Abraham Lincoln: Was He A Christian? Part 12

"I will not attempt any specification of either his belief or disbelief on various religious topics, as derived from conversations with him at different times during a considerable period; but, as conveying a general view of his religious or theological opinions, will state the following facts: Some eight or ten years prior to his death, in conversing with him on this subject, the writer took occasion to refer, in terms of approbation, to the sermons and writings generally of Dr.

W. E. Channing; and, finding he was considerably interested in the statement I made of the opinions held by that author, I proposed to present him a copy of Channing's entire works, which I soon after did.

Subsequently, the contents of these volumes, together with the writings of Theodore Parker, furnished him, as he informed me, by his friend and law-partner, Mr. Herndon, became naturally the topics of conversation with us; and though far from believing there was an entire harmony of views on his part with either of those authors, yet they were generally much admired and approved by him.

"No religious views with him seemed to find any favor, except of the practical and rationalistic order; and if, from my recollections on this subject, I was called upon to designate an author whose views most nearly represented Mr. Lincoln's on this subject, I would say that author was Theodore Parker. As you have asked from me a candid statement of my recollections on this topic, I have thus briefly given them, with the hope that they may be of some service in rightly settling a question about which--as I have good reason to believe--the public mind has been greatly misled. Not doubting that they will accord, substantially, with your own recollections, and that of his other intimate and confidential friends, and with the popular verdict after this matter shall have been properly canva.s.sed, I submit them" (Life of Lincoln, pp. 490-492).

Mr. Fell's testimony is full and explicit. He affirms that Lincoln rejected nearly all the leading tenets of orthodox Christianity; the inspiration of the Scriptures, the divinity of Christ, the innate depravity of man, the atonement, the performance of miracles, and future rewards and punishments. "His expressed views on these and kindred topics," Mr. Fell says, "were such as, in the estimation of most believers, would place him entirely outside the Christian pale." Mr.

Fell, himself, was not disposed to withhold from Lincoln the appellation of Christian, but it was only because he stood upon the broad Liberal Christian, or rather non-Christian, platform which permitted him to welcome a Theist, like Parker; a Pantheist, like Emerson; or even an Agnostic, like Ingersoll.

COL JOHN G. NICOLAY.

The next witness introduced by Lamon, is Col. John G. Nicolay, Lincoln's private secretary at the White House. Nicolay's relations with the President were more intimate than those of any other man. To quote the words of Lincoln's partner, "Mr. Lincoln loved him and trusted him."

His testimony is among the most important that this controversy has elicited. It proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that all these stories concerning Lincoln's alleged conversation at Was.h.i.+ngton are false, that he did not change his belief, that he died as he had always lived--a Freethinker. In a letter written May 27, 1865, just six weeks after Lincoln's death, Colonel Nicolay says: "Mr. Lincoln did not, to my knowledge, in any way, change his religious ideas, opinions or beliefs, from the time he left Springfield till the day of his death. I do not know just what they were, never having heard him explain them in detail, but I am very sure he gave no outward indications of his mind having undergone any change in that regard while here" (Life of Lincoln, p.

492).

HON. DAVID DAVIS.

One of the most important, and in some respects the most eminent witness summoned to testify in regard to this question, is the Hon. David Davis.

In moral character he stood above reproach, in intellectual ability, almost without a peer. Every step in his career was marked by unswerving integrity and freedom from prejudice. His rulings and decisions in the lower courts of Illinois, and on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, commanded universal respect. As a legislator, his love of truth and justice prevented him from being a political partisan. As United States Senator and Vice-President of the United States, the party that elected him could obtain his support for no measure that he deemed unjust. Referring to his acquaintance with Lincoln, Judge Davis says: "I enjoyed for over twenty years the personal friends.h.i.+p of Mr. Lincoln.

