Abraham Lincoln: Was He A Christian? Part 20

I now present to the reader another citizen of Springfield, one who is not afraid to publicly express an honest opinion. Mr. Henry Walker, who has resided in that city for many years, writes as follows concerning Lincoln's religious belief: "After inquiring of those who were intimate and familiar with him, I arrive at the conclusion that he was a Deist."

"There is a rumor current here that he once wrote an anti-Christian pamphlet, but his friends persuaded him not to publish it."

Mr. Walker was not personally acquainted with Lincoln. His conclusion is simply based upon the information obtained from those who were acquainted with him. His statement, like the preceding one, is introduced not so much because of any especial value attaching to it as mere testimony, but because it fairly represents the common sentiment of those who have investigated this subject, and particularly those who are on familiar terms with Lincoln's old a.s.sociates in Illinois. The knowledge of our anonymous witness was shared by Dr. Smith, Mr. Arnold, and Mr. Edwards; the opinion expressed by Mr. Walker was the opinion privately entertained by Dr. Holland, it is the opinion privately entertained by Mr. Bateman, yes, and unquestionably the opinion privately entertained by Mr. Reed himself.

WILLIAM BISSETT.

An article on Lincoln's religion written by Mr. Wm. Bissett, of Santa Ana, Cal., and recently published in the _Truth Seeker_, contains some evidence that deserves to be recorded. Mr. Bissett narrates the following: "In the Spring of 1859 we moved into Livingston county, Mo., near Chillicothe. We at once became acquainted with a man by the name of William Jeeter. Mr. Jeeter was a native of Kentucky, and if I mistake not, was born and raised in the same part of the country that Mr.

Lincoln was but about that I am not sure. Mr. Jeeter told me that Lincoln and himself settled in Illinois when they were young men, and boarded together for a number of years. He says he knew every act of Lincoln's life up to the time he (Jeeter) left Illinois, a few years before Mr. Lincoln's nomination for the Presidency. I was helping Jeeter build a house for himself when we received the news of Mr. Lincoln's nomination; that is why we came to speak so particularly about him.

"Mr. Jeeter told me that Mr. Lincoln was not a believer in the Christian religion; that is, he did not believe the Bible was an inspired work, nor that Jesus Christ was the son of G.o.d. 'Nevertheless,' said Mr.

Jeeter,' he was one of the most honest men I ever knew. If I had a million dollars I wouldn't be afraid to trust it to Lincoln without the scratch of a pen, I know the man so well.' Mr. Jeeter was a strong believer in the Christian religion and a mem-bier of the c.u.mberland Presbyterian church, and a very fine and reliable man."

FREDERICK HEATH.

The following is from an article on Lincoln by Mr. Frederick Heath, of Milwaukee, Wis.:

"Two years ago I was a.s.sociated with Major Geo. H. Norris, a wealthy orange-grower of Florida, in that state, and was in a degree his _confidant_. In earlier years, while a lawyer in Illinois, Major Norris (he was at one time mayor of Ottawa, Ill.) was quite closely a.s.sociated with Mr. Lincoln, and he gave me to understand that Mr. Lincoln was an extreme skeptic. They were thrown together a good deal at Springfield, where they were trying cases before the supreme court. Lincoln would frequently keep them from sleep by his stories and arguments, and frequently spoke of religious matters in a way that showed he was convinced of the delusion of faith. I wish I could quote the Major's words as to Lincoln's remarks on religion, but will not venture to frame them, as this is a subject that demands truth and exactness."

REV. EDWARD EGGLESTON.

When Lincoln went to New York in the winter of 1860, to deliver his Cooper Inst.i.tute address, he had occasion to remain over Sunday in that city. At the suggestion of a friend, he visited the famous Five Points, and attended a Sunday-school where the sp.a.w.n of New York's worst inhabitants to the number of several hundred were a.s.sembled. Importuned for a speech, he made a few remarks to the children, and the fact was published in the papers. The idea of this Infidel politician addressing a Sunday-school was so ludicrous that it caused much merriment among his friends at Springfield. When he returned home one of them, probably Colonel Matheny, called on him to learn what it all meant.

The conversation that followed, including Lincoln's explanation of the affair, is thus related by the noted preacher and author, Edward Eggleston: "He started for 'Old Abe's' office; but bursting open the door impulsively, found a stranger in conversation with Mr. Lincoln. He turned to retrace his steps, when Lincoln called out, 'Jim! What do you want?' 'Nothing.' 'Yes, you do; come back.'

"After some entreaty Jim approached Mr. Lincoln, and remarked, with a twinkle in his eye, 'Well, Abe, I see you have been making a speech to Sunday-school children. What's the matter?' 'Sit down, Jim, and I'll tell you all about it.' And with that Lincoln put his feet on the stove and began: 'When Sunday morning came, I didn't know exactly what to do.

