CHAPTER VIII. TESTIMONY OF HON. JOHN T. STUART AND COL. JAMES H. MATHENY
Testimony of Hon. John T. Stuart—Testimony of Col. James
H. Matheny—Stuart's Disclaimer—Matheny's Disclaimer—
Examination and Authorship of Disclaimers, Including the
Edwards and Lewis Letters.
Besides his own testimony concerning Lincoln's unbelief, Colonel Lamon cites the testimony of ten additional witnesses: Hon. Wm. H. Herndon, Hon. John T. Stuart, Col. James H. Matheny, Dr. C. H. Ray, Wm. H. Hannah, Esq, Mr. Jas. W. Keys, Hon. Jesse W. Fell, Col. John G. Nicolay, Hon. David Davis and Mrs. Mary Lincoln. The testimony of Mr. Herndon having already been presented, the testimony of Mr. Stuart and Colonel Matheny will next be given. This testimony was procured by Mr. Herndon for the purpose of refuting the erroneous statements of Dr. Holland.
Hon. John T. Stuart, who was for a time a member of Congress from Illinois, was the first law partner of Lincoln. He says:
"Lincoln went further against Christian beliefs and doctrines and principles than any man I ever heard: he shocked me. I don't remember the exact line of his argument—suppose it was against the inherent defects, so called, of the Bible, and on grounds of reason. Lincoln always denied that Jesus was the Christ of God—denied that Jesus was the son of God, as understood and maintained by the Christian church. The Rev. Dr. Smith, who wrote a letter, tried to convert Lincoln from Infidelity so late as 1858, and couldn't do it" (Lamon's Life of Lincoln, p. 488).
Col. James H. Matheny was one of Lincoln's most intimate friends, and was for many years his chief political manager. He testifies as follows:
"I knew Mr. Lincoln as early as 1834-7; know he was an Infidel. He and W. D. Herndon used to talk Infidelity in the Clerk's office in this city, about the years 1837-40. Lincoln attacked the Bible and the New Testament on two grounds: first, from the inherent or apparent contradictions under its lids; second, from the grounds of reason. Sometimes he ridiculed the Bible and the New Testament, sometimes seemed to scoff at it, though I shall not use that word in its full and literal sense. I never heard that Lincoln changed his views, though his personal and political friend from 1834 to 1860. Sometimes Lincoln bordered on Atheism. He went far that way and shocked me. I was then a young man, and believed what my good mother told me. Stuart and Lincoln's office was in what is called Hoffman's Row, on North Fifth street, near the public square. It was in the same building as the Clerk's office, and on the same floor. Lincoln would come into the Clerk's office, where I and some young men—Evan Butler, Newton Francis and others—were writing or staying, and would bring the Bible with him; would read a chapter, argue against it. Lincoln then had a smattering of geology, if I recollect it. Lincoln often, if not wholly, was an Atheist; at least, bordered on it. Lincoln was enthusiastic in his Infidelity. As he grew older, he grew more discreet, didn't talk much before strangers about his religion; but to friends, close and bosom ones, he was always open and avowed, fair and honest; but to strangers, he held them off from policy. Lincoln used to quote Burns. Burns helped Lincoln to be an Infidel, as I think; at least he found in Burns a like thinker and feeler.
"From what I know of Mr. Lincoln and his views of Christianity, and from what I know as honest, well-founded rumor; from what I have heard his best friends say and regret for years; from what he never denied when accused, and from what Lincoln has hinted and intimated, to say no more, he did write a little book on Infidelity, at or near New Salem, in Menard county, about the year 1834 or 1835. I have stated these things to you often.
"Judge Logan, John T. Stuart, yourself, know what I know, and some of you more.
"Mr. Herndon, you insist on knowing something which you know I possess, and got as a secret, and that is, about Lincoln's little book on Infidelity. Mr. Lincoln did tell me that he did write a little book oil Infidelity. This statement I have avoided heretofore; but, as you strongly insist upon it—probably to defend yourself against charges of misrepresentations—I give it to you as I got it from Lincoln's mouth" (Life of Lincoln, pp. 487, 488).
The evidence of Stuart and Matheny, as recorded in Lamon's work, having been presented, it is now proper to state that this evidence has, in a measure, been repudiated by them. Dr. Reed, in his lecture, produced letters from them disclaiming in part or modifying the statements imputed to them. Dr. Reed says: "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." Alluding to Stuart's evidence, he says: "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." Regarding Matheny's testimony, he says: "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."
