any one that he accepted Jesus as the Christ, or performed a single one of the acts which necessarily follow upon such a conviction. At Springfield and at Washington he was beset on the one hand by political priests, and on the other by honest and prayerful Christians. He despised the former, respected the latter, and had use for both. He said with characteristic irreverence, that he would not undertake to "run the churches by military authority;" but he was, nevertheless, alive to the importance of letting the churches "run" themselves in the interest of his party. Indefinite expressions about "Divine Providence," the "justice of God," "the favor of the Most High," were easy, and not inconsistent with his religious notions. In this, accordingly, he indulged freely; but never in all that time did he let fall from his lips or his pen an expression which remotely implied the slightest faith in Jesus as the Son of God and the Saviour of men.

in his heart, and by this Word he is to try all documents whatsoever. Inspiration, like God's omnipresence, is not limited to the few writers claimed by the Jews, Christians, or Mohammedans, but is co-extensive with the race. As God fills all space, so all spirit; as he influences and constrains unconscious and necessitated matter, so he inspires and helps free, unconscious man.

"This theory does not make Goa limited, partial, or capricious: it exalts man. While it honors the excellence of a religious genius of a Moses or a Jesus, it does not pronounce their character monstrous, as the supernatural, nor fanatical, as the rationalistic theory; but natural, human, and beautiful, revealing the possibility of mankind. Prayer - whether voluntative or spontaneous, a word or a feeling, felt in gratitude, or penitence, or joy, or resignation is not a soliloquy of the man, not a physiological function, nor an address to a deceased man, but a sally into the infinite spiritual world, whence we bring back light and truth. There are windows towards God, as towards the world. There is no intercessor, angel, mediator, between man and God; for man can speak, and God hear, each for himself. He requires no advocate to plead for men, who need not pray by attorney. Each man stands close to the omnipresent God; may feel his beautiful presence, and have familiar access to the All-Father; get truth at first hand from its Author. Wisdom, rightGousness, and love are the Spirit of God in the soul of man: wherever these are, and just in proportion to their power, there is inspiration from God. Thus God is not the author of confusion, but concord. Faith and knowledge and revelation and reason tell the same tale, and so legitimate and confirm each one another.

"God's action on matter and on man is, perhaps, the same thing to him, though it appear differently modiâed to us. But it is plain, from the nature of things, that there can be but one kind of inspiration, as of truth, faith, or love: it is the direct and intuitive perception of some truth, either of thought or of sentiment. There can be but one mode of inspiration: it is the action of the Highest within the soul, the divine presence imparting light; this presence, as truth, justice, holiness, love, infusing itself into the soul, giving it new life; the breathing-in of the Deity; the in-come of God to the soul, in the form of truth through the reason, of right through the conscience, of love and faith through the affections and religious element. Is inspiration confined to theological matter alone? Most certainly not."— PARKER'S Discourse pertaining to Religion.

The effect of Mr. Lincoln's unbelief did not affect his constitutional love of justice. Though he rejected the New Testament as a book of divine authority, he accepted the practical part of its precepts as binding upon him by virtue of the natural law. The benevolence of his impulses served to keep him, for the most part, within the limits to which a Christian is confined by the fear of God. It is also true beyond doubt that he was greatly influenced by the reflected force of Christianity. If he did not believe it, the masses of the "plain people" did; and no one ever was more anxious to do "whatsoever was of good report among men." To qualify himself as a witness or an officer it was frequently necessary that he should take oaths; and he always appealed to the Christian's God either by laying his hand upon the Gospels, or by some other form of invocation common among believers. Of course the ceremony was superfluous, for it imposed no religious obligation upon him; but his strong innate sense of right was sufficient to make him truthful without that high and awful sanction which faith in divine revelation would have carried with it.

Mr. Lincoln was by no means free from a kind of belief in the supernatural. While he rejected the great facts of Christianity, as wanting the support of authentic evidence, his mind was readily impressed with the most absurd superstitions. He lived constantly in the serious conviction that he was himself the subject of a special decree, made by some unknown and mysterious power, for which he had no name. The birth and death of Christ, his wonderful works, and his resurrection as "the first-fruits of them that slept," Mr. Lincoln

1 "He had great faith in the strong sense of country people; and he gave them credit for greater intelligence than most men do. If he found an idea prevailing generally amongst them, he believed there was something in it, although it might not harmonize with science. He had great faith in the virtues of the 'mad-stone,' although he could give no reason for it, and confessed that it looked like superstition. But, he said, he found the people in the neighborhood of these stones fully impressed with a belief in their virtues from actual experiment; and that was about as much as we could ever know of the properties of medicines."- Gillespie.

