Abraham Lincoln has left us abundant testimony in words and works of his code of morals and religious creed. He was a man of keen perception of right and wrong, of acute conscience and deep religious sentiment, although he was not "orthodox." He declined to join a church because of conscientious scruples. He would not confess a faith that was not in him. His reason forbade him to accept some of the doctrines taught by the Baptist and Christian churches, to which his parents belonged, and the Presbyterian denomination, of which his wife was a member. Nevertheless, he was regular and reverential in his attendance upon worship. Shortly after his marriage he rented a pew in the First Presbyterian Church of Springfield, and occupied it with his wife and children at the service each Sunday morning unless detained by illness. In Washington he was an habitual attendant of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, and his pastor, the Reverend Dr. Gurley, who was also his intimate friend, tells us that he was "a true believer" and "entirely without guile." One of Lincoln's mental traits was his inability to accept or put aside a proposition until he understood it. His conscience required him to see his way clearly before making a start, and his honesty of soul would not allow him to make a pretence that was not well founded. No consideration or argument would induce him to abandon a line of conduct or accept a theory which his analytical powers or sense of caution taught him to doubt.

From his mother he inherited a rigid honesty which was demanded by public opinion in early days and was the safeguard of the frontier. There were no locks upon the cabin doors nor upon the stables. A man who committed a theft would not be tolerated in a community, and if he took a horse or a cow or any article which was necessary for the sustenance of a family he was outlawed, if he escaped with his life. Merchants never thought of locking up their stores, and often left them entirely unprotected for days at a time while they went to the nearest source of supply to replenish their stock or were absent for other reasons. If their patrons found no one to serve them, they helped themselves, and, as prices varied little from year to year, they were able to judge for themselves of the value of the goods, and reported the purchase and paid the bill the next time they found the merchant at home.

When Abraham Lincoln was clerking for Denton Offutt, he walked three miles one evening after the store was closed to return a sixpence which had been overpaid. On another occasion he gave four ounces for half a pound of tea and delivered the difference before he slept. For this and other acts of the same sort he became known as "Honest Old Abe," but he was no more conspicuous for that quality than many of his neighbors. He was the type and representative of a community which not only respected but required honesty, and were extremely critical and intolerant towards moral delinquencies. Accustomed all their lives to face danger and grapple with the mysterious forces of nature, their personal and moral courage were qualities without which no man could be a leader or have influence. A liar, a coward, a swindler, and an insincere man were detected and branded with public contempt. Courage and truth were commonplace and recognized as essential to manhood.

Abraham Lincoln's originality, fearlessness, and self-confidence, his unerring perceptions of right and wrong, made him a leader and gave him an influence which other men did not have. He was born in the same poverty and ignorance, he grew up in the same environment, and his muscles were developed by the same labor as his neighbors', but his mental powers were much keener and acute, his ambition was much higher, and a consciousness of intellectual superiority sustained him in his efforts to rise above his surroundings and take the place his genius warranted. Throughout his entire life he adhered to the code of the frontier. As a lawyer he would not undertake a case unless it was a good one. He often said he was a very poor man on a poor case. His sense of justice had to be aroused before he could do his best. If his client were wrong, he endeavored to settle the dispute the best way he could without going into court; if the evidence had been misrepresented to him, he would throw up the case in the midst of the trial and return the fee. The public knowledge of that fact gave him great influence with the courts and kept bad clients away from him.

To a man who once offered him a case the merits of which he did not appreciate, he made, according to his partner, Mr. Herndon, the following response:

"Yes, there is no reasonable doubt that I can gain your case for you. I can set a whole neighborhood at loggerheads; I can distress a widowed mother and her six fatherless children, and thereby get for you six hundred dollars which rightly belong, it appears to me, as much to them as it does to you. I shall not take your case, but I will give you a little advice for nothing. You seem a sprightly, energetic man. I would advise you to try your hand at making six hundred dollars in some other way."

