an earnest Christian man, and had the appointment of private secretary to the President, to which office he would have acceded had Mr. Lincoln lived. He was so intimate with the President that he visited him socially at times when others were refused admission, took tea with the family, spending evenings with him, reading to him, and conversing with him freely on social and religious topics, and in my opinion knows more of the secret inner life and religious views of Mr. Lincoln, at least during the term of his presidency, than any man living." The following is a letter which I have received from Mr. Brooks in relation to his views of Mr. Lincoln's religious sentiments:

NEW YORK, Dec. 31st, 1872.

REV. J. A. REED: MY DEAR SIR-In addition to what has appeared from my pen, I will state that I have had many conversations with Mr. Lincoln, which were more or less of a religious character, and while I never tried to draw anything like a statement of his views from him, yet he freely expressed himself to me as having "a hope of blessed immortality through Jesus Christ." His views seemed to settle so naturally around that statement, that I considered no other necessary. His language seemed not that of an inquirer, but of one who had a prior settled belief in the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion. Once or twice, speaking to me of the change which had come upon him, he said, while he could not fix any definite time, yet it was after he came here, and I am very positive that in his own mind he identified it with about the time of Willie's death. He said, too, that after he went to the White House he kept up the habit of daily prayer. Sometimes he said it was only ten words, but those ten words he had. There is no possible reason to suppose that Mr. Lincoln would ever deceive me as to his religious sentiments. In many conversations with him, I absorbed the firm conviction that Mr. Lincoln was at heart a Christian man, believed in the Saviour, and was seriously considering the step which would formally connect him with the visible Church on earth. Certainly, any suggestion as to Mr. Lincoln's skepticism or infidelity, to me who knew him intimately from 1862 till the time of his death, is a monstrous fiction-a shocking perversion. Yours truly,

NOAH BROOKS.

The following extract I add also from Mr. Brooks's article in Harper's Monthly of July, 1865: "There was something touching in his child-like and simple reliance on Divine aid, especially when in such extremities as he sometimes fell into; then, though prayer and reading the Scriptures was his constant habit, he more earnestly than ever sought that strength which is promised when mortal help faileth. He said once, 'I have been many times driven to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere

else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for that day' At another time he said, 'I am very sure that if I do not go away from here a wiser man, I shall go away a better man for having learned here what a very poor sort of a man I am.""

Mr. Carpenter, author of Six Months in the White House, whose intimacy with Mr. Lincoln gives importance to his testimony, says that "he believed Mr. Lincoln to be a sincere Christian," and among other proofs of it gives another well-authenticated admis sion (made by Mr. Lincoln to an estimable lady of Brooklyn, laboring in the Christian Commission) of a change of heart, and of his intention at some suitable opportunity to make a profession of religion.

Mr. Newton Bateman, Superintendent of Public Instruction in the State of Illinois, a gentleman of rare literary attainments, and of unquestionable veracity, has given very important testimony in relation to one particular point, more especially, Mr. Lincoln's belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ. Both Mr. Herndon and Mr. Lamon persist in asserting that Mr. Lincoln never used the name of Jesus Christ except to deny his divinity, and that Mr. Bateman is "the sole and only man who dare say that Mr. Lincoln believed Jesus Christ to be the Son of God."

Mr. Bateman testifies that in 1860, Mr. Lincoln in conversation with him used the following language: "I know that there is a God, and that He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that His hand is in it. If He has a place and a work for me, and I think He has, I believe I am ready. I am nothing, but truth is everything. I know I am right, because I know that li berty is right, for Christ teaches it and Christ is God. I have told them a house divided against itself cannot stand; and Christ and reason say the same, and they will find it so,"

&c.