Washburne asked me where I was going. I told him I had nowhere to go; and he proposed to take me down to the Five Points Sunday-school, to show me something worth seeing. I was very much interested by what I saw. Presently, Mr. Pease came up and spoke to Mr. Washburne, who introduced me. Mr. Pease wanted us to speak. Washburne spoke, and then I was urged to speak. I told them I did not know anything about talking to Sunday-schools, but Mr. Pease said many of the children were friendless and homeless, and that a few words would do them good. Washburne said I must talk. And so I rose to speak; but I tell you, Jim, I didn't know what to say. I remembered that Mr. Pease said that they were homeless and friendless, and I thought of the time when I had been pinched by terrible poverty. And so I told them that I had been poor; that I remembered when my toes stuck out through my broken shoes in winter; when my arms were out at the elbows; when I s.h.i.+vered with the cold. And I told them there was only one rule.

"That was, always do the very best you can. I told them that I had always tried to do the very best I could; and that, if they would follow that rule, they would get along somehow. That was about what I said'"

(Every-Day Life of Lincoln, pp. 322, 323).

The foregoing is significant. Lincoln was not an advocate of Sunday-schools. He had probably never visited one before. As generally conducted, he regarded them as simply nurseries of superst.i.tion. He could not indorse the religious ideas taught in them, and he was not there that day to antagonize them. As a consequence, this ready talker--this man who had been making speeches all his life--was, for the first time, at a loss to know what to say. He could not talk to them about the Bible--he could not tell them that "it is the best gift which G.o.d has given to man"--that "all the good from the Savior of the world is communicated to us through this book"--that "but for this book we could not know right from wrong"--he could not tell them how Jesus had died for little children, and all this, because he did not believe it.

But he obeyed his own life-long rule, did the best he could under the embarra.s.sing circ.u.mstances, and gave them a little wholesome advice entirely free from the usual Sunday-school cant.

REV. ROBERT COLLYER.

Robert Collyer states that Lincoln, just before he was elected President, visited the office of the Chicago _Tribune_, and picking up a volume of Theodore Parker's writings, turned to Dr. Ray and remarked: "I think that I stand about where that man stands."

ALLEN THORNDIKE RICE.

The lamented Allen Thorndike Rice, whose brilliant editorial management of the _North American Review_ has placed this periodical in the front rank of American magazines, in his Introduction to the "Reminiscences of Lincoln," says: "The Western settlers had no respect for English traditions, whether of Church or of State. Accustomed all their lives to grapple with nature face to face, they thought and they spoke, with all the boldness of unrestrained sincerity, on every topic of human interest or of sacred memory, without the slightest recognition of any right of external authority to impose restrictions, or even to be heard in protest against their intellectual independence. As their life developed the utmost independence of creed and individuality, he whose originality was the most fearless and self-contained was chief among them. Among such a people, blood of their blood and bone of their bone, differing from them only in stature, Abraham Lincoln arose to rule the American people with a more than kingly power, and received from them a more than feudal loyalty."

So eager is the church for proofs of Lincoln's piety that the most incredible anonymous story in support of this claim is readily accepted and published by the religious press as authentic history. By this means the ma.s.ses have gradually come to regard Lincoln as a devout Christian.

It is evident that Mr. Rice had these fabulous tales in mind when he wrote the following: "Story after story and trait after trait, as varying in value as in authenticity, has been added to the Lincolniana, until at last the name of the great war President has come to be a biographic lodestone, attracting without distinction or discrimination both the true and the false."

ROBERT C. ADAMS.

The noted author, Capt. Robert C. Adams, of Montreal, Can., says: "It is significant that in political revolution it is the Freethinker who is usually the leader. Franklin, Paine, Jefferson, Was.h.i.+ngton, were the chief founders of the American Republic, and _Lincoln presided at its second birth_ Mazzini and Garibaldi are the heroes of United Italy; Rousseau, Voltaire, and Victor Hugo have been the chief inspirers of Democratic France "(_New Ideal_).

THEODORE STANTON

In the _Westminster Review_ for September, 1891, Mr. Stanton had an article discussing the moral character and religious belief of Abraham Lincoln. Of his religious belief, he says: "If Lincoln had lived and died an obscure Springfield lawyer and politician he would unquestionably have been cla.s.sed by his neighbors among Freethinkers. But, as is customary with the church, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, when Lincoln became one of the great of the world an attempt was made to claim him. In trying to arrive at a correct comprehension of Lincoln's theology this fact should be borne in mind in sifting the testimony.

"Another very important warping influence which should not be lost sight of was Lincoln's early ambition for political preferment. Now, the shrewd American politician with an elastic conscience joins some church, and is always seen on Sunday in the front pews. But the shrewd politician who has not an elastic conscience--and this was Lincoln's case--simply keeps mum on his religious views, or, when he must touch on the subject, deals only in plat.i.tudes."

After citing the testimony of many of Lincoln's friends, Mr. Stanton concludes: "A man about whose theology such things can be said is of course far removed from orthodoxy. It may even be questioned whether he is a Theist, whether he is a Deist. That he is a Freethinker is evident; that he is an Agnostic is probable."

GEO. M. CRIE.