We were admitted to the bar about the same time, and traveled for many years what is known in Illinois as the Eighth Judicial Circuit. In 1848, when I first went on the bench, the circuit embraced fourteen counties, and Mr. Lincoln went with the court to every county." A large portion of this time they pa.s.sed in each other's company. They often rode in the same vehicle, generally ate at the same table, and not infrequently slept together in the same bed. The closest intimacy existed between them as long as Lincoln lived, and when he died, Mr. Davis became his executor. Judge Davis would not intentionally have misrepresented the opinions of an enemy, much less the opinions of his dear dead friend.

Briefly, yet clearly, he defines the theological views of Lincoln:

"He had no faith, in the Christian sense of the term--had faith in laws, principles, causes, and effects--philosophically" (Life of Lincoln, p.

489).

Speaking of the many stories that had been circulated concerning Lincoln's religious belief, such as the Bateman and Vinton interviews, together with the various pious speeches he is reported to have made to religious committees and delegations that visited him, such as his reputed speech to the Negroes of Baltimore, Judge Davis says:

"The idea that Lincoln talked to a stranger about his religion or religious views, or made such speeches, remarks, &c, about it as are published, is to me absurd. I knew the man so well. He was the most reticent, secretive man I ever saw, or expect to see" (Ibid).

MRS. MARY LINCOLN.

But one of Lamon's witnesses remains--the wife of the martyred President. Her testimony ought of itself to put this matter at rest forever. Mrs. Lincoln says:

"Mr. Lincoln had no hope, and no faith, in the usual acceptation of those words" (Life of Lincoln, p. 489).

In addition to what Colonel Lamon has presented, Mrs. Lincoln also stated the following:

"Mr. Lincoln's maxim and philosophy were, 'What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.' He never joined any church.

He was a religious man always, I think, but was not a technical Christian" (Herndon's "Religion of Lincoln").

It may be charged that Mrs. Lincoln subsequently repudiated a portion of this testimony. In antic.i.p.ation of such a charge I will here state a few facts. This testimony was given by Mrs. Lincoln in 1865. When it was given, while her heart was pierced by the pangs of her great grief, her mind was sound. About Jan. 1, 1874, a brief article, purporting to come from her pen, appeared, in which the testimony attributed to her was in part denied. At the time this denial was written, Mrs. Lincoln had been for more than two years insane. The chief cause in dethroning her reason was the death of her universally beloved Tad (Thomas), which occurred on July 15, 1871. Referring to this sad event, Mr. Arnold, one of the princ.i.p.al witnesses on the Christian side of this controversy, says: "From this time Mrs. Lincoln, in the judgment of her most intimate friends, was never entirely responsible for her conduct" (Life of Lincoln, p. 439).

The only effect of this denial on the minds of those acquainted with the circ.u.mstances, was to excite a mingled feeling of pity and disgust--pity for this unfortunate woman, and disgust for the contemptible methods of those who would take advantage of her demented condition and make her contradict the honest statements of her rational life.

Before dismissing this witness, I wish to advert to a subject with which many of my readers are familiar. For years, both before and after Lincoln's death, the religious press of the country was continually abusing Mrs. Lincoln. If a ball was held at the White House, she became at once the recipient of unlimited abuse. If Lincoln attended the theater, she was accused of having dragged him there against his will.

It was almost uniformly a.s.serted that he would not have gone to the theater on that fatal night had it not been for her, and in not a few instances it was infamously hinted that she was cognizant of the plot to murder him. But even the Rev. Dr. Miner, who was acquainted with the facts, is willing to vindicate her from these imputations. He says: "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."

Lincoln's biographers have, for the most part, endeavored to do his wife justice, and have rebuked the insults showered upon her. Alluding to President and Mrs. Lincoln, Mr. Herndon says: "All that I know enn.o.bles both." Colonel Lamon says: "Almost ever since Mr. Lincoln's death a portion of the press has never tired of heaping brutal reproaches upon his wife and widow, whilst a certain cla.s.s of his friends thought they were honoring his memory by multiplying outrages and indignities upon her at the very moment when she was broken by want and sorrow, defamed, defenseless, in the hands of thieves, and at the mercy of spies." Mr.