The following is the disclaimer of Mr. Stuart:
"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 the 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, sometime previous, on Infidelity; and that Dr. Smith claimed that after this investigation Mr. Lincoln had changed his opinions, and became 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 I 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 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."
Col. Matheny's disclaimer is as follows:
"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."
This disclosure startles you, my dear reader. But be patient. I will show you that this apparently mortal thrust of Dr. Reed's was made, not with a lance, but with a boomerang.
When Reed made his assault upon Lamon's witnesses, all stood firm but two—two old Springfield politicians whose political aspirations had not yet become extinct—John T. Stuart and James H. Matheny.
These men had been among the first to testify in regard to Lincoln's unbelief. His Christian biographers had misrepresented his religious views; they believed that the fraud ought to be exposed, and they were ready and willing to aid in the work. Their testimony exhibits a frankness that is truly commendable. They knew that lying was a vice, but they did not know that truth-telling was a crime. They had yet to learn that the church tolerates murder more readily than the promulgation of a truth that is antagonistic to her creed. But this fact they were destined to learn. Lamon's work had scarcely been issued from the press before he was anathematized and his book proscribed. The merciless attack that had already been commenced upon Herndon portended danger to them. Nor had they long to wait. In December, 1872, they were approached by Reed and his coadjutors. They were informed that the idol which their ruthless iconoclasm had helped to break must be repaired. They were given to understand that if they repented of the part they had performed and recanted, peace would be their portion here and endless bliss hereafter; but that if they did not, endless misery would begin on Jan. 1, a.d. 1873.
The situation was critical. They did not like to tell the world that they had borne false witness against the dead, nor did they, any more than Galileo, wish to wear a martyr's crown. A compromise was finally effected. It was incidentally ascertained by Reed that their evidence as presented by Lamon was not originally given in the shape of a letter or a written statement, but orally. A happy thought suggested itself—one worthy of the unscrupulous theological pettifogger that he is. The thought was this: "Say to the public, or rather let me say it for you, that you did not write a word of the testimony attributed to you." Just as a witness in court might point to the stenographer's report of his testimony and say, "I did not write a word of that."
In addition to this, Mr. Stuart, in endeavoring to explain away, as far as possible, the obnoxious character of his testimony, declared that some things which he did say at the time his testimony was given had been omitted; while something he did not say was inserted. They were both trivial matters, hardly worthy of notice, even if true, and having no especial bearing upon the case. But they served an admirable purpose in enabling Reed to say that the testimony adduced by Lamon was "abridged and distorted."
Stuart's disclaimer, then, divested of its misleading verbiage, contains but two points. In the first place, he says: "I could not have said that 'Dr. Smith tried to convert Lincoln from Infidelity so late as 1858, and couldn't do it.'" This sentence, like everything else in these disclaimers, is cunningly worded and intended to deceive. One would naturally suppose the idea he intends to convey is that he never declared that Dr. Smith tried to convert Lincoln and couldn't do it. This, it has been ascertained, is not his meaning. What he means is this: "I could not have said that 'Dr. Smith tried to convert Lincoln from Infidelity, so late as 1858, and couldn't do it.'" His denial is a mere quibble about a date. He did undoubtedly say just what he is reported to have said. But admitting a doubt, and giving him the benefit of this doubt, by throwing out the disputed date, the passage is not less damaging than it was before: "Dr. Smith tried to convert Lincoln from Infidelity, and couldn't do it." But let us omit the entire sentence, and the testimony of Mr. Stuart that remains, about which there is no dispute, that portion of his testimony which he admits to be correct—is as follows:
"Lincoln went further against Christian beliefs and doctrines and principles than any man I ever heard; he shocked me. I don't remember the exact line of his argument; suppose it was against the inherent defects, so called, of the Bible, and on grounds of reason. Lincoln always denied that Jesus was the Christ of God—denied that Jesus was the Son of God, as understood and maintained by the Christian church."
