Has anybody said that he was heard to say that he so believed?
Does anybody testify that Lincoln believed in the miraculous birth of Jesus Christ, that the Holy Ghost was the father or that Christ was or is God?
Has anybody testified that Lincoln believed that Christ was raised from the dead?
Did anyone ever hear him say that he believed in the ascension of Jesus Christ? Did anyone ever hear him assert that he believed in the forgiveness of sins, or in salvation by faith, or that belief was a virtue and investigation a crime?
Where, then, is the evidence that he was a Christian?
There is another reason for thinking that Lincoln never became a Christian.
All will admit that he was an honest man, that he discharged all obligations perceived, and did what he believed to be his duty. If he had become a Christian it was his duty publicly to say so. He was President; he had the ear of the nation; every citizen, had he spoken, would have listened. It was his duty to make a clear, explicit statement of his conversion, and it was his duty to join some orthodox church, and he should have given his reasons. He should have endeavored to reach the heart and brain of the Republic. It was unmanly for him to keep his "second birth" a secret and sneak into heaven leaving his old friends to travel the road to hell.
Great pains have been taken to show that Mr. Lincoln believed in, and worshiped the one true God. This by many is held to have been his greatest virtue, the foundation of his character, and yet, the God he worshiped, the God to whom he prayed, allowed him to be assassinated.
Is it possible that God will not protect his friends?