he

This testimony was originally given in Holland's Life of Lincoln. Mr. Herndon, at first unwilling to impeach Mr. Bateman's veracity, suggests a doubt "whether he is correctly reported in Holland's history;" presently, however, summoning courage, ventures the affirmation: "On my word the world may take it for granted that Holland is wrong; that he does not state Mr. Lincoln's views correctly." He then goes on to say that "between himself and Dr. Holland, Mr. Bateman is not in a very pleasant situation." We have seen, however, that Mr. Herndon's word," in a matter where his prejudices so violent and his convictions so obstinate,

are

hardly a sufficient denial with which to opose the deliberate and unretracted stateent of an intelligent and reputable witness. nd Mr. Bateman has no need to be disrbed, so long as the "unpleasantness" of s situation is occasioned by no more serious iscomfort than Mr. Herndon's unsupported ontradiction. As the matter now stands, fr. Herndon offers a denial, based on general mpressions as to Mr. Lincoln's character, gainst the direct, specific, and detailed testilony of a careful and competent man as to hat he heard with his own ears. Mr. Hernon simply did not hear what Mr. Bateman id hear; and is in the position of that Irishan on trial for his life, who, when one witness wore directly that he saw the accused comnit the crime, proposed to put upon the tand a dozen witnesses who could swear they lid not see him.

Mr. Lamon also states that Mr. Bateman s a respectable citizen, whose general repuation for truth and veracity is not to be impeached, but his story, as reported in Holland's Life of Lincoln, is so inconsistent with Mr. Lincoln's whole character that it must be rejected as altogether incredible. Unfortunately, however, for Mr. Lamon, he has not so impressed us with the trustworthy nature of the materials of his own book, as that we can afford to distrust the honesty and integrity of either Dr. Holland or Mr. Bateman for his sake. If anybody's story of Mr. Lincoln's life and sentiments is to be "rejected as inconsistent and altogether incredible," the testimony thus far would seem to indicate that it is Mr. Lamon's story. least that is the "unpleasant situation "" in which we shall leave the matter, so far as Mr. Bateman and Dr. Holland are concerned in it.

At

best gift which God has ever given to man. All the good from the Saviour of the world is communicated to us through this Book."

To the Hon. H. C. Deming, of Conn., he said that "the article of his faith was contained in the Saviour's condensed statement 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 strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself.""

Mr. Herndon affirms that Mr. Lincoln did not believe in the "Christian dogma of the forgiveness of sin:" he believed that "God would not and could not forgive sin. He did not believe in forgiveness through Christ, nor in fact in any doctrine of forgiveness. In reading Mr. Lincoln's proclamations, however, we find that he does very distinctly recognize the doctrine of the forgiveness of sin on the part of God, and very earnestly implores the people to seek the forgiveness of their sins. In his proclamation of a fastday, August, 1861, are these words:

"And whereas, it is fit and becoming in all people, at all times, to acknowledge and revere the supreme government of God; to bow in humble submission to his chastisements; to confess and deplore their sins and transgressions, in the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and to pray with all fervency and contrition for the pardon of their past offenses, and for a blessing on their present and prospective action," etc.

Read also his proclamation enforcing the observance of the Christian Sabbath in the Army and Navy, and ask yourself, Could an infidel have done this?

The President, Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, desires and enjoins the orderly observance of the Sabbath by the officers and men in the military and naval service. The importance for man and beast of the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian soldiers and sailors, a becoming deference to the best sentiment of a Christian people, and a due regard for the Divine will, demand that Sunday labor in the Army and Navy be reduced to the measure of a strict necessity. The discipline and character of the National forces should not suffer, nor the cause they defend be imperiled, by the profanation of the day and the name of the Most High. At this time of public distress, adopting the words of Washington in 1776, "Men may find enough to do in the service of God and their country without abandoning themselves to vice and immorality." The first general order issued by the Father of his Country, after the Declaration of Independence, indicates the spirit in which our institutions were founded and should ever be defended: "The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country."

