For instance, the Calvinism which he inherited and heard through his childhood and which he accepted in a kind of semi-fatalistic philosophy might seem the reverse of scientific. But the natural science which Lincoln learned from Vestiges of Creation, while it would have been repudiated by every Baptist preacher whom Lincoln ever heard in his youth, was capable of being grafted upon that very root.
I suggest one more limitation in the character of Abraham Lincoln, which had its possible relation to his hypothetical church membership. He was possessed in marked degree of the obstinacy of irresolution. That genial good-nature of his had behind it stubbornness, irony, and a sullen but mighty temper which rarely broke the bounds of self-control, but sometimes manifested itself on very slight provocation. Just when men thought they had discovered in Abraham Lincoln a nose of wax which they could shape to their own liking, they encountered in him a wholly unexpected element of passive inertia and of active obstinacy. When he did not know what to do, he would not do anything. It was this quality in him which enabled him to rule a rampant Cabinet and which justified the qualities set forth in such books as Major Putnam's Abraham Lincoln the Leader, Richard Watson Gilder's Lincoln the Leader, and Alonzo Rothschild's Lincoln, Master of Men. It was this which enabled Herndon to write of him: "I know Abraham Lincoln better than he knows himself.... You and I must keep the people right; God will keep Lincoln right."
Those do greatly err who see in Lincoln only genial good humor and teachableness; there was a point at which his good humor became withering scorn or towering passion and his gentle and tractable disposition became adamantine inertia. His successor, Andrew Johnson, quoted as characterizing himself the lines from Sir Walter Scott:
Come one, come all; this rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I."
Lincoln might with much more appropriateness have quoted it of himself.
Mary Todd Lincoln united with the First Presbyterian Church of Springfield on April 13, 1852, upon profession of her faith. The church records contain no record of her dismissal, but only the word "Deceased" without a date. She remained a member until her death, though, after her return to Springfield in an unhappy state of mind, she was not a very active one. The only other Lincoln record on the books of this church is the baptism of Thomas Lincoln—"Tad," "son of Abraham and Mary"—on April 4, 1855. The records of the financial secretary, not very complete, show Abraham Lincoln to have been a pew-holder from 1852 to 1861, and he departed for Washington with his pew rent paid to the date of his departure. This is all that is to be learned from the church records in Springfield.
Mary Todd Lincoln was a member in good and regular standing of the Episcopal Church when she united with the Presbyterian, but she united on profession of her faith. She affirmed that she did not believe that she had ever previously been converted. This statement is one of several indications that she, and with her her husband, came into a new religious experience after the death of Willie in Washington, as earlier he had been profoundly impressed after the death of Eddie in Springfield.
We learn through sources outside the records, but wholly credible sources, that her uniting with the Presbyterian Church was preceded by a revival in the church, and she and her husband attended the revival meetings regularly. Not only so, but many of Lincoln's associates, including Major Stuart and other influential men of Springfield, were present almost every night and were deeply interested. The letter of Thomas Lewis, already cited, refers to the general expectation that Lincoln would have united with the church with his wife. A similar and wholly independent report comes to us[58] from Lincoln's associates outside the church. They, also, expected him to go in with his wife. But Lincoln was not fully persuaded. The logic of Dr. Smith demolished all the arguments of the infidels and did it over again:
"And thrice he vanquished all his foes,
And thrice he slew the slain."