He carried this code of morals into the Legislature, and there are several current anecdotes of his refusal to engage in schemes that were not creditable. On one occasion a caucus was held for consultation over a proposition Lincoln did not approve. The discussion lasted until midnight, but he took no part in it. Finally, an appeal was made to him by his colleagues, who argued that the end would justify the means. Lincoln closed the debate and defined his own position by saying,—

"You may burn my body to ashes and scatter them to the winds of heaven; you may drag my soul down to the regions of darkness and despair to be tormented forever; but you will never get me to support a measure which I believe to be wrong, although by doing so I may accomplish that which I believe to be right."

Lincoln did not often indulge in hysterical declamation, but that sentence is worth quoting because it contains his moral code.

As President he was called upon to deliver a reprimand to an officer who had been tried by court-martial for quarrelling. It was probably the "gentlest," say his biographers, Nicolay and Hay, "ever recorded in the annals of penal discourses." It was as follows:

"The advice of a father to his son, 'Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in, bear it that the opposed may beware of thee!' is good, but not the best. Quarrel not at all. No man resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention. Still less can he afford to take all the consequences, including the vitiating of his temper and the loss of self-control. Yield larger things to which you can show no more than equal right, and yield lesser ones, though clearly your own. Better give your path to a dog than be bitten by him in contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite."

Even as a boy in Indiana he acquired a reputation for gentleness, kindness, and good-nature. He was appealed to by people in trouble, and his great physical strength and quick intelligence made him a valuable aid on all occasions. Once he saved the life of the town drunkard, whom he found freezing by the roadside on a winter night. Picking him up in his arms, he carried him to the nearest tavern and worked over him until he revived. The people who lived in the neighborhood of Gentryville, Indiana, and New Salem, Illinois, where his early life was spent, have many traditions of his unselfishness and helpful disposition. He chopped wood for poor widows and sat up all night with the sick; if a wagon stuck in the mud, he was always the first to offer assistance, and his powerful arms were equal to those of any three men in the town. When he was living at the Rutledge tavern at New Salem he was always willing to give up his bed to a traveller when the house was full, and to sleep on a counter in his store. He never failed to be present at a "moving," and would neglect his own business to help a neighbor out of difficulty. His sympathetic disposition and tender tact enabled him to enter the lives of the people and give them assistance without offence, and he was never so happy as when he was doing good.

His religious training was limited. His father and mother, while in Kentucky, belonged to the sect known as Free-will Baptists, and when they went to Indiana they became members of the Predestinarian Church, as it was called; not from any change in belief, but because it was the only denomination in the neighborhood. Public worship was very rare, being held only when an itinerant preacher visited that section. Notice of his approach would be sent throughout the neighborhood for twenty miles around, and the date would be fixed as far in advance as possible. When the preacher appeared he would find the entire population gathered in camp at the place of meeting, which was usually at cross-roads where there were fodder for the horses and water for man and beast. After morning preaching people from the same neighborhood or intimate acquaintances would gather in groups, open their lunch-baskets, and picnic together. At the afternoon service children and "confessors" would be baptized, and towards night the party would separate for their homes, refreshed in faith and uplifted in spirit.

When Thomas Lincoln removed to Illinois he united with the Christian church commonly called "Campbellites," and in that faith he died.

Abraham Lincoln's belief was clear and fixed so far as it went, but he rejected important dogmas which are considered essential to salvation by some of the evangelistic denominations. "Whenever any church will inscribe over its altar as a qualification for membership the Saviour's statement of the substance of the law and Gospel, 'Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself,' that church will I join with all my heart and soul."

He was an habitual reader of the Bible. He was more familiar with its contents than most clergymen, and considered it the highest example of literature in existence as well as the highest code of morals. His study of the Bible and familiarity with its pages are shown in his literary style and frequent quotations. In 1864 he wrote his old friend, Joshua Speed, "I am profitably engaged reading the Bible. Take all of this book upon reason that you can and the balance upon faith and you will live and die a better man."

