"Preachers of the gospel frequently sprang up from the body of the people at home, without previous training, except in religious exercises and in the study of the Holy Scriptures. In those primitive times it was not thought to be necessary that a teacher of religion should be a scholar. It was thought to be his business to preach from a knowledge of the Scriptures alone, to make appeals warm from the heart, to paint heaven and hell to the imagination of the sinner, to terrify him with the one, and to promise the other as a reward for a life of righteousness. However ignorant these first preachers may have been, they could be at no loss to find congregations still more ignorant, so that they were still capable of instructing someone. Many of them added to their knowledge of the Bible, a diligent perusal of Young's Night Thoughts, Watts' hymns, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Hervey's Meditations, a knowledge of which gave more compass to their thoughts, to be expressed in a profuse, flowery language, and raised their feelings to the utmost height of poetical enthusiasm.
"Sometimes their sermons turned upon matters of controversy; unlearned arguments on the subject of free grace, baptism, free-will, election, faith, good works, justification, sanctification, and the final perseverance of the saints. But that in which they excelled, was the earnestness of their words and manner, leaving no doubt of the strongest conviction in their own minds, and in the vividness of the pictures which they drew of the ineffable blessedness of heaven, and the awful torments of the wicked in the fire and brimstone appointed for eternal punishment. These, with the love of God to sinful man, the sufferings of the Saviour, the dangerous apathy of sinners, and exhortations to repentance, furnished themes for the most vehement and passionate declamations. But above all, they continually inculcated the great principles of justice and sound morality.
"As many of these preachers were nearly destitute of learning and knowledge, they made up in loud hallooing and violent action what they lacked in information. And it was a matter of astonishment to what length they could spin out a sermon embracing only a few ideas. The merit of a sermon was measured somewhat by the length of it, by the flowery language of the speaker, and by his vociferation and violent gestures. Nevertheless, these first preachers were of incalculable benefit to the country. They inculcated justice and morality, and to the sanction of the highest human motives to regard them, added those which arise from a belief of the greatest conceivable amount of future rewards and punishments. They were truly patriotic also; for at a time when the country was so poor that no other kind of ministry could have been maintained in it, they preached without charge to the people, working week days to aid the scanty charities of their flocks, in furnishing themselves with a scantier living. They believed with a positive certainty that they saw the souls of men rushing to perdition; and they stepped forward to warn and to save, with all the enthusiasm and self-devotion of a generous man who risks his own life to save his neighbor from drowning. And to them are we indebted for the first Christian character of the Protestant portion of this people."—Thomas Ford: History of Illinois, pp. 38-40.
"Of the hostility of certain of the early Baptists to enlightenment, there is abundant evidence in their own fierce opposition to their ablest minister, John Mason Peck. He was born in 1789 in the Congregational atmosphere of Connecticut, but, becoming a Baptist by conviction, became a missionary to the West in 1817. His foes were they of his own household. They fiercely fought against Bible societies, Sunday schools, and missionary societies. In 1828, when Peter Cartwright and James Lemen endeavored to secure the passage of a bill for the prevention of vice and immorality, there was an attempt to amend it in the interests of certain of the Hardshell Baptists by adding to the section against the disturbance of public worship a clause to fine in any sum not less than five dollars or more than fifteen any person who on Sunday would sell any pamphlet or book or take up an offering 'for the support of missionary societies, Bible societies, or Sunday school.' There were not less than twelve members of the House of Representatives who voted for this bill."—Pease: Centennial History of Illinois, II, 28, 29.
One evidence of the hostility of many of the early inhabitants and especially of some who were active in politics toward organized religion, as well as the tendency of ministers of that period to participate in politics, is found in the fact that Illinois narrowly escaped having in her Constitution a provision disqualifying all ministers to hold office in the State. When the Constitutional Convention assembled at Kaskaskia this question was earnestly discussed, and the controversy was waged also in the columns of the Western Intelligencer, which was published in Kaskaskia from 1806 to 1814. A writer who signed himself "A Foe to Religious Tyranny" roundly denounced the political sermons of certain of the ministers, and charged that they intended to disqualify any citizens for office excepting "professors of religion."
When the first draft of the Constitution was submitted in August, 1818, Article II, Section 26, read: "Whereas the ministers of the gospel are by their profession dedicated to God and the care of souls, and ought not to be diverted from the great duties of their function: Therefore, no minister of the gospel or priest of any denomination whatever, shall be eligible to a seat in either house of the Legislature."
This article was warmly commended by a writer in the Intelligencer under date of August 12, 1818, who commended the framers of the Constitution for their provision "to exempt ministers of the gospel from the servile and arduous drudgery of legislation, and of electioneering to procure themselves seats in the Legislature," but urged the convention to extend the provision so as to disqualify ministers from holding any office whatever. A number of members of the Constitutional Convention favored this drastic proscription. On the first reading the proposed article was approved; but it was later reconsidered and voted down.
Ministers thus were left on a plane with other citizens as regarded the holding of public office; and their candidacy for the Legislature especially was not infrequent; indeed, one of the writers who engaged in this controversy considered the appalling possibility that the Constitutional Convention might have been composed entirely of ministers, and that some future session of the Legislature might find them in complete control. There never was any danger that ministers would make up a controlling faction in the Illinois Legislature; but they were not a negligible element in the early political life of the State.
Lincoln soon came into the political atmosphere which was thus affected by religious controversy, and it had an influence upon him. His most formidable and persistent opponent, until he met Douglas, was a Methodist preacher, the redoubtable Peter Cartwright who defeated him in a contest for the Legislature and whom he defeated in a race for Congress. Lincoln was quite familiar with religion in its relation to politics in early Illinois.
Of Lincoln's theological opinions, especially those which he cherished while at New Salem, and which Herndon believed he did not materially change, Herndon says:
"Inasmuch as he was often a candidate for public office Mr. Lincoln said as little as possible about his religious opinions, especially if he failed to coincide with the orthodox world. In illustration of his religious code, I once heard him say that it was like that of an old man named Glenn, in Indiana, whom he heard speak at a religious meeting, and who said, 'When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad; and that's my religion.' In 1834, while still living in New Salem, and before he became a lawyer, he was surrounded by a class of people exceedingly liberal in matters of religion. Volney's Ruins and Paine's Age of Reason passed from hand to hand, and furnished food for the evening's discussion in the tavern and village store. Lincoln read both these books, and assimilated them into his own being. He prepared an extended essay—called by many, a book—in which he made an argument against Christianity, striving to prove that the Bible was not inspired, and therefore not God's revelation, and that Jesus Christ was not the Son of God. The manuscript containing these audacious and comprehensive propositions he intended to have published or given a wide circulation in some other way. He carried it to the store, where it was read and freely discussed. His friend and employer, Samuel Hill, was among the listeners, and seriously questioning the propriety of a promising young man like Lincoln fathering such unpopular notions, he snatched the manuscript from his hands, and thrust it into the stove. The book went up in flames, and Mr. Lincoln's political future was secure. But his infidelity and his skeptical views were not diminished."—Herndon, III, 439-440.