In the second place, Mr. Stuart complains that the rumors concerning Dr. Smith's attempted conversion of Lincoln which he had mentioned to Mr. Herndon at the time of giving his testimony, were omitted. They were, and very properly, too. Mr. Stuart, or any other good lawyer, would have omitted them. Mr. Herndon desired him to testify about what he knew, and not about what he had heard, especially as he was going to headquarters in regard to these rumors. He wrote to Dr. Smith himself about them, received his testimony, and gave it to the public.
Stuart affects to believe that this story, which Ninian Edwards is dragged around by Reed to verify, may possibly have been true. But in the same sentence, he refutes this idea, and refutes the claim itself, by saying: "I had no personal knowledge as to his alleged change of opinion." Stuart was a family connection of Lincoln, and if Lincoln had been converted, he, as well as every other person in Springfield, would have known it.
He states that Dr. Smith's first visit to Lincoln was "at the suggestion of a lady friend." To have avoided another glaring contradiction in the evidence of his witnesses, Reed should have had Major Stuart state that this "lady friend" was Thomas Lewis. As it is, the account given by Stuart of Dr. Smith's first visit and acquaintance with Lincoln is entirely at variance with the account given by Mr. Lewis in his letter, quoted in chapter I.
Mr. Stuart evidently entertained no very kind opinion of Colonel Lamon's work, and this made him all the more disposed to accede to Reed's demands. His position on the slavery question, for a time, was one which, in the light of subsequent events, he had no reason to be proud of, and Lamon in narrating the acts of Lincoln's life found it necessary frequently to refer to this. Such passages as the following were calculated not only to make him offended at Lamon, but jealous of Herndon: "John T. Stuart was keeping his eye on Lincoln, with the view of keeping him on his side—the totally dead conservative side." "Mr. Lincoln was beset by warm friends and by old coadjutors, and besought to pause in his anti-slavery course while there was yet time. Among these there was none more earnest or persuasive than John T. Stuart, who was but the type of a class.... But Mr. Herndon was more than a match for the full array against him. An earnest man, instant in season and out of season, he spoke with the eloquence of apparent truth and of real personal love" (Life of Lincoln, pp. 374, 352).
Colonel Matheny was not prepared to deny the correctness of a single statement in his testimony, but was forced to modify its bearing as a whole. He was made to say: "It does not express my sentiments of Mr. Lincoln's entire life and character." Now, anyone who reads his evidence cannot fail to observe that he did intend to cover Lincoln's entire life and character. There is not in it the slightest intimation that he referred merely to a part of his life. Indeed, there is one statement in his evidence which utterly precludes such an assumption. He expressly says: "I never heard that Lincoln changed his views, though his personal and political friend from 1834 to 1860." But Reed must have a sufficient portion of his life reserved in which to inject the story of his alleged conversion; and so Matheny's offense was condoned on the condition that he retain the earlier part of Lincoln's life for his testimony to rest upon, and concede the remainder to Reed for "The Later Life and Religious Sentiments of Lincoln." This division of Lincoln's life is quite indefinite, but Reed would have us believe that Colonel Matheny's evidence relates wholly to that portion of his life anterior to 1848, when Dr. Smith began the task of Christianizing him. Matheny's disclaimer is dated Dec. 16, 1872. On Dec. 9, 1873, he made the following explanation, which was published in a Springfield paper:
"What I mean, in my Reed letter, by Mr. Lincoln's earlier life, is his whole life and history in Illinois. In Illinois, and up to the time he left for Washington, he was, as I understand it, a confirmed Infidel. What I mean by Mr. Lincoln's later life, is his Washington life, where he associated with religious people, when and where I believe he thought he became a Christian. I told Mr. Reed all this just before signing the letter spoken of. I knew nothing of Mr. Lincoln's investigation into the subject of Christianity."
He says that his evidence "is a mere collection of sayings gathered from private conversations." It is doubtless true that he had many private conversations with Mr. Herndon on this subject; but his published testimony was all given at one sitting, and more, he signed that testimony. Every word attributed to him in Lamon's work, and repeated in this chapter, originally appeared above his signature.
The concluding words of his disclaimer are as follows:
"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."
These words, as modified by the following, constitute a most remarkable statement:
"In Illinois, and up to the time he left for Washington, he was, as I understand it, a confirmed Infidel. What I mean by Mr. Lincoln's later life, is his Washington life, where he associated with religious people."