Arnold says: "There is nothing in American history so unmanly, so devoid of every chivalric impulse as the treatment of this poor, broken-hearted woman."

The evidence of Colonel Lamon's ten witnesses has now been presented.

This evidence includes, in addition to the testimony of other intimate friends, the testimony of his wife; the testimony of his first law partner, Hon. John T. Stuart; the testimony of his last law partner, Hon. Win. H. Herndon; the testimony of his friend and political adviser, Col. James H. Matheny; the testimony of his private secretary, Col. John G. Nicolay; and the testimony of his lifelong friend and executor after death, Judge David Davis. No one can read this evidence and then honestly affirm that Abraham Lincoln was a Christian. This is the evidence, the perusal of which so thoroughly enraged that good Christian biographer, Dr. J. G. Holland; this is the evidence, the truthfulness of which the Rev. J. A. Reed, unmindful of the fate of Ananias, attempted to deny.

As a full and just answer to this attempted refutation of Lamon's witnesses by Reed, I quote from the New York _World_ the following:

"This individual testimony is clear and overwhelming, without the doc.u.mentary and other evidence scattered profusely through the rest of the volume. How does Mr. Reed undertake to refute it? In the first place, firstly, he p.r.o.nounces it a 'libel,' and in the second place, secondly, he is 'amazed to find'--and he says he has found--that the princ.i.p.al witnesses take exception to Mr. Lamon's report of their evidence. This might have been true of many or all of Mr. Lamon's witnesses without exciting the wonder of a rational man. Few persons, indeed, are willing to endure reproach merely for the truth's sake, and popular opinion in the Republican party of Springfield, Ill., is probably very much against Mr. Lamon. It would, therefore, be quite in the natural order if some of his witnesses who find themselves unexpectedly in print should succ.u.mb to the social and political terrorism of their place and time, and attempt to modify or explain their testimony. They zealously a.s.sisted Mr. Herndon in ascertaining the truth, and while they wanted him to tell it in full they were prudently resolved to keep their own names snugly out of sight. But Mr. Reed's statement is not true, and his amazement is entirely simulated. Two only out of the ten witnesses have gratified him by inditing, at his request, weak and guarded complaints of unfair treatment. These are John T.

Stuart, a relative of the Lincolns and Edwardses, and Jim Matheny, both of Springfield, whom Mr. Lincoln taught his peculiar doctrines, but who may by this time be deacons in Mr. Reed's church. Neither of them helps Mr. Reed's case a particle. Their epistles open, as if by concert, in form and words almost identical. They say they did not _write_ the language attributed to them. The denial is wholly unnecessary, for n.o.body affirms that they did write it. They talked and Mr. Herndon wrote. His notes were made when the conversation occurred, and probably in their presence. At all events, they are both so conscious of the general accuracy of his report that they do not venture to deny a single word of it, but content themselves with lamenting that something else, which they did _not_ say, was excluded from it. They both, however, in these very letters, repeat emphatically the material part of the statements made by them to Mr. Herndon, namely, that Mr. Lincoln was to their certain knowledge, until a very late period of his life, an 'Infidel,' and neither of them is able to tell when he ceased to be an Infidel and when he began to be a Christian. And this is all Mr. Reed makes by his re-examination of the two persons whom he is pleased to exalt as Mr. Lamon's 'princ.i.p.al witnesses.' They are but two out of the ten. What of the other eight? They have no doubt been tried and plied by Mr. Reed and his friends to no purpose; they stand fast by the record.

But Mr. Reed is to be shamed neither by their speech nor their silence."

CHAPTER X. TESTIMONY OF LINCOLN'S RELATIVES AND INTIMATE a.s.sOCIATES

Mrs. Sarah Lincoln--Dennis F. Hanks--Mrs. Matilda Moore-- John Hall--Win. McNeely--Wm. G. Green--Joshua F. Speed-- Green Caruthers--John Decamp--Mr. Lynan--James B.