"When his son' Bob' was supposed to have been bitten by a rabid dog, Mr. Lincoln took him to Terre Haute, Ia., where there was a mad-stone, with the intention of having it applied, and, it is presumed, did so.”— Mrs. Wallace.

denied, because they seemed naturally improbable, or inconsistent with his "philosophy so called;" but his perverted credulity terrified him when he saw two images of himself in a mirror.

It is very probable that much of Mr. Lincoln's unhappiness, the melancholy that "dripped from him as he walked," was due to his want of religious faith. When the black fit was on him, he suffered as much mental misery as Bunyan or Cowper in the deepest anguish of their conflicts with the evil one. But the unfortunate conviction fastened upon him by his early associations, that there was no truth in the Bible, made all consolation impossible, and penitence useless. To a man of his temperament, predisposed as it was to depression of spirits, there could be no chance of happiness, if doomed to live without hope and without God in the world. He might force himself to be merry with his chosen comrades; he might "banish sadness" in mirthful conversation, or find relief in a jest; gratified ambition might elevate his feelings, and give him ease for a time: but solid comfort and permanent peace could come to him only through "a correspondence fixed with heaven." The fatal misfortune of his life, looking at it only as it affected him in this world, was the influence at New Salem and Springfield which enlisted him on the side of unbelief. He paid the bitter penalty in a life of misery.

"It was a grievous sin in Cæsar;

And grievously hath Cæsar answered it."

ON

CHAPTER XX.

N the 11th of February, 1861, the arrangements for Mr. Lincoln's departure from Springfield were completed. It was intended to occupy the time remaining between that date and the 4th of March with a grand tour from State to State and city to city. One Mr. Wood, "recommended by Senator Seward," was the chief manager. He provided special trains to be preceded by pilot engines all the way through. It was a gloomy day: heavy clouds floated overhead, and a cold rain was falling. Long before eight o'clock, a great mass of people had collected at the station of the Great Western Railway to witness the event of the day. At precisely five minutes before eight, Mr. Lincoln, preceded by Mr. Wood, emerged from a private room in the dépôt building, and passed slowly to the car, the people falling back respectfully on either side, and as many as possible shaking his hands. Having finally reached the train, he ascended the rear platform, and, facing about to the throng which had closed around him, drew himself up to his full height, removed his hat, and stood for several seconds in profound silence. His eye roved sadly over that sea of upturned faces; and he thought he read in them again the sympathy and friendship which he had often tried, and which he never needed more than he did then. There was an unusual quiver in his lip, and a still more unusual tear on his shrivelled cheek. His solemn manner, his long silence, were as full of melancholy eloquence as any words he could have uttered. What did he think of? Of the mighty changes which had

lifted him from the lowest to the highest estate on earth? Of the weary road which had brought him to this lofty summit? Of his poor mother lying beneath the tangled underbrush in a distant forest? Of that other grave in the quiet Concord cemetery? Whatever the particular character of his thoughts, it is evident that they were retrospective and painful. To those who were anxiously waiting to catch words upon which the fate of the nation might hang, it seemed long until he had mastered his feelings sufficiently to speak. At length he began in a husky tone of voice, and slowly and impressively delivered his farewell to his neighbors. Imitating his example, every man in the crowd stood with his head uncovered in the fast-falling rain.

“FRIENDS, — No one who has never been placed in a like position can understand my feelings at this hour, nor the oppressive sadness I feel at this parting. For more than a quarter of a century I have lived among you, and during all that time I have received nothing but kindness at your hands. Here I have lived from my youth, until now I am an old man. Here the most sacred ties of earth were assumed. Here all my children were born; and here one of them lies buried. To you, dear friends, I owe all that I have, all that I am. All the strange, checkered past seems to crowd now upon my mind. To-day I leave you. I go to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon Washington. Unless the great God, who assisted him, shall be with and aid me, I must fail; but if the same omniscient mind and almighty arm that directed and protected him shall guide and support me, I shall not fail, I shall succeed. Let us all pray that the God of our fathers may not forsake us now. To him I commend you all. Permit me to ask, that, with equal security and faith, you will invoke his wisdom and guidance for me. With these few words I must leave you for how long I know not. Friends, one and all, I must now bid you an affectionate farewell."

"It was a most impressive scene," said the editor of "The Journal." "We have known Mr. Lincoln for many years; we have heard him speak upon a hundred different occasions; but we never saw him so profoundly affected, nor did he ever utter an address which seemed to us so full of simple and touching eloquence, so exactly adapted to the occasion, so worthy of the man and the hour."