Colonel Matheny confines Lincoln's Infidelity to that portion of his life "when his mind was as yet unformed," and affirms that this portion comprised all the years preceding his removal to Washington in 1861. Thus during the first fifty-two years of Lincoln's life, "his mind was as yet unformed." His enviable reputation as one of the foremost lawyers of Illinois was achieved while "his mind was as yet unformed;" when his friends sent him to Congress "his mind was as yet unformed;" when he made his Bloomington speech, "his mind was as yet unformed;" when he delivered his famous Springfield speech, "his mind was as yet unformed;" when he conducted his masterly debates with Stephen A. Douglas, "his mind was as yet unformed;" when he prepared and delivered that model of political addresses, the Cooper Institute address, "his mind was as yet unformed;" when at the Chicago Convention he outstripped in the race for Presidential nominee such eminent leaders as Seward and Chase, "his mind was as yet unformed;" when he was elected Chief Magistrate of this great nation, "his mind was as yet unformed."
It was only by leaving Illinois and going to Washington that he was thrown into religious society. Washington politicians are noted for their piety, you know. According to Matheny et al., New Salem was a second Sodom, Springfield a second Gomorrah and Washington a sort of New Jerusalem, inhabited chiefly by saints.
Neither in Matheny's letter, nor in his interpretation of this letter, is there a word to indicate that he recognized the fact that Lincoln went to Washington to assume the office and perform the duties of President. On the contrary, the whole tenor of his remarks is to the effect that he believed the people sent him there on account of his wickedness, and while "his mind was as yet unformed," to attend a reform school, and that subsequently he entered a theological seminary, and there died.
The most amusing feature of Matheny's letter is that he unwittingly certifies that his own character was not good. He declares that Lincoln was an Infidel because his associations were "with rough and skeptical men;" but that after removing to Washington and "associating with a different class of men" he became a Christian. Now, it is well known that one of the most conspicuous of his "rough and skeptical" associates in Illinois was James H. Matheny.
Colonel Matheny, in his explanatory remarks, says: "I believe he thought he became a Christian;" and in almost the next breath says, "I knew nothing of Mr. Lincoln's investigation into the subject of Christianity." Can anything be more unreasonable than this? Colonel Matheny knowing that Lincoln was a confirmed Infidel—an Infidel when he went to Washington—knowing nothing about his having afterward investigated Christianity—knowing that he had no time for such an investigation, and yet believing that Lincoln thought he became a Christian! Why did he not mention this when he gave his testimony? The fact is, he did not believe that Lincoln became a Christian; but with an orthodox club raised above his head, he found it very convenient to profess to believe it.
As Mr. Reed has endeavored to prove that Lamon and Herndon did not faithfully report the evidence of Stuart and Matheny, it is but just that Mr. Herndon, who took down their testimony, be permitted to speak in his own defense. In his Springfield lecture, delivered in Major Stuart's town, if not in his presence, referring to Stuart's testimony, he says:
"Mr. Stuart did not write the note and no one ever said he did. What is there stated was the substance of a conversation between Mr. Stuart and myself about Mr. Lincoln's religion. I took down in a note in his office and in his presence his words and ideas as I did in other cases. The conversation spoken of took place in Mr. Stuart's office, and in the east room. Mr. Stuart does not deny that the note is substantially correct. He simply says he could not have said that Dr. Smith tried to convert Mr. Lincoln, and couldn't do it. I well remember that he did use this language. It seemed to do him good to say it.... It seems that Mr. Stuart had heard that Mr. Lincoln and Dr. Smith had much discussion about Christianity, but he failed to hear of Mr. Lincoln's conversion, or anything like it, and well might he say, as he did, that 'Dr. Smith tried to convert Mr. Lincoln, but couldn't do it.'"
Any charitably disposed person, knowing the general good character of both men, instead of crying "Fraud!" as Reed has done, will readily conclude that Mr. Herndon was mistaken, or that Mr. Stuart had forgotten just what he did say, and is it not more reasonable to suppose that the latter gentleman, in the lapse of six years, should have forgotten some things he said, than that Mr. Herndon, who recorded them the moment they were uttered, should be mistaken?