In the _Open Court_ for Nov. 26, 1891, Mr. McCrie contributes an article on "What Was Abraham Lincoln's Creed?" Concerning Lincoln's allusions to G.o.d, he says: "A Deity thus shelved or not shelved, according to the dictates of political expediency, or of individual opinion as to the 'propriety' of either course is no Deity at all. He is as fictional as the 'John Doe' or 'Richard Roe' of a legal writ, and anyone making use of such a creation--the puppet, not the parent, of his own Egoity--is supposed to know with what he is dealing. Orthodox religionism may well despair of Abraham Lincoln as of George Was.h.i.+ngton, Benjamin Franklin, or President Jefferson."

GEN. M. M. TRUMBULL

Gen. Trumbull, of Chicago, in the _Open Court_ of Dec. 3,1891, writes: "The religion that begs the patronage of presidents doubts its own theology, for the true G.o.d needs not the favor of men.... Some of his [Lincoln's] tributes to Deity are merely rhetorical emphasis, but others were not. Cicero often swore 'By Hercules,' as in the oration against Catiline, although he believed no more in Hercules than Abraham Lincoln believed in any church-made G.o.d."

REV. DAVID SWING, D.D.

In a sermon on "Was.h.i.+ngton and Lincoln," the most eminent and popular divine of Chicago, Dr. Swing, said:

"It is often lamented by the churchmen that Was.h.i.+ngton and Lincoln possessed little religion except that found in the word 'G.o.d.' All that can here be affirmed is that what the religion of those two men lacked in theological details it made up in greatness. Their minds were born with a love of great principles.... There are few instances in which a mind great enough to reach great principles in politics has been satisfied with a fanatical religion.... It must not be asked for Was.h.i.+ngton and Lincoln that, having reached greatness in political principles, they should have loved littleness in piety."

REV. JENKIN LLOYD JONES.

The Rev. J. Lloyd Jones, one of Chicago's most eloquent divines, in a sermon preached in All Souls Church, Dec. 9, 1888, gave utterance to the following:

"Are there not thousands who have loved virtue who did not accept Jesus Christ in any supernatural or miraculous fas.h.i.+on, who if they knew of him at all knew of him only as the Nazarine peasant--the man Jesus? Such was Abraham Lincoln, the tender prophet of the gospel of good will upon earth; Charles Sumner, the great apostle of human liberty; Gerrit Smith, the St. John of political reform; William Ellery Channing, our sainted preacher; Theodore Parker, the American Luther, hurling his defiance at the devils of bigotry; John Stuart Mill and Harriet Martineau--yes, to take an extreme case, the genial and over-satirical Robert G. Ingersoll, are among those who love goodness and foster n.o.bility, though they have no clear vision into futurity and confess no other lords.h.i.+p in him of Nazareth save the dignity of aim and tenderness of life."

REV. JOHN W. CHADWICK.

In an address delivered in Tremont Temple, Boston, May 30, 1872, the Rev. John W. Chadwick, of Brooklyn, N. Y., referring to the proposed religious amendment to the Const.i.tution of the United States, said: "Of the six men who have done most to make America the wonder and the joy she is to all of us, not one could be the citizen of a government so const.i.tuted; for Was.h.i.+ngton and Franklin and Jefferson, certainly the three mightiest leaders in our early history, were heretics in their day, Deists, as men called them; and Garrison and Lincoln and Sumner, certainly the three mightiest in these later times, would all be disfranchised by the proposed amendment.

"Lincoln could not have taken the oath of office had such a clause been in the Const.i.tution."

CHAPTER XIV. EVIDENCE GATHERED FROM LINCOLN'S LETTERS SPEECHES, AND CONVERSATIONS

The Bible and Christianity--Christ's Divinity--Future Rewards and Punishments--Freedom of Mind--Fatalism-- Providence--Lines in Copy-book--Parker--Paine--Opposition of Church--Clerical Officious-ness Rebuked--Irreverent Jokes-- Profanity--Temperance Reform--Indors.e.m.e.nt of Lord Bolingbroke's Writings--Golden Rule.

The testimony of one hundred witnesses will now be supplemented by evidence from the tongue and pen of Lincoln himself. The greater portion of what he wrote and uttered against Christianity has perished; but enough has been preserved to demonstrate, even in the absence of other evidence, that he was not a Christian. From his letters, speeches, and recorded conversations, the following radical sentiments have been extracted.

Notwithstanding the efforts of Holland and Bate-man to prove that Lincoln was a believer in Christianity, it is admitted that in his conversation with Bateman, he said:

"I am not a Christian" (Holland's Life of Lincoln, pp. 236, 237).

When his Christian friends at Petersburg interfered to prevent his proposed duel with s.h.i.+elds, and told him that it was contrary to the teachings of the Bible and Christianity, he remarked:

"The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my profession" (Letter of W. Perkins). While at Was.h.i.+ngton, in a letter to his old friend, Judge Wakefield, written in 1862, in answer to inquiries respecting his belief and the expressed hope that he had become convinced of the truth of Christianity, he replied as follows:

"My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the Scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them."