there was nothing to compare with it in
literature; but, at the same time, I have heard him say that God had too
much to do and more important things to attend to than to inspire such
insignificant writers as had written some passages in the good book.
"Nor did he believe in miracles. He believed in inexorable laws of
nature, and I have heard him say that the wisdom and glory and greatness
of the Almighty were demonstrated by order and method and not by the
violation of nature's laws.
"It would be difficult for any one to define Mr. Lincoln's position or
to classify him among the sects. I should say that he believed in a good
many articles in the creeds of the orthodox churches and rejected a good
many that did not appeal to his reason.
"He praised the simplicity of the Gospels. He often declared that the
Sermon on the Mount contained the essence of all law and justice, and
that the Lord's Prayer was the sublimest composition in human language.
He was a constant reader of the Bible, but had no sympathy with
theology, and often said that in matters affecting a man's relations
with his Maker he couldn't give a power of attorney.
"Yes, there is a story, and it is probably true, that when he was
very young and very ignorant he wrote an essay that might be called
atheistical. It was after he had been reading a couple of atheistic
books which made a great impression on his mind, and the essay is
supposed to have expressed his views on those books,--a sort of review
of them, containing both approval and disapproval,--and one of his
friends burned it. He was very indignant at the time, but was afterwards
glad of it.
"The opposition of the Springfield clergy to his election was chiefly
due to remarks he made about them. One careless remark, I remember, was
widely quoted. An eminent clergyman was delivering a series of doctrinal
discourses that attracted considerable local attention. Although Lincoln
was frequently invited, he would not be induced to attend them. He
remarked that he wouldn't trust Brother ---- to construe the statutes
of Illinois and much less the laws of God; that people who knew him
wouldn't trust his advice on an ordinary business transaction because
they didn't consider him competent; hence he didn't see why they did so
in the most important of all human affairs, the salvation of their souls.
"These remarks were quoted widely and misrepresented to Lincoln's
injury. In those days people were not so liberal as now, and any one who
criticised a parson was considered a sceptic."
The refusal of the Springfield clergy to support him for President,
to which Mr. Nicolay refers, gave him great concern, and he expressed
himself on that subject quite freely to Mr. Newton Bateman,
Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State of Illinois, who
occupied a room adjoining and opening into the Executive Chamber at
Springfield, which Lincoln used as an office during the Presidential
campaign.
"Here are twenty-three ministers of different denominations," he said to
Mr. Bateman, showing a polling list, "and all of them are against me but
three, and here are a great many prominent members of churches; a very
large majority are against me. Mr. Bateman, I am not a Christian,--God
knows I would be one,--but I have carefully read the Bible and I do not
so understand this book," and he drew forth a pocket New Testament.
"These men well know," he continued, "that I am for freedom in the
Territories, freedom everywhere as free as the Constitution and the laws
will permit, and that my opponents are for slavery. They know this, and
yet, with this book in their hands, in the light of which human bondage
cannot live a moment, they are going to vote against me; I do not
understand it at all.
"I know 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 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
that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and Christ and reason
say the same, and they will find it so.
"Douglas don't care whether slavery is voted up or down, but God cares,
and humanity cares, and I care, and with God's help I shall not fail.
I may not see the end; but it will come, and I shall be vindicated, and
these men will find they have not read their Bible right."
The influence of the Springfield clergy was, however, scarcely
noticeable. Here and there throughout the country some religious
newspaper, minister, or bigoted layman opposed his election on that
pretext, but the numerical strength of this class of his opponents
was very small; and after the inauguration and the development of the
secession conspiracy the Springfield preachers, like other Christian
people from one end of the North to the other, displayed their
patriotism. As the war progressed the influence of the entire church,
Protestant and Catholic, was given to the support of the President,
except occasionally when some extreme antislavery community would
condemn what they considered the procrastination of the President
concerning the emancipation of the slaves. Scarcely a religious body
ever met without adopting resolutions of sympathy and support, and no
manifestations of loyalty and approval throughout the entire war gave
him greater gratification. His response in each case was a confession of
human weakness and his reliance upon Divine Power.
In 1863, when the New School Presbyterians embodied their sentiments
of loyalty to the Union in an eloquent memorial to the President, he
replied, "From the beginning I saw that the issues of our great struggle
depended upon Divine interposition and favor.... Relying as I do upon
the Almighty power, and encouraged as I am by these resolutions that you
have just read," etc.
To a committee of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal
church in 1864 he said, "It is no fault in others that the Methodist
Church sends more soldiers to the field, more nurses to the hospitals,
more prayers to heaven than any other. God bless the Methodist Church!
Bless all the churches; blessed be God who in this great trial giveth us
the churches."
To the Quakers of Iowa, who had sent him an address through Senator
Harlan, he wrote, "It is most cheering and encouraging for me to
know that, in the efforts which I have made, and am making, for the
restoration of a righteous peace to our country, I am upheld and
sustained by the good wishes and prayers of God's people. No one is
more deeply aware than myself that without His favor our highest wisdom
is but as foolishness, and that our most strenuous efforts would avail
nothing in the shadow of His displeasure."