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Besides all this, we find Mr. Lincoln often using the very language of the Saviour, as not only expressing but giving the sanction of Divine authority to his own views and opinions. What a remarkable instance of it in the solemn words that fell from his lips in his last inaugural, as he stood on the steps of the Capitol! Standing upon the verge of his grave, as he was that day, and addressing his last official words to his countrymen, his lips touched as with the finger of inspiration, he said :

"The Almighty has His own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses will come; but woe unto the man by whom the offense cometh.' If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of these offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern any departure therein from those Divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that the mighty scourge of war may pass away. Yet if God will that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid with another drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so must it still be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

Thus it appears, that whether Mr. Lincoln was ever accustomed to blaspheme the name of Jesus Christ or not, or whether he was ever accustomed to deny His divinity or not, as his defamers allege, he is willing, in the last eventful days of his life, standing at the nation's Capitol, in the hearing of the swelling multitude that hangs upon his lips, to use the language of that Saviour to adorn and give the sanction of Divine authority to one of the most remarkable sentences of his official address. Hon. Isaac N. Arnold, of Chicago, an intimate acquaintance of Mr. Lincoln, and who is engaged in a review of his work on Mr. Lincoln's life, writes me that "from the time he left Springfield, with the touching request for the prayers of his friends and neighbors, to the day of his death, his words were the words of a Christian, revering the Bible, and obeying its precepts. A spirit of reverence and deep religious feeling pervades nearly all the public utterances and state papers of his later life."

The following interesting testimony from Rev. Dr. Byron Sunderland, of the First Pres byterian Church of Washington City, give us a little insight into the philosophy of M Lincoln's mind and religious sentiments:

WASHINGTON CITY, Nov. 15th, 1872.

REV. JAS. A. REED:

DEAR BRO.-It was in the last days of 1862 about the time Mr. Lincoln was seriously contemplat ing the issuing of the Emancipation proclamation, that I, in company with some friends of the President, call ed upon him. After some conversation, in which he seemed disposed to have his joke and fun, he settled down to a serious consideration of the subject before. his mind, and for one half-hour poured forth a volume of the deepest Christian philosophy I ever heard 50 He began by saying

"The ways of God are mysterious and profound beyond all comprehension-who by searching can find Him out?' Now, judging after the manner of men, taking counsel of our sympathies and feelings, if it had been left to us to determine it, we would have had no war. And going further back to the occasion of it,: we would have had no slavery. And tracing it still further back, we would have had no evil. There is the mystery of the universe which no man can solve, and it is at that point that the human understanding utterly backs down. And then there is nothing left but it for the heart of man to take up faith and believe and trust where it cannot reason. Now, I believe we are all agents and instruments of Divine providence. On both sides we are working out the will of God; yet how strange the spectacle! Here is one half the nation prostrated in prayer that God will help them to destroy the Union and build up a government upon the corner-stone of human bondage. And here is the other half equally earnest in their prayers and efforts to defeat a purpose which they regard as so repug nant to their ideas of human nature and the rights of society, as well as liberty and independence. They want slavery; we want freedom. They want a servile class; we want to make equality practical as far as possible. And they are Christians, and we are Christians. They and we are praying and fighting for results exactly the opposite. What must God think of such a posture of affairs? There is but one solution -self-deception. Somewhere there is a fearful heresy in our religion, and I cannot think it lies in the love of liberty and in the aspirations of the human soul.

will determine.

"What I am to do in the present emergency time will determine. I hold myself in my present position and with the authority vested in me as an instrument of Providence. I have my own views and purposes. I have my convictions of duty, and my notions of what is right to be done. But I am conscious every moment that all I am and all I have is subject to the control of a Higher Power, and that Power can use me or not use me in any manner, and at any time, as in His wisdom and might may be pleasing to Him.

"Nevertheless, I am no fatalist. I believe in the rest supremacy of the human conscience, and that men are responsible beings; that God has a right to hold them, and will hold them, to a strict personal account for the deeds done in the body. But, sirs, I do not mean give you a lecture upon the doctrines of the Christian religion. These are simply with me the convictions demonstration of which I see now in the light of this and realities of great and vital truths, the power our national struggle as I have never seen before.

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od only knows the issue of this business. He has stroyed nations from the map of history for their s Nevertheless my hopes prevail generally above y fears for our own Republic. The times are dark, e spirits of ruin are abroad in all their power, and e mercy of God alone can save us."

