"These authorities ought to be conclusive, but there is further testimony. This latter is important as explanatory of Lincoln's frequent allusions in his Presidential messages and proclamations to the Supreme Being. To the simplicity of his nature there was added a poetic temperament. He was fond of effective imagery, and his references to the Deity are due to the instinct of the poet. After his death Mrs. Lincoln said: 'Mr. Lincoln had no faith and no hope in the usual acceptation of those words. He never joined a church.' She denominates what has been mistaken for his expressions of religious sentiment as 'a kind of poetry in his nature,' adding 'he was never a Christian.' Herndon, who was his latest law partner and biographer, is even more explicit. He says: 'No man had a stronger or firmer faith in Providence—God—than Mr. Lincoln, but the continued use by him late in life of the word God must not be interpreted to mean that he believed in a personal God. In 1854 he asked me to erase the word 'God' from a speech which I had written and read to him for criticism, because my language indicated a personal God, whereas he insisted no such personality ever existed.' So it must be accepted as final by every reasonable mind that in religion Mr. Lincoln was a skeptic. But above all things he was not a hypocrite or pretender. He was a plain man, rugged and earnest, and he pretended to be nothing more. He believed in humanity, and he was incapable of Phariseeism. He had great respect for the feelings and convictions of others, but he was not a sniveler. He was honest and he was sincere, and taking him simply for what he was, we are not likely soon to see his like again."
MANFORD'S MAGAZINE.
There are two Christian publications that have had the fairness to admit the truth respecting Lincoln's belief. Manford's Magazine, a religious periodical published in Chicago, in its issue for January, 1869, contained the following: "That Mr. Lincoln was a believer in the Christian religion, as understood by the so-called orthodox sects of the day, I am compelled most emphatically to deny; that is, if I put faith in the statements of his most intimate friends in this city [Springfield]. All of them with whom I have conversed on this subject, agree in indorsing the statements of Mr. Herndon. Indeed, many of them unreservedly call him an Infidel." "The evidence on this subject is sufficient, the writer says, to place the name of Lincoln by the side of Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, and [Ethan] Allen, of Revolutionary notoriety, as Rationalists; besides being in company with D'Alembert, the great mathematician, Diderot, the geometrician, poet, and metaphysician; also with Voltaire, Hume, Gibbon, and Darwin."
Referring to the Infidel book, written by Lincoln, the writer says: "This work was subsequently thrown in Mr. Lincoln's face while he was stumping this district for Congress against the celebrated Methodist preacher, Rev. Peter Cartwright. But Mr. Lincoln never publicly or privately denied its authorship, or the sentiments expressed therein. Nor was he known to change his religious views any, to the latest period of his life."
The article concludes with these truthful words:
"Mr. Lincoln was too good a man to be a Pharisee; too great a man to be a sectarian; and too charitable a man to be a bigot."
HERALD AND REVIEW.
This work, in an abridged form, originally appeared in the Truth Seeker in 1889 and 1890. After its appearance, the Adventist Herald and Review, one of the fairest and most ably conducted religious journals in this country, said:
"The Truth Seeker has just concluded the publication of a series of fifteen contributed articles designed to prove that Abraham Lincoln, instead of being a Christian, as has been most strongly claimed by some, was a Freethinker. The testimony seems conclusive.... The majority of the great men of the world have always rejected Christ, and, according to the Scriptures, they always will; and the efforts of Christians to make it appear that certain great men who never professed Christianity were in reality Christians, is simply saying that Christianity cannot stand on its merits, but must have the support of great names to entitle it to favorable consideration."
CHAMBERS'S ENCYCLOPEDIA.