One of the most significant of the President's letters, in which he
expresses himself with less than his usual reserve, was written to Mrs.
Gurney, wife of an eminent preacher of the English Society of Friends,
in the autumn of 1864: "I am much indebted to the good Christian people
of the country for their constant prayers and consolations, and to
no one of them more than to yourself. The purposes of the Almighty
are perfect, and must prevail, though we erring mortals may fail to
accurately perceive them in advance. We hoped for a happy termination
of this terrible war long before this; but God knows best, and has
ruled otherwise. We shall yet acknowledge His wisdom and our own error
therein. Meanwhile we must work earnestly in the best lights He gives
us, trusting that so working still conduces to the great ends He
ordains."
Being requested to preside at a meeting of the Christian Commission
held in Washington on February 22, 1863, he wrote, "Whatever shall tend
to turn our thoughts from the unreasoning and uncharitable passions,
prejudices, and jealousies incident to a great national trouble such as
ours, and to fix them on the vast and long-enduring consequences, for
weal or for woe, which are to result from the struggle, and especially
to strengthen our reliance on the Supreme Being for the final triumph
of the right, cannot but be well for us all."
Mr. Herndon, his law partner, remembers that he often said that his
creed was the same as that of an old man named Glenn, whom he heard
speak at an experience meeting in Indiana: "When I do good, I feel good,
and when I do bad, I feel bad; and that's my religion."
Hay and Nicolay, his secretaries, in their biography say, "Lincoln was
a man of profound and intense religious feeling. We have no purpose of
attempting to formulate his creed; we question if he himself ever did
so. We only have to look at his authentic public and private utterances
to see how deep and strong in all the latter part of his life was the
current of his religious thought and emotion. He continually invited
and appreciated at their highest value the prayers of good people.
The pressure of the tremendous problems by which he was surrounded;
the awful moral significance of the conflict in which he was the
chief combatant; the overwhelming sense of personal responsibility,
which never left him for an hour,--all contributed to produce, in a
temperament naturally serious and predisposed to a spiritual view of
life and conduct, a sense of reverent acceptance of the guidance of
a Superior Power. From that morning when, standing amid the falling
snow-flakes on the railway car at Springfield, he asked the prayers
of his neighbors in those touching phrases whose echo rose that night
in invocations from thousands of family altars, to the memorable hour
when on the steps of the National Capitol he humbled himself before his
Creator in the sublime words of the second inaugural, there is not an
expression known to have come from his lips or his pen but proves that
he held himself answerable in every act of his career to a more august
tribunal than any on earth. The fact that he was not a communicant
of any church, and that he was singularly reserved in regard to his
personal religious life, gives only the greater force to these striking
proofs of his profound reverence and faith.
"In final substantiation of this assertion we publish two papers from
the hand of the President, one official and the other private, which
bear within themselves the imprint of a sincere devotion and a steadfast
reliance upon the power and benignity of an overruling Providence. The
first is an order which he issued on the 16th of November, 1862, on the
observance of Sunday:
"'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 a measure of strict necessity. The
discipline and character of the national forces should not suffer, nor
the cause they defend be imperilled, by the profanation of the day or
name of the Most High.'
"In September, 1862, while his mind was burdened with the weightiest
question of his life, wearied with all the considerations of law and
expediency with which he had been struggling for two years, he retired
within himself and tried to bring some order into his thoughts by rising
above the wrangling of men and of parties and pondering the relations
of human government to the Divine. In this frame of mind, absolutely
detached from any earthly considerations, he wrote this meditation. It
has never been published. It was not written to be seen of men. It was
penned in the awful sincerity of a perfectly honest soul trying to bring
itself into closer communion with its Maker:
"'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 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.'"
On September 22, 1862, at a Cabinet meeting, Lincoln submitted his
determination to issue a proclamation of emancipation of the slaves. He
said that his mind was fixed, his decision made, and therefore he did
not ask the opinion of his advisers as to the act, but he wished his
paper announcing his course to be as correct in terms as it could be
made without any change in his determination. That is the recollection
of Mr. Welles, the Secretary of the Navy, who in his diary refers to
Lincoln's "Covenant with God," as follows:
"In the course of the discussion on this paper, which was long, earnest,
and, on the general principle involved, harmonious, he remarked that
he had made a vow--a covenant--that if God gave us the victory in the
approaching battle, he would consider it an indication of Divine will,
and that it was his duty to move forward in the cause of emancipation.
It might be thought strange, he said, 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 slaves. He was
satisfied it was right,--was confirmed and strengthened in his action by
the vow and the results."
The diary of Secretary Chase for the same day contains a similar account
of the same discussion, and quotes the President as saying,--
"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 any one, 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 fulfil
that promise."