He had no sympathy with theologians. He frequently declared that it was blasphemy for a preacher to "twist the words of Christ around so as to sustain his own doctrine," and often remarked that "the more a man knew of theology the farther he got away from the true spirit of Christ."

"John," he one day said to a friend, "it depends a great deal how you state a case. When Daniel Webster did it, it was half argument. Now, you take the subject of predestination, for example. You may state it one way and you cannot make much out of it; you state it another and it seems quite reasonable." When he was a young man at New Salem in 1834 Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason" and Volney's "Ruines" made a great impression upon him, and he prepared a review of these books, which it is supposed he intended to read before a literary society that had been organized in the neighborhood. His friend, Samuel Hill, with his old-fashioned notions of atheism, got hold of the manuscript and burned it. Lincoln was quite indignant at the time, but afterwards admitted that Hill had done him a service. This incident has often been cited as evidence that Lincoln was an agnostic, just as other incidents in his life have been used to prove that he was a spiritualist, and still others that he was a Freemason; but he was none of them. He commended Masonry, but never joined that order; his inquisitive mind led him to investigate certain spiritualistic phenomena, and his essay at New Salem was nothing more than a presentation of the views of two famous unbelievers without personal endorsement.

Like Napoleon, Wellington, Bismarck, and other famous men, Lincoln was very superstitious. That peculiarity appeared frequently during his life. Even to the very day of his death, as related in Chapter VII., he told his Cabinet and General Grant of a dream which he was accustomed to have before important events in the war. A curious incident is related in his own language:

"A very singular occurrence took place the day I was nominated at Chicago, four years ago, of which I am reminded to-night. In the afternoon of the day, returning home from down town, I went upstairs to Mrs. Lincoln's reading-room. Feeling somewhat tired, I lay down upon a couch in the room, directly opposite a bureau, upon which was a looking-glass. As I reclined, my eye fell upon the glass, and I saw distinctly two images of myself, exactly alike, except that one was a little paler than the other. I arose, and lay down again with the same result. It made me quite uncomfortable for a few moments, but, some friends coming in, the matter passed out of my mind. The next day, while walking on the street, I was suddenly reminded of the circumstance, and the disagreeable sensation produced by it returned. I had never seen anything of the kind before, and did not know what to make of it. I determined to go home and place myself in the same position, and if the same effect was produced, I would make up my mind that it was the natural result of some principle of refraction of optics which I did not understand, and dismiss it. I tried the experiment, with a like result; and, as I had said to myself, accounting for it on some principle unknown to me, it ceased to trouble me. But some time ago I tried to produce the same effect here by arranging a glass and couch in the same position, without success."

He did not say, at this time, that either he or Mrs. Lincoln attached any significance to the phenomenon, but it is known that Mrs. Lincoln regarded it as a sign that the President would be re-elected.

President Lincoln once invited a famous medium to display his alleged supernatural powers at the White House, several members of the Cabinet being present. For the first half-hour the demonstrations were of a physical character. At length rappings were heard beneath the President's feet, and the medium stated that an Indian desired to communicate with him.

"I shall be happy to hear what his Indian majesty has to say," replied the President, "for I have very recently received a deputation of our red brethren, and it was the only delegation, black, white, or blue, which did not volunteer some advice about the conduct of the war."

The medium then called for a pencil and paper, which were laid upon the table and afterwards covered with a handkerchief. Presently knocks were heard and the paper was uncovered. To the surprise of all present, it read as follows:

"Haste makes waste, but delays cause vexations. Give vitality by energy. Use every means to subdue. Proclamations are useless. Make a bold front and fight the enemy; leave traitors at home to the care of loyal men. Less note of preparation, less parade and policy talk, and more action.—Henry Knox."

"That is not Indian talk," said the President. "Who is Henry Knox?"

The medium, speaking in a strange voice, replied, "The first Secretary of War."

"Oh, yes; General Knox," said the President. "Stanton, that message is for you; it is from your predecessor. I should like to ask General Knox when this rebellion will be put down."

The answer was oracularly indefinite. The medium then called up Napoleon, who thought one thing, Lafayette another, and Franklin differed from both.

