Such language does not sound much like that of an unbeliever, but on the contrary is pregnant with faith and hope in the guidance and watchfulness of a Supreme Being.
When requested to preside at a meeting of the Christian Commission in Washington, held February 22, 1863, he replied, "The birthday of Washington and the Christian Sabbath coinciding this year, and suggesting together the highest interests of this life, and of that to come, is most propitious for the meeting proposed."
In the February of the preceding year Lincoln was visited by a severe affliction in the death of his beloved son, Willie, to whom he was much attached, and by the extreme illness of another son, Thomas, familiarly called "Tad." This was a new burden and a heavy one, but through his firm faith in Providence he regarded the double visitation as direct from God, accepting the otherwise inexplicable affliction as a manifestation of the divine design in regard to himself. A devout Christian lady from Massachusetts, who was officiating in one of the hospitals at the time, came to attend the sick children. She reports that the President watched with her about the bedside of the sick ones, and that he often walked the room, saying sadly, "This is the hardest trial of my life,—why is it, why is it?" In the course of conversation with this nurse, he closely questioned her concerning her situation; she told him that she was a widow, and that her husband and two children were in heaven, and added, that she saw the hand of God in it all, and that she never loved Him so much before as she had since her affliction.
"How is that brought about?" he inquired.
"Simply by trusting in God and feeling that He does all things well," she replied.
"Did you submit fully under the first loss?" Lincoln again inquired.
"No!" she answered, "not wholly, but as blow came upon blow, and all were taken, I could and did submit and was very happy."
"I am glad to hear you say that," said the President, pathetically, "your experience will help me to bear my affliction."
On the morning of his boy's funeral, when assured that many Christians were praying for him, the tears welled in his eyes as he faltered out to his comforter, "I am glad to hear that, I want them to pray for me, I need their prayers." When the nurse came forward to express her sympathy, the President thanked her and said, "I will try to go to God with my sorrows." A few days afterwards she asked him if he could trust God, and he answered, "I think I can and I will try." Continuing, he expressed himself more fully, "I wish I had that childlike faith you speak of and I trust He will give it to me." Then he went on to speak of his mother who, so many years before, had been laid to rest in the lonely Indiana clearing; the memory of her who had pillowed his head on her bosom came back to him with the tenderest recollections. Though, as has been stated, she had little time or opportunity to teach him the principles of her own simple faith and reverence, she did not wholly neglect him. She taught him a few short prayers and pious precepts, and these he never forgot in the after time. "I remember her prayers," said he, "and they have followed me; they have clung to me all my life."
Some think that it was Sally Bush Johnson to whom he here refers, who was a good and religious woman, but there can be little doubt that the allusion is to his own mother, for whose early death he sorrowed deeply and whom he recalled to memory many a time, though he was but a lad when she passed away.