Alluding to Colonel Matheny's evidence, in the same lecture, Mr. Herndon says:
"The next gentleman introduced by Mr. Reed is Col. James H. Matheny. He is made to say, in a letter addressed to Mr. Reed, that he did not write the statement in Lamon's 'Life of Lincoln.' I do not claim that he did. I wrote it in the court house—this hall—in Mr. Matheny's presence, and at his dictation. I read it over to him and he approved it. I wrote it all at once as he spoke it to me; it is not made up of scraps—'a mere collection of sayings gathered from private conversations, that were only true of Mr. Lincoln's earlier life.' I say that this statement was written all at one time and place, and not at different times and places. Let any critic, any man of common sense, read it and he will say: 'This was all written at once.' I appeal to the manner—the close connection of words and ideas in which it runs—word with word, sentence with sentence, and idea with idea, for the proof that it was made at one sitting. Mr. Matheny has often told me that Mr. Lincoln was an Infidel. He admits this in his letter to Mr. Reed. He never intimated in that or any other conversation with me that he believed that Mr. Lincoln in his later life became a Christian."
In a letter dated Sept. 14, 1887, Mr. Herndon writes:
"I acted in this matter honestly, and I will always abide by my notes taken down at the time. I was cautious—very careful of what I did, because I knew that the church would damn me and prove me false if it could. I stood on the exactness of truth squarely."
I have thus far assumed that Stuart and Matheny really wrote the letters of disclaimer addressed to Reed. Mr. Reed states that he is "amazed to find" that they did not write the statements attributed to them by Lamon. The reader is by this time sufficiently familiar with this reverend gentleman's methods that he will not be "amazed to find" that Stuart and Matheny did not write these disclaimers. I now affirm that James H. Matheny did not write a word of the letter purporting to have been written by him. It was written by the Rev. J. A. Reed! We have not the expressed declaration of Mr. Stuart that this is true of the letter imputed to him, but there is other evidence which makes it clearly apparent that this letter was also written by Mr. Reed.
Nor is this all. I shall now endeavor to show that the greater part of the evidence presented by Reed, in his lecture, was composed and written by himself. Let us take the four letters credited respectively to Edwards, Lewis, Stuart, and Matheny. I shall attempt to demonstrate the common origin of these letters, first, by their form; secondly, by the language of their contents.
The different forms employed in epistolary correspondence are numerous, far more numerous than generally supposed. To illustrate: four hundred letters, written by as many different persons, and all addressed to the same person, were, without examination, divided into one hundred parcels of four letters each. They were then examined in regard to the form employed by the writer. The heading, the address, the introduction, and the subscription were noted—no attention being paid to the body of the letter, or the signature. In not one of these one hundred parcels were found four letters having the same form. The heading of these letters exhibited nine different forms; the address, fourteen; the introduction, eight; and the subscription, eleven.
Again, nearly every writer employs certain idioms of language that are peculiar to him, and which reveal his identity, even though he tries to conceal it.
Let us now institute a brief analysis of the four letters under consideration. Errors will be noticed, not for the purpose of reflecting upon the literary attainments of the writer, but solely with a view of discovering his identity. These are mostly of a trivial character, confined to marks of punctuation, etc.; and it is a recognized fact that a majority of educated persons, including many professional writers, are more or less deficient in the art of punctuation. In proof of the common authorship of these four letters, the following reasons are submitted:
1. In all of them we recognize a stiff formality—a studied effort to conform to one ideal standard.
2. All of them were written at Springfield, Ill., and all omit the name of the state.
3. In each of them, the day of the month is followed by the suffix, "th." This, if not wholly improper, is not common usage. Had these letters been written by the four persons to whom they are ascribed, at least three of them would have omitted it.
4 In all, but one, the address is "Rev. J. A. Reed," and in the exception the writer merely substitutes "Jas." for "J."
5. In each of them the address is followed by a colon instead of a comma, the proper mark to use. Had they been written by four persons, it is possible that a part, or even all, would have made an error, but it is highly improbable that all would have made the same error.
6. In these letters, the introductory words are uniformly "Dear Sir"—the most common form of introduction, and the one that a writer, in drafting a letter addressed to himself, would most naturally employ.
7. In every instance, the introduction is followed by a dash instead of a colon—a uniformity of error, again.
8. In the subscription, the term, "Yours truly," is invariably used, except in the Lewis letter, which concludes with "Yours, etc."
9. The Edwards letter and the Lewis letter begin with the same idea, expressed in nearly the same words. Edwards is made to say, "A short time after the Rev. Dr. Smith," etc.; and Lewis—"Not long after Dr. Smith."
