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 frequently expressed himself to me as having a blessed hope of immortality through Jesus Christ. His faith 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. He said 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, believing 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 to the time of his death, is a monstrous fiction, a shocking perversion.

Yours truly,

NOAH BROOKS.

To the Hon. C. H. Deming, of Kentucky, Mr. Lincoln said that the article of his faith was contained in the condensed statement of both law and gospel: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself."

When Lincoln seriously contemplated the issue of the Emancipation Proclamation in the autumn of 1862, the Rev. Byron Sutherland, of Washington, D. C., quotes Lincoln as saying:

I believe we are all agents and instruments of Divine Providence. I hold myself in my present position and with the authority invested in me, as an instrument of Providence. I am conscious every moment that all I am and all I have are 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 might be pleasing to Him.

The Rev. Dr. Miner, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Springfield, visited Lincoln and his family in Washington a short time before the assassination. He tells of a conversation he had with Mr. Lincoln, so deeply engraven on his mind that he never could forget it. Dr. Miner was convinced that Lincoln showed his faith both by his words and his acts. His conversation indicated that he was doing his duty, as he saw it, and daily looking to God for help in time of need. "Like the immortal George Washington," writes Dr. Miner, "Lincoln believed in the efficacy of prayer, and it was his custom to read the Scriptures and pray."

These specific proofs of Mr. Lincoln's firm belief in the Christian religion, and of the orderly development from the simple faith of his emotional childhood to the tested knowledge of his mature manhood, are not more convincing than those heretofore presented, but are offered to the students of Lincoln's life, and to the defendant of his faith, as a condensed statement covering the entire range of his career, from the prairies of Illinois to the Capitol of the nation. Let the student of Lincoln's life divest the subject of all argument and controversy, and consider simply what Lincoln was, what he said and did, and the conviction will be irresistible that he saw God, first in the works of nature, and then as his own personal Comforter and Guide, and finally as the Nation's Leader during the tempestuous days of the Civil War.

That Mr. Lincoln at times had doubts does not mean that he was an infidel. That he sometimes went afield in the fog of puzzling questions does not indicate confirmed skepticism. What student, even in a divinity school, passes through his period of quest for truth without being harassed with doubts that try his soul? What faith is worth the having in times of stress that has not been tested as by the refiner's fire?

He fought his doubts, and gathered strength,
He would not make his judgment blind,
He faced the spectres of his mind
And laid them; thus he came at last
To find a stronger faith his own;
And power was with him in the night,
Which makes the darkness and the light
And dwells not in the light alone.1

Tennyson's In Memoriam.

CHAPTER XXVI

A TEACHER UNTAUGHT OF MEN

LINCOLN'S religious evolution kept pace with his mental growth, the outcome of a deep delving into the fundamental truths of life. And as he studied, he sought to find, not the mere doctrinal forms of ecclesiastical life as formulated in orthodox theology, but rather the practical principles, applicable alike to religion and to all other concerns of life.

But Lincoln was no more orthodox in his political and economic beliefs than in his religious faith. He no more accepted the formulated statements of previous political parties than he accepted the formulated doctrines of denominations. Mr. Lincoln believed in, and practised, the things in orthodoxy that were simple, substantial, and humane; but with profound insight, he never failed to separate the essential from the nonessential, the transitory form the permanent. As he was largely instrumental in the creation of a political party that conserved all the sound prin