"Ah!" exclaimed the President; "opinions differ among the saints as well as among the sinners. Their talk is very much like the talk of my Cabinet. I should like, if possible, to hear what Judge Douglas says about this war," said the President.

After an interval, the medium rose from his chair and, resting his left hand on the back, his right into his bosom, spoke in a voice no one could mistake who had ever heard Mr. Douglas. He urged the President to throw aside all advisers who hesitated about the policy to be pursued, and said that, if victory were followed up by energetic action, all would be well.

"I believe that," said the President, "whether it comes from spirit or human. It needs not a ghost from the bourne from which no traveller returns to tell that."

His taint of superstition, like his tendency to melancholy, was doubtless inherited from his ancestors and was shared by all sensitive people whose lives were spent in the mysterious solitude and isolation of the Western frontier. It is manifested by the denizens of the forests, the mountains, and the plains, and wherever else sensitive natures are subjected to loneliness and the company of their own thoughts. Lincoln's mind was peculiarly sensitive to impressions; his nature was intensely sympathetic, his imagination was vivid, and his observation was keen and comprehensive. With all his candor, he was reticent and secretive in matters that concerned himself, and the struggle of his early life, his dismal and depressing surroundings, the death of his mother, and the physical conditions in which he was born and bred were just the influences to develop the morbid tendency which was manifested on several occasions in such a manner as to cause anxiety and even alarm among his friends. He realized the danger of submitting to it, and the cure invented and prescribed by himself was to seek for the humorous side of every event and incident and to read all the humorous books he could find.

His poetic temperament was developed early and frequently manifested while he was in the White House. He loved melancholy as well as humorous poems. He could repeat hymns by the hundreds, and quoted Dr. Watts' and John Wesley's verses as frequently as he did Shakespeare or Petroleum V. Nasby or Artemas Ward. His favorite poem was "Oh! Why should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud."

Judge Weldon, of the Court of Claims, remembers the first time he heard him repeat it. "It was during a term of court, in the same year, at Lincoln, a little town named for Mr. Lincoln. We were all stopping at the hotel, which had a very big room with four beds, called the lawyers' room. Some of us thin fellows doubled up; but I remember that Judge Davis, who was as large then as he was afterwards, when a Justice of the Supreme Bench, always had a bed to himself. Mr. Lincoln was an early riser, and one morning, when up early, as usual, and dressed, he sat before the big old-fashioned fireplace and repeated aloud from memory that whole hymn. Somebody asked him for the name of the author; but he said he had never been able to learn who wrote it, but wished he knew. There were a great many guesses, and some said that Shakespeare must have written it. But Mr. Lincoln, who was better read in Shakespeare than any of us, said that they were not Shakespeare's words. I made a persistent hunt for the author, and years after found the hymn was written by an Englishman, William Knox, who was born in 1789 and died in 1825."

All his life Lincoln was a temperance man. His first essay was a plea for temperance. His second was a eulogy of the Declaration of Independence. He belonged to the Sons of Temperance in Springfield, and frequently made temperance speeches. Judge Weldon remembers that he was once in Mr. Douglas's room at Springfield when Lincoln entered, and, following the custom, Mr. Douglas produced a bottle and some glasses and asked his callers to join him in a drink. Lincoln declined on the ground that for thirty years he had been a temperance man and was too old to change. Leonard Swett says,—

"He told me not more than a year before he was elected President that he had never tasted liquor in his life. 'What!' I said, 'Do you mean to say that you never tasted it?' 'Yes,' he replied, 'I never tasted it.'"

In one of his speeches is found this assertion: "Reasonable men have long since agreed that intemperance is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of all evils of mankind."

Mr. C. C. Coffin, a famous newspaper writer of that time, who accompanied the notification committee from the Chicago Convention to Springfield, related in his newspaper a few days later an incident that occurred on that occasion. He says that after the exchange of formalities Lincoln said,—

"'Mrs. Lincoln will be pleased to see you, gentlemen. You will find her in the other room. You must be thirsty after your long ride. You will find a pitcher of water in the library.'

