FOREWORD

DR. HILL'S Abraham Lincoln, Man of God, brings Lincoln before us as a man, splendid in his strength of purpose, unshaken by popular clamour, humane, sympathetic, and far-seeing; a man who understood and appreciated the problems of life, the passions and the weaknesses of his fellow-men, strong because of his trials and triumphs; a great leader so great as to be without jealousy; humble, because of his knowledge and experience, forgetful of self in his desire to best serve his country and mankind.

He stands before us a heroic and earnest figure, as one humbly seeking the inspiration, counsel, and help of the Almighty, praying for guidance from above and giving sympathy, assistance, and leadership to all about him, with unshaken faith in the ultimate success of the Right; as a finite mind seeking the guidance of the infinite.

We see in Lincoln's deep religious nature the effect of his early training, and in those direct appeals to and communions with God we see not

only an abiding faith and trust in God but also something of the spirit of the revival, the intense religious emotionalism of those great meetings of his boyhood out of which came much of definite conviction, of faith and of trust in God.

As one reads one feels that Lincoln was indeed "A Man of God."

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INTRODUCTION

But

No new biography of Lincoln is needed to portray his public life. The standard histories give in all detail the great events of his career. interpretations of his inner life are still in order. Few great men of the past have suffered as much as Lincoln at the hands of the well-meaning and uncritical, the ill-informed and prejudiced.

Charlemagne and Cromwell, Washington and John Marshall, all were children of their time. Only in the light of circumstances which produced them can they be explained. The interplay of heredity and environment on powerful personalities and the compelling reaction of personalities on their surroundings furnish a task beyond the reach of those who lack human understanding and spiritual imagination.

Abraham Lincoln was born amid a somewhat primitive and tumultuous religious upheaval expressed in the powerful preaching of Peter Cartwright and illustrated in the perennial popularity of the camp-meeting. Brought up by parents

whose lives were lived amid such influences, Abraham Lincoln was from his earliest years religious. The Bible was the book of books to him. He prayed so constantly and confidently as to seem a kind of modern Brother Lawrence practising the Presence of God. He worked out a theology in general conformity with the accepted standards of Christianity. In the darkest hour of his White House days when personal bereavement was added to national anxiety, he literally lived on his knees.

Yet even in his lifetime he was often charged with infidelity. Some too near the trees to see the woods even wrote books attributing Lincoln's frequent depression to irreligion. He believed he was defeated for office in 1841 because of the report that he was not a Christian. Many still are blinded by the same delusion.

A book has long been needed to bring discussion to an end, to set at rest much foolish speculation, and to convince the most incredulous that Abraham Lincoln, Man of God, was as sincere in his religious faith as Robert E. Lee or Willliam E. Gladstone.

This book from the pen of Chancellor John Wesley Hill of Lincoln Memorial University seems likely to perform this purpose. For many

years, both in his personal and official capacity, he has been collecting evidence at last massed in this book as challenging as it is interesting. Even the most casual reader will perceive that all of Lincoln's convictions sprang out of his profound belief in God as set forth in the Christian teachings, that his habit of studying both sides of every question and of stating each as strongly as he could was in part responsible for the misapprehensions of some who have held a superficial view of his religious life, and that his intimate friend Noah Brooks writing as early as 1872 a personal letter stated the truth this compelling book illustrates that "any suggestion as to Mr. Lincoln's skepticism is a monstrous fiction, a shocking perversion."

These times as truly try men's souls as Lincoln's times. Problems of today are as grave and complex as the problems to which Lincoln brought as clear a mind and pure a soul as modern times have known. A free people whose freedom has been purchased at a great price must now choose between the merely economic and the spiritually moral, between irresponsible Marxianism so subtle that even the timid who dare not champion it outright are still under its dominion, and Lincolnism calling as loudly today as in the Gettysburg