Henry B. Rankin, in his "Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln." In his important chapter on "What Religion Meant to Lincoln," Mr. Rankin reproduces his mother's account of Lincoln's own statement of his religious views, given to her in her home during his race for Congress when his opponents were seeking to discredit him. Declaring that his own thinking, as well as his contact with men of "widest culture" had opened up to him a "sea of questionings," through which he had groped his way to "a higher grasp of thought" reaching beyond this life with "clearness and satisfaction," he continued:

I do not see that I am more astray-though perhaps in a different direction-than many others whose points of view differ widely from each other in the sectarian denominations. They all claim to be Christians, and interpret their several creeds as infallible ones. Yet they differ and discuss these questionable subjects without settling them with any mutual satisfaction among themselves.

I doubt the possibility, or propriety, of settling the religion of Jesus Christ in the models of man-made creeds and dogmas. It was a spirit in the life that He laid stress and taught, if I read aright. I know I see it to be so with mc.

The fundamental truths reported in the four gospels as from the lips of Jesus Christ, and that I heard from

the lips of my mother, are settled and fixed moral precepts with me. I have concluded to dismiss from my mind the debatable wrangles that once perplexed me with distractions that stirred up, but never absolutely settled anything. I have tossed them aside with the doubtful differences which divide denominationssweeping them all out of my mind among the nonessentials. I have ceased to follow such discussions or to be interested in them.

I cannot without mental reservations assent to long and complicated creeds and catechisms. If the church would ask simply for assent to the Savior's statement of the substance of the law: "Thou shalt love the Lord God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself,”—that church would I gladly unite with.1

With Lincoln, religion was regarded as practically important, or it was valueless. An instance of this attitude, very well known, was afforded during the Presidential campaign. To ascertain the nature of the vote in Springfield, a house-to-house canvass was made. Of the twenty-three clergymen in his home town, all but three "signified their intention to vote against Lincoln." He expressed his disappointment at this to Dr. Bateman, to whom he remarked, "as

I Rankin, "Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln,” pp. 324-326.

care.

if thinking aloud": "These gentlemen know that Judge Douglas does not care a cent whether slavery in the territories is voted up or voted down, for he has repeatedly told them so. They know that I do Lincoln then drew from his pocket a copy of the New Testament and continued: "I do not so understand this book." On the matter of his faith, he said: "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 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 liberty is right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God. I have told them that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and Christ and reason say the same, and they will find it so."1

Apparently nothing in his experience had, even momentarily, diverted his faith in the precepts of the Bible; and his life-long practice of personal sacrifice as well as his native sympathy for the unfortunate, shining out in so much that he did and said, entered into the creation of that beautiful spirit of charity for which Lincoln will ever be remembered. The soul of that spirit had at last been embodied in

I Carpenter, "Six Months in the White House," pp. 162-164.