"Thos. Lewis."
NOAH BROOKS. Noah Brooks, a newspaper correspondent of New York, and the author of a biography of Lincoln, gives the following testimony:
"New York, Dec. 31,1872.
"Rev. J. A. Reed,
"My Dear Sir:
"In addition to what has appeared from my pen, I will state that I have had many conversations with Mr. Lincoln, which were more or less of a religious character, and while I never tried to draw anything like a statement of his views from him, yet he freely expressed himself to me as having 'a hope of blessed immortality through Jesus Christ.' His views seemed to settle so naturally around that statement, that I considered no other necessary. His language seemed not that of an inquirer, but of one who had a prior settled belief in the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion. Once or twice, speaking to me of the change which had come upon him, he said, while he could not fix any definite time, yet it was after he came here, and I am very positive that in his own mind he identified it with about the time of Willie's death. He said, too, that after he went to the White House he kept up the habit of daily prayer. Sometimes he said it was only ten words, but those ten words he had. There is no possible reason to suppose that Mr. Lincoln would ever deceive me as to his religious sentiments. In many conversations with him, I absorbed the firm conviction that Mr. Lincoln was at heart a Christian man, believed in the Savior, and was seriously considering the step which would formally connect him with the visible church on earth. Certainly, any suggestion as to Mr. Lincoln's skepticism or Infidelity, to me who knew him intimately from 1862 till the time of his death, is a monstrous fiction—a shocking perversion.
"Yours truly,
"Noah Brooks."
REV. BYRON SUNDERLAND, D.D.
Mr. Reed presents a lengthy letter from the Rev. Byron Sunderland, of Washington, dated Nov. 15, 1872. Dr. Sunderland in company with a party of friends visited the President in the autumn of 1862. In this letter he says: