The Bible which the colored people presented to Lincoln was kept and prized by him. Hon. H. C. Deming, in his address before the Legislature of Connecticut, just after Lincoln's death, referred to it:

"The interview which I am recalling was last summer [1864] just after General Fremont had declined to run against him for the Presidency. The magnificent Bible, which the negroes of Washington[24] had just presented to him lay upon the table, and while we were both examining it, I recited the somewhat remarkable passage from the Chronicles, 'Eastward were six Levites, northward four a day, southward four a day, and toward Assuppim two and two. At Parbar westward, four at the causeway, and two at Parbar.'[25] He immediately challenged me to find any such passage as that in his Bible. After I had pointed it out to him, and he was satisfied of its genuineness, he asked me if I remembered the text which his friends had applied to Fremont, and instantly turned to a verse in the first of Samuel, put on his spectacles, and read in his slow, peculiar, and waggish tone,—'And everyone that was in distress and everyone that was in debt, and everyone that was discontented gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men.'"[26]

There are two interesting facts about this incident related by Representative Deming. One is that Lincoln knew his Bible well enough to challenge an unfamiliar passage and require that it be shown to him before believing that the Bible contained it. Only a man who had read his Bible much would have been so confident. The other is that this story recalled to Mr. Deming that very important declaration of Lincoln which is attested by a number of other credible witnesses in substance, but which Deming first gave to the world in his notable address:

"I am here reminded of an impressive remark which he made to me upon another occasion, and which I shall never forget. He said, he had never united himself to any church, because he found difficulty in giving his assent, without mental reservations, to the long complicated statements of Christian doctrine which characterize their Articles of Belief and Confessions of Faith. 'When any church,' he continued, 'will inscribe over its altar as its sole qualification for membership the Saviour's condensed statement of the substance of both the law and Gospel, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself,—that church will I join with all my heart and soul.'"—Eulogy upon Abraham Lincoln, before the General Assembly of Connecticut, 1865, p. 42.

Henry C. Whitney knew Lincoln well, from the days of their circuit riding in Illinois till Lincoln's death. His testimony is valuable:

"Mr. Lincoln was a fatalist: he believed, and often said, that

'There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will,'

and as a corollary from this belief, that the Almighty controlled the affairs of men and made the wrath of men to praise Him. In all stages of his administration and before, commencing with his first public utterance after his election, he declared that with God's help he should succeed, and without it he would fail. Likewise, before he was run for the Presidency, he made frequent references to God in the same spirit of devoutness and trust; and, therefore, he was honest; honest with his Father on his dying bed, honest in what he feared was (and which proved to be) his last affectionate farewell to his neighbors, honest to the many eminent bands of clergymen and Christian people who visited him, and honest with his Cabinet in the most important consultation it ever held; then Lincoln, whether as man or as President, believed in God as the Ruler of the Universe, in a blessed hereafter, and in the efficacy of prayer. . . . Mr. Lincoln believed himself to be an instrument of God; and that, as God willed, so would the contest be. He also believed in prayer and its efficacy, and that God willed the destruction of slavery through his instrumentality, and he believed in the Church of God as an important auxiliary."—Life on the Circuit with Lincoln, pp. 267-68.

Among the men in Washington who best knew the mind of Abraham Lincoln was Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and afterward Vice-President under General Grant. In his memorial address delivered just after the assassination, he paid a high tribute to the deep religious spirit of Lincoln as he knew it, and said:

"Nor should I forget to mention that the last Act of Congress signed by him was one requiring that the motto, in which he sincerely believed, 'In God we trust' should hereafter be inscribed upon all our national coins."—Hon. Schuyler Colfax, in Memorial Address in Chicago, April 30, 1865.

During his residence in the White House Mr. Lincoln again met the discipline of personal bereavement. His son Willie died. There is conflict of testimony as to Mr. Lincoln's love for his wife, though the present writer believes that he truly loved her, but no one who knew him ever doubted his devotion to his children. The death of this little boy, William Wallace, who was born in Springfield, December 21, 1850, and died in the White House, February 20, 1862, seemed, according to the testimony of Mrs. Lincoln, to turn his thoughts more to religion. It must have recalled to him all that had occurred when his other boy died in Springfield, and it brought new and solemn thoughts and possibly convictions.

Moreover, he was now father to the boys of a nation. They were marching at his order, singing,