So did the President discourse until we felt we ere imposing on his time, and rising we took our ave of him, confident that he would be true to those onvictions of right and duty which were derived from deep a Christian philosophy.

Yours truly,

BYRON SUNDERLAND. The Rev. Dr. Miner, Pastor of the first Baptist Church of Springfield, who was intinately acquainted with Mr. Lincoln, and isited him and his family in Washington revious to his death, has left most interesting estimony in reference to Mr. Lincoln's reigious sentiments, confirmatory of what has been given, and which is preserved in the archives of the University of Chicago. Dr. Miner sums up his impressions of Mr. Lincoln as follows: "All that was said during that memorable afternoon I spent alone with that great and good man is engraven too deeply on my memory ever to be effaced. I felt certain of this fact, that if Mr. Lincoln was not really an experimental Christian, he was acting like one. He was doing his duty manfully, and looking to God for help in time of need; and, like the immortal Washington, he believed in the efficacy of prayer, and it was his custom to read the Scriptures and pray himself." And here I would relate an incident which occurred on the 4th of March, 1861, as told me by Mrs. Lincoln. Said she: "Mr. Lincoln wrote the conclusion of his inaugural address the morning it was delivered. The family being present, he read it to them. He then said he wished to be left alone for a short time. The family retired to an adjoining room, but not so far distant but that the voice of prayer could be distinctly heard. There, closeted with God alone, surrounded by the enemies who were ready to take his life, he commended his country's cause and all dear to him to God's providential care, and with a mind calmed with communion with his Father in heaven, and courage equal to the danger, he came forth from that retirement ready for duty."

With such testimony, gathered from gentlemen of the highest standing, and much more that I could add to confirm it, I leave the later life and religious sentiments of Abraham Lincoln to the dispassionate and charitable judgment of a grateful people. While it is to be regretted that Mr. Lincoln was not spared to indicate his religious sentiments by a profession of his faith in accordance with the institutions of the Christian

religion, yet it is very clear that he had this step in view, and was seriously contemplating it, as a sense of its fitness and an apprehension of his duty grew upon him. He did not ignore a relation to the Christian church as an obsolete duty and an unimportant matter. How often do we hear him thanking God for the churches! And he was fast bringing his life into conformity to the Christian standard. The coarse story-telling of his early days was less indulged in in his later life. Hon. Isaac N. Arnold, and Mr. Carpenter, as well as Mr. Lincoln's physician at Washington, Dr. Stone, all testify that "while his stories and anecdotes were racy, witty and pointed beyond all comparison," yet they "never heard one of a character needing palliation or excuse." His physician, Dr. Stone, testifies that "Mr. Lincoln was the purest-hearted man he ever came in contact with."

His disposition to attend the theater in later life (if to any one it seems to need apology) was not so much a fondness for the play-house as a relief from his mental anxiety, and an escape from the incessant pressure of visitors at the White House. "It is a well-known fact," says Dr. Miner, "that he would not have been at the theater on that fatal night, but to escape the multitude who were that evening pressing into the White House to shake hands with him. It has been said that Mrs. Lincoln urged her husband to go to the theater against his will. This is not true. On the contrary, she tried to persuade him not to go, but he insisted. said, I must have a little rest. A large and overjoyed, excited people will visit me tonight. My arms are lame by shaking hands with the multitude, and the people will pull me to pieces.' He went to the theater, not because he was interested in the play, but because he was care-worn and needed quiet and repose.

He

Mrs. Lincoln informed me that he seemed to take no notice of what was going on in the theater from the time he entered it till the discharge of the fatal pistol. She said that the last day he lived was the happiest of his life. The very last moments of his conscious life were spent in conversation with her about his future plans, and what he wanted to do when his term of office expired. He said he wanted to visit the Holy Land and see the places hallowed by the footprints of the Saviour. He was saying there was no city he so much desired to see as Jerusalem; and with that word half spoken on his tongue, the bullet of the assassin entered his brain, and the soul of the great and good President was carried by angels to the New Jerusalem above."