"I am glad of this interview, and glad to know that I have your sympathy and prayers. We are indeed going through a great trial—a fiery trial. In the very responsible position in which I happen to be placed, being a humble instrument in the hands of our Heavenly Father, as I am, and as we all are, to work out His great purposes, I have desired that all my works and acts may be according to His will, and that it might be so, I have sought His aid; but if, after endeavoring to do my best in the light which He affords me, I find my efforts fail, I must believe that for some purpose unknown to me, He wills it otherwise. If I had had my way, this war would never have been commenced. If I had been allowed my way, this war would have been ended before this; but we find it still continues, and we must believe that He permits it for some wise purpose of His own, mysterious and unknown to us; and though with our limited understandings we may not be able to comprehend it, yet we cannot but believe that He who made the world still governs it."
We are not permitted to believe that on this and similar occasions Mr. Lincoln met the situation with words of pious evasion, or that what he said was simply what he thought he might be expected to say. Some months after this interview Mrs. Gurney, being then in London, wrote to Mr. Lincoln. He could easily have acknowledged the letter without committing himself to any religious expression. For several months he kept the letter, and then, on September 4, 1864, he wrote to her as follows:
"My esteemed Friend: I have not forgotten—probably never shall forget—the very impressive occasion when yourself and friends visited me on a Sabbath forenoon two years ago. Nor has your kind letter, written nearly a year later, ever been forgotten. In all it has been your purpose to strengthen my reliance on God. I am much indebted to the good Christian people of the country for their constant prayers and consolations; and to no one of them more than to yourself. The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must prevail, though we erring mortals may fail to accurately perceive them in advance. We hoped for a happy termination of this terrible war long before this; but God knows best and ruled otherwise. We shall yet acknowledge His wisdom, and our own error therein. Meanwhile we must work earnestly in the best light He gives us, trusting that so working still conduces to the great ends He ordains. Surely He intends some great good to follow this mighty convulsion, which no mortal could make, and no mortal could stay. Your people, the Friends, have had, and are having, a very great trial. On principle and faith opposed to both war and oppression, they can only practically oppose oppression by war. In this hard dilemma some have chosen one horn, and some the other. For those appealing to me on conscientious grounds, I have done, and shall do, the best I could and can, in my own conscience, under my oath to the law. That you believe this, I doubt not, and believing it, I shall receive for my country and myself your earnest prayers to our Father in Heaven."
Of Lincoln's habit of public worship during his Presidency, Rev. William Henry Roberts, Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian General Assembly, writes in a foreword to Dr. Johnson's book:
"It was my privilege as a young man to have known Abraham Lincoln. Entering the service of the United States government in the fall of 1863, the first Sabbath of my sojourn in Washington City I went to the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. When the time for the long prayer came, according to immemorial usage in many Presbyterian congregations, a number of the men stood up for prayer, and among those upright figures I noticed in particular that of the President of the United States. As a member of the New York Avenue Church I was seated not far from Mr. Lincoln at Sunday services for a year and a half, and his attitude was always that of an earnest and devout worshiper. He was also an attendant at the weekly meeting, though for a considerable period taking part in the services privately. It having become known that he was an attendant at the prayer meeting, many persons would gather in or near the church at the close of the service in order to have access to him for various purposes. Desiring to put an end to these unwelcome interruptions, the Rev. Dr. Phineas D. Gurley, the pastor of Mr. Lincoln, arranged to have the President sit in the pastor's room, the door of which opened upon the lecture room, and there Mr. Lincoln would take a silent part in the service. He informed his pastor on several occasions that he had received great comfort from the meetings, and for the reason that they had been characterized more by prayer than by the making of addresses.
"Dr. Gurley bore repeated testimony to myself and to other members of the church of the deeply religious character of Mr. Lincoln, and it is with pleasure that I add this brief testimony from my own experience and observation.
"It will be fifty years next fall since I came into direct touch with the man, who in the providence of God was the liberator of a race, and I shall always hold in sweet and blessed memory my first sight of him, as a devout worshiper standing for prayer in the sanctuary of the Most High."—Abraham Lincoln the Christian, pp. 13-15.
I have copied direct from the original letter, in possession of Mr. Jesse W. Weik, Nicolay's letter to Herndon affirming that, to the best of his knowledge, Lincoln's belief did not change during his years in the White House. It was addressed to Herndon, and it reads:
"Executive Mansion,
"Washington, May 27, 1865."Friend Herndon:—
"I have this morning received your note of the 23rd inst. and reply at once.
"Mr. Lincoln did not, to my knowledge, change in any way his religious views, beliefs, or opinions from the time he left Springfield to the day of his death. I do not know just what they were, never having heard him explain them in detail; but I am very sure he gave no outward indication of his mind having undergone any change in that regard while here.
"Very truly,
"Jno. G. Nicolay.
"Hon. William H. Herndon."
While Nicolay's declaration that Lincoln gave no outward indication that his views had undergone any change during his residence in the White House is entitled to great weight, it is not wholly conclusive. It is quite possible that Mr. Lincoln changed more than those who were closest to him every day realized, more, indeed, than he himself realized. Some men who had known him in earlier years and who met him from time to time while he was in the White House observed a change too subtle to be fully realized by those who saw him daily. Joshua Fry Speed knew Lincoln from the day Lincoln arrived in Springfield until his death. Indeed, he had known Lincoln earlier; but their intimate acquaintance began on the day when Lincoln received his law license and moved to Springfield, where he shared Speed's bed. Speed told of that incident frequently, how Lincoln came into his store, greatly depressed, asking to be permitted to purchase a single bed which he was not certain he could ever pay for; but Speed invited Lincoln to sleep with him in the room above the store. Lincoln carried his saddlebags upstairs and set them down, and came down the stairs with his countenance beaming, as he said, "Well, Speed, I've moved!" Lamon declares that Speed was "The most intimate friend Mr. Lincoln ever had at this or any other time" (Life of Lincoln, p. 231). Says Lamon: "He made to Speed the most confidential communications he ever made to mortal man. If he had on earth 'a bosom crony,' it was Speed, and that deep and abiding attachment subsisted unimpaired to the day of Lincoln's death." To Speed alone Lincoln gave his full confidence in the matter of his love affairs, and they talked together as men seldom talk to each other. Speaking out of a most intimate knowledge, Speed wrote in his lecture on Lincoln:
"I have often been asked what were Mr. Lincoln's religious opinions. When I knew him in early life, he was a skeptic. He had tried hard to be a believer, but his reason could not grasp and solve the great problem of redemption as taught. He was very cautious never to give expression to any thought or sentiment that would grate harshly upon a Christian ear. For a sincere Christian he had great respect. He often said that the most ambitious man might live to see every hope fail; but no Christian could live and see his hope fail, because fulfillment could only come when life ended. But this was a subject we never discussed. The only evidence I have of any change, was in the summer before he was killed. I was invited out to the Soldiers' Home to spend the night. As I entered the room, near night, he was sitting near a window intently reading his Bible. Approaching him I said, 'I am glad to see you so profitably engaged.' 'Yes,' said he, 'I am profitably engaged.' 'Well,' said I, 'if you have recovered from your skepticism, I am sorry to say that I have not.' Looking me earnestly in the face, and placing his hand on my shoulder, he said, 'You are wrong, Speed; take all of this Book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man.'"—Speed: Lecture on Abraham Lincoln, pp. 32, 33.