balance. His legal studies and training led him to recognize the immutable law of divine retribution; but with this feature of his faith, there was associated a strong belief in

DIVINE COMPASSION AND MERCY

Mr. Lincoln was always distinguished for rare tenderness of heart and sympathy with all who were suffering or in need. When but a child it was his custom, if he was not in attendance upon public worship on the Lord's day, to gather his playmates about him and to discourse to them after the fashion of a preacher; and on such occasions he always admonished them to be kind to all their associates and even to dumb animals. The characteristics of his nature thus exhibited increased with his growth in stature, and in personal character. As early as 1851, in the familiar letter to his stepbrother relative to his father's illness he speaks of the Almighty as "our great and good and merciful Maker."'51

In his great speech at Springfield, on July 17th, 1858, he made a telling point against Judge Douglas, who was seeking to win the votes of the antislavery people by saying: "Repentance before forgiveness is a provision of the Christian system, and on that condition alone will the republicans grant him forgiveness."52

That conception of the divine compassion and mercy which was so dominant in Mr. Lincoln's faith, is stated with great clearness and force in portions of his proclamations for a day of Thanksgiving.

In the Proclamation of August 12th, 1861, appointing "A Day of Public Prayer, Humiliation and Fasting," he invites the people "to acknowledge and revere the Supreme Government of God; to bow in humble submission to His chastisement; to confess and deplore their sins and transgressions in the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is the beginning

61 Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II., p. 158. 52 Ibid., Vol. III., p. 167.

of wisdom; and to pray with all fervency and contrition for the pardon of their past offenses. In soulful remembrance of our own faults and crimes as a nation and as individuals, to humble ourselves before Him, and to pray for His mercy-to pray that we may be spared further punishment though most justly deserved."58

On March 30th, 1863, he appointed "A day for national prayer and humiliation," calling upon the people "to confess their sins and transgressions with humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon. To humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness."'54

On October 3rd, 1863, in his proclamation appointing a day of Thanksgiving and prayer, in speaking of the great favors which had been bestowed upon the nation, he said: "No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things; they are gracious gifts of the most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins hath nevertheless remembered mercy.'

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On October 20th, 1864, in the last Proclamation which he issued appointing a day of annual Thanksgiving he admonishes the people "that on that occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust, and from thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers.'

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Mr. Lincoln's regard for

THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH

is sufficiently expressed in the following order: "Order for Sabbath Observance, Executive Mansion, Washington, Nov. 15th, 1862.

"The President, Commander-in-Chief of the army and 53 Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. VI., pp. 341-343.

54 Ibid., Vol. VIII., pp. 235-237.

55 Ibid., Vol. IX., p. 152.

56 Ibid., Vol. X., p. 246.

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 strict necessity. The discipline and character of the national forces should not suffer, nor the cause they defend be imperilled, by the profanation of the day or 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.'"'57

THE CHURCH

Nothing was more manifest in Mr. Lincoln's life and in his teachings than his firm and constant belief in the Church as a divine institution. In early life his lot was cast with the Methodists and Baptists, but during his life in Springfield and at Washington, his personal denominational preferences were with the Presbyterians. He was a regular and interested worshipper in that denomination both at his home city and at the National Capital. He was also strongly attached to the Methodist Episcopal Church because of its spirituality, its cordial fellowship, its great numerical strength and its consequent large contribution to the needs of the government during all the years of his Presidency. This is felicitously expressed in the following reply to a Methodist delegation, 57 Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. VIII., pp. 76-77.

May 14th, 1864: "It is no fault in others that the Methodist Church sends more soldiers to the field, more nurses to the hospitals, and more prayers to heaven than any. God bless the Methodist Church. Bless all the churches, and blessed be God, who, in this our great trial, giveth us the churches."58

Mr. Lincoln's views respecting the justification for the existence of so many religious denominations is expressed in the following portions of his statements on that subject to a company of friends and reported by Dr. Robert Browne, as follows:

"In one of his cheeriest moods, one day, I remember, the subject of the many Protestant sects was being considered and talked over. One good old brother, a kind-hearted man, and as timid, lamented the number of sects, and hoped that some day a harmonizing spirit would prevail among all Christian believers, and that all of them would unite in one Church organization to serve the Master. Mr. Lincoln said: "My good brother, you are all wrong. The more sects we have, the better. They are all getting somebody in that the others could not; and even with the numerous divisions we are all doing tolerably well.

"It is not a certainty by any means that a quiet time is the best for progress. It is not so by any means in the progress of human liberty or the release of men from superstition and persecution under the forms of religion. The greatest achievements have always come in stirring, fighting times, like those of Luther, Cromwell, and the American revolution. What we need is not fewer sects or parties, but more freedom and independence for those we have. The sects are all right and will get through all right in the end. God is going to be more merciful to men trying to do right than most people think. He is so much more familiar with human frailties than a little sect in any single organization can be, that there is scarcely room for doubt that He will deal more gently with blundering, sinning humanity than the sects would deal with 58 Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. X.,

p. 100.

one another. I would rather there were more than less, if one were to hold all the power.

"Yet sects are right, and should hammer away until they reach the best that is attainable. God intends that men should fight their way to better conditions, and not be lazy or timid, or expect that their passage would be an easy one through the world or beyond in ignorant idleness. We are often confronted with the fear of too many sects, as so many timid people among them so often dread, and wonder which is right and which is best among them. They are all right.

"Think of the sect drilling so many of us have passed through, mostly to our advantage, as responsible beings. Our people came from the good old Quaker stock, through Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky. Circumstances took us into the Baptist sect in Indiana, in which several of our people have remained. While there, a good Methodist elder rode forty miles through a winter storm out of his way to preach my mother's funeral sermon at Spencer Creek. Here in Illinois we are with the Presbyterians, where the Methodists are as thick as bees all about us.'

Mr. Lincoln believed in

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SALVATION BY FAITH IN CHRIST

This was indicated by many and very significant references to the Saviour, and the marked reverence and affection with which that name was always spoken by him. In earlier days he had been closely associated with Major Merwin in the temperance work in Illinois and always manifested deep sympathy with and interest in the gospel features of that work. Because of that interest he afterwards afforded Major Merwin every desirable opportunity to visit the front during the war to induce soldiers to abstain from intoxicants and to become Christians.

In the case of Colonel Loomis, elsewhere referred to, Mr. 59 Abraham Lincoln and the Men of his Time, Vol. II., pp. 427-428.