"I crossed the hall and entered the library. There were miscellaneous 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."

Mr. Usher, the Secretary of the Interior, says that when the draft of the Emancipation Proclamation was submitted to the Cabinet, Mr. Chase remarked,—

"This paper is one of the utmost importance, greater than any state paper ever made by this government. A paper of so much importance, and involving the liberties of so many people, ought, I think, to make some reference to the Deity. I do not observe anything of the kind in it."

Lincoln said, "No; I overlooked it. Some reference to the Deity must be inserted. Mr. Chase, won't you make a draft of what you think ought to be inserted?"

Mr. Chase promised to do so, and at the next meeting presented the following:

"And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God."

When Lincoln read the paragraph, Mr. Chase said, "You may not approve it, but I thought this or something like it would be appropriate."

Lincoln replied, "I do approve it; it cannot be bettered, and I will adopt it in the very words you have written."

The reader has perceived from these pages the strength and the weakness of Abraham Lincoln. His errors were due to mercy and not to malice; to prudence and not to thoughtlessness or pride; to deliberation and not to recklessness. Perhaps he might have shortened the war by removing McClellan and placing in command of the armies before Richmond a commander of greater force and energy; perhaps he might have abolished human bondage by earlier action, as demanded by the antislavery element in the North; but who can tell what disasters might have been caused by impetuous action? If Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan had been at his side at the beginning of the war, history might have been different.

But who is so perfect or so wise as to judge Abraham Lincoln?

His greatest fault was his inability to suppress his sympathies. He once said, "If I have one vice, it is not being able to say 'No.' And I consider it a vice. Thank God for not making me a woman. I presume if He had He would have made me just as ugly as I am, and nobody would ever have tempted me."

On another occasion he said, "Some of our generals complain that I impair discipline and encourage insubordination in the army by my pardons and respites; but it rests me after a hard day's work if I can find some good cause for saving a man's life; and I go to bed happy as I think how joyous the signing of my name will make him and his family and his friends."

And with a happy smile beaming upon his careworn face, he again signed his name that saved another life. It was his theory that when a man is sincerely penitent for his misdeeds and gives satisfactory evidence of it, he can safely be pardoned.

An old lady came to him with tears in her eyes to express her gratitude for the pardon of her son, a truant soldier.

"Good-by, Mr. Lincoln," she said; "I shall probably never see you again until we meet in heaven."

He was deeply moved. He took her right hand in both of his and said, "I am afraid with all my troubles I shall never get to that resting-place you speak of; but if I do, I am sure I shall find you. That you wish me to get there is, I believe, the best wish you could make for me. Good-by."

To his oldest and most intimate friend he said, "Speed, die when I may, I want it said of me by those who know me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower when I thought a flower would grow."

His greatness consisted not in his eloquence as an orator, nor his shrewdness as a lawyer, nor his tact as a diplomatist, nor his genius in planning and directing military affairs, nor his executive ability, but in his absolute self-control, his unselfishness, the full maturity of his wisdom, the strength of his convictions, his sound judgment, his absolute integrity, his unwavering adherence to the principles of truth, justice, and honor, his humanity, his love of country, his sublime faith in the people and in Republican institutions. He was without malice or the spirit of resentment, without envy or jealousy, and he suppressed his passions to a degree beyond that of most men. He entered the Presidency with an inadequate conception of his own responsibilities, but when he saw his duty he did it with courage, endurance, magnanimity, and unselfish devotion. In his eulogy of Lincoln, uttered a few days after the assassination, Ralph Waldo Emerson said,—

"He grew according to the need; his mind mastered the problem of the day; and as the problem grew so did his comprehension of it. Rarely was a man so fitted to the event.

"In four years—four years of battle days—his endurance, his fertility and resources, his magnanimity, were sorely tried and never found wanting. There, by his courage, his justice, his even temper, his fertile counsel, his humanity, he stood a heroic figure in the centre of an heroic epoch."