CHAPTER XXI
WHY DID LINCOLN NEVER JOIN THE CHURCH?
Mr. Thomas Lewis, attorney in Springfield with an office on the same floor and an elder in the First Presbyterian Church, informs us that there was some real expectation that Lincoln would have united with that church in Springfield after his views had been modified through the influence of Dr. Smith. He says that Lincoln attended with considerable regularity a series of revival meetings in progress in the church, but was out of town when application was made for church membership and the officers of the church were disappointed that he did not then unite.
Rev. Dr. Phineas D. Gurley, of Washington, tells of conversations with Lincoln concerning religion and of some expressed desires on the part of Lincoln for church fellowship. His feeling of support in prayer was manifest in his coming to the mid-week prayer service, where, however, as Dr. Gurley affirms, he commonly sat in the pastor's room with an open door, hearing the prayers that were offered but preferring not to attract attention by his visible presence.
The best statement, and one that has been accepted as truly representative of Lincoln's feeling with regard to church membership, is one that comes to us on thoroughly good authority and from the period immediately following Lincoln's death.
Hon. Henry C. Deming, member of Congress from Connecticut, in a memorial address given before the Legislature of Connecticut, June 8, 1865, related that he had asked Mr. Lincoln why he never united with a church, and Mr. Lincoln answered:
"I have never united myself to any church, because I have found difficulty in giving my assent, without mental reservation, to the long, complicated statements of Christian doctrine which characterize their articles of belief and confessions of faith. When any church will inscribe over its altars, as its sole qualification for membership, the Saviour's condensed statement of the substance of both 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 all my soul" (p. 42).
To his Washington pastor, Rev. Phineas D. Gurley, he said that he could not accept, perhaps, all the doctrines of his Confession of Faith, "but," said he, "if all that I am asked to respond to is what our Lord said were the two great commandments, to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and mind and soul and strength, and my neighbor as myself, why, I aim to do that."