10. Omitting the introductory sentence in the Stuart letter, which is merely the expansion of an idea used in writing the Matheny letter on the preceding day, the Stuart and Matheny letters begin with the same idea. Stuart says: "The language of that statement is not mine; it was not written by me." Matheny says: "The language attributed to me... is not from my pen. I did not write it." Reed himself uses substantially the same language that is ascribed to them. Had their statements, as published in Lamon's work, been forgeries, or grossly inaccurate, they might have used the language quoted above. Under the circumstances they would not have used it. Major Stuart and Colonel Matheny were lawyers, not pettifoggers.
11. These prefatory sentences of Stuart and Matheny both begin with the same words—"the language."
12. In both the Edwards and Lewis letters, reference is made to a theological work which Dr. Smith is said to have written. The writer of neither letter is able to state the name of the book; Dr. Reed is unable to state the name of it; Dr. Smith himself does not mention the name of it; but he does plainly state that it was a work on the Bible. For "the business he had on hand," however, it suited Reed's purpose better to give a semi-erroneous impression of its character, and so he affirms that it was a work on "the evidences of Christianity." Curiously enough, in the Edwards letter and again in the Lewis letter, the book is described as a work on "the evidences of Christianity."
13. The Edwards letter reports Lincoln as saying: "I have been reading a work of Dr. Smith on the evidences of Christianity." The Lewis letter represents him as saying that "He had seen and partially read a work of Dr. Smith on the evidences of Christianity" Here are ten consecutive words in the two letters identical.
14. Mr. Reed, in his lecture, never once uses the word "Christianity," except as above noticed to describe Dr. Smith's book; he always uses the words "the Christian religion"—employing this term no less than seven times. This usage is not common. An examination of various theological writings shows that "Christianity" is used twenty times where "the Christian religion" is used once. Yet in these letters the word "Christianity" is not to be found, except in the same sense as used by Dr. Reed, while "the Christian religion" occurs in each of the four letters.
15. "The truth of the Christian religion" is a favorite phrase with Reed, occurring three times in his lecture. This phrase also occurs three times in these letters—once in the Edwards letter, and twice in the Stuart letter.
16. Reed has much to say about Lincoln's "life and religious sentiments;" in fact, his lecture is entitled, "The Later Life and Religious Sentiments of Abraham Lincoln." In the Matheny letter, too, we find "Mr. Lincoln's life and religious sentiments."
17. The words "earlier" and "later" are frequently used by Reed in connection with Lincoln's life. The same words are used in the Stuart and Matheny letters, and in the same connection.
18. The Stuart letter is, for the most part, devoted to the narration of "some facts" which Mr. Stuart is said to have presented to Mr. Herndon, beginning with this: "That Eddie, a child of Mr. Lincoln, died in 1848 or 1849," etc. Now, Mr. Stuart well knew that, during all this time, Mr. Herndon was the intimate associate of Lincoln and thoroughly familiar with every event in his history. The "facts" given in this letter are not such as Mr. Stuart would have communicated to Mr. Herndon, but they are such as Mr. Reed would naturally desire to place before the public.
19. Nothing in Dr. Reed's career has excited his vanity more than the fact that he was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Springfield—the church which Lincoln once attended. Consequently, the "First Presbyterian Church" is a conspicuous object in his lecture, and nowhere is it more conspicuous than in these letters. In the Stuart letter it appears three times, and the writer never fails to state that it was the "First Presbyterian Church"—the church of which Dr. Reed was pastor.
20. According to the principle of accretion, if two articles or letters are written on the same subject, the second will usually be longer than the first. This is true of these letters. The Lewis letter, relating to Smith's reputed conversion of Lincoln, was written after the Edwards letter relative to the same subject, and is longer. The Stuart disclaimer, which is the longer of the two, was written after the Matheny disclaimer.
From the foregoing, is it not clearly evident that these four letters were all written by the same person? If so, then knowing that Dr. Reed wrote one of them, the Matheny letter, does it not necessarily follow that he wrote them all?
In the Gurley testimony, such expressions as "the Christian religion" and "the truth of the Christian religion," together with the Reed story concerning Lincoln's intention of making a profession of religion, reveal the authorship of this testimony also.