Spaulding--Ezra Stringham--Dr. G. H Ambrose--J. H. Chenery-- Squire Perkins--W. Perkins--James Gorley--Dr. Wm. Jayne-- Jesse K. Dubois--Hon. Joseph Gillespie--Judge Stephen T.

Logan--Hon. Leonard Swett

Were I to rest my case here, the evidence already adduced is sufficient, I think, to convince any unprejudiced mind that Lincoln was not a Christian. But I do not propose to rest here. I have presented the testimony of half a score of witnesses; before I lay down my pen I shall present the testimony of nearly ten times as many more.

In this chapter will be given the testimony of some of the relatives and intimate a.s.sociates of Lincoln. The testimony of his relatives confirms the claim that he was not religious in his youth; the others testify to his unbelief while a resident of New Salem and Springfield.

MRS. SARAH LINCOLN.

If there was one person to whom Lincoln was more indebted than to any other, it was his stepmother, Sally Lincoln, a beautiful woman--beautiful not only in face and form, but possessed of a most lovely character. She was not highly educated, but she loved knowledge, and inspired in her step-son a love for books. She was a Christian, but she attached more importance to deed than to creed. She loved Lincoln.

After his death she said: "He was dutiful to me always. I think he loved me truly. I had a son, John, who was raised with Abe. Both were good boys; but I must say, both now being dead, that Abe was the best boy I ever saw, or expect to see." Lincoln was too good and too great not to appreciate this woman's care and affection.

When the materials for Lincoln's biography were being collected, Mrs.

Lincoln was considered the most reliable source from which to obtain the facts pertaining to his boyhood. Her recollections of him were recorded with the utmost care. His Christian biographers, in order to make a Sunday-school hero of him, have declared him to be a youth remarkable for his Christian piety and his love of the Bible. The statements of Mrs. Lincoln disprove this claim. The substance of her testimony, as given by Lamon, is given as follows: "His step-mother--herself a Christian, and longing for the least sign of faith in him--could remember no circ.u.mstance that supported her hope. On the contrary, she recollected very well that he never went off into a corner, as has been said, to ponder the sacred writings, and to wet the page with his tears of penitence" (Life of Lincoln, pp. 486, 487).

"The Bible, according to Mrs. Lincoln, was not one of his studies; 'he sought more congenial books.' At that time he neither talked nor read upon religious subjects. If he had any opinions about them, he kept them to himself" (Ibid, p. 38).

DENNIS F. HANKS.

The next witness is Lincoln's cousin, Dennis Hanks. Mr. Hanks held "the pulpy, red, little Lincoln" in his arms before he was "twenty-four hours old," and remained his constant companion during all the years that he lived in Kentucky and Indiana. He lived a part of the time in the Lincoln family, and married one of Lincoln's step-sisters. I met him recently at Charleston, Ill. With evident delight he rehea.r.s.ed the story of Lincoln's boyhood, and reaffirmed the truthfulness of the following statements attributed to him by Lincoln's biographers:

"Abe wasn't in early life a religious man. He was a moral man strictly.... In after life he became more religious; but the Bible puzzled him, especially the miracles" (Every-Day Life of Lincoln, p.

54).

"'Religious songs did not appear to suit him at all,' says Dennis Hanks; but of profane ballads and amorous ditties he knew the words of a vast number.

"Another was:

'Hail Columbia, happy land!

If you ain't drunk, I'll be d.a.m.ned,'

a song which Dennis thinks should be warbled only in the 'fields;' and tells us they knew and enjoyed all such songs as this'" (Lamon's Life of Lincoln, pp. 58, 59).

The fitness of the above coa.r.s.e travesty to be warbled, even in the fields, may well be doubted. Lamon would hardly have recorded it, and I certainly should not quote it, but for the fact that it strikingly ill.u.s.trates one phase of Lincoln's "youthful piety."