Abraham Lincoln's Religion Part 2

To express such deep feelings of religious principles did not necessitate his being a sectarian or even an attendant at church.

Yet we know Lincoln did attend church. We have already mentioned that he went regularly to Dr. Gurley's Presbyterian church in Washington, but he was a regular worshiper long before he came to Washington. When in Springfield he was an attendant of the First Presbyterian Church, of which the Rev. Dr. James Smith was pastor. This clergyman aided Lincoln, who had then begun the practice of law, in an investigation into the claims of the Bible. The future President at that time made a frank acknowledgment of his belief that the Bible is an authoritative revelation of G.o.d.

WHY DID LINCOLN NEVER JOIN A CHURCH?

_Give us men!

Men who, when the tempest gathers, Grasp the standard of their fathers In the thickest fight.

Men who strike for homes and altar, (Let the coward cringe and falter-- G.o.d defend the Right).

True as truth, though lorn and lonely, Tender as the brave are only-- Men who tread where saints have trod, Men for Country, Right, and G.o.d-- Give us men!--I say again, again Give us men!_

--_Bishop of Exeter_

III

WHY DID LINCOLN NEVER JOIN A CHURCH?

That Lincoln did not join a church is no reason for inferring that he was not a believer in Christianity. It was just the opposite in his case,--as the years pa.s.sed his convictions and faith became stronger.

The warring creeds of Christianity looked to him like so many soldiers of the same army disagreeing among themselves as to the best way to win a battle. Lincoln would win in any way he could, and would look on that way as the best. In his day, even more than in ours, ministers fell out with one another touching the meaning of the Bible, and then, as always, weakened its influence and their own upon the public mind. Preachers and teachers even now devote their time to useless discussions which will never benefit any one, and to the investigation of controverted points in theology, deciding principles of interpretation and attacking chronological difficulties that have no more connection with winning men to right living than the battle of Lexington has with the reformation of drunkards.

The precious time that Lincoln saw wasted, the energies misspent, and the intellectual antagonisms begotten, which then, as now, divided the hearts of men, caused him to reject dogmas which were considered essential to salvation by the denominations of his day. They moved, as alas! too many of them still do, in the old rut of orthodox tradition, steeped in human creeds and almost incapable of an original idea.

Lincoln preferred new truths to old falsehoods, and, like Christ, was out of sympathy with men who swallowed dogmas whole and produced only pious plat.i.tudes. This very thing to-day accounts for the fact that so many brilliant men and interesting women are unconnected with the churches and therefore unreached by the pulpits. Everywhere, in increasingly large numbers, we find men, energetic, learned, and refined, humane, generous, reverent, open to argument and spiritual persuasion, moral men with religious sensibilities, who often set a worthy example to professors themselves, the very choicest spirits in the community, not identified with any church, but whose lives, we all must admit, are as much and often more Christian than those of professed church-goers.

Mere water, whether a person is "buried in it," or whether it is applied at the tips of a bishop's fingers, makes no change whatever in character. Faith in religion as an inst.i.tution is faith in a machine,--its application is what tells.

When a member of Congress, knowing Lincoln's religious character, asked him why he did not join some church, he replied: "Because I find difficulty without mental reservation in giving my a.s.sent to their long and complicated creeds. When any church inscribes on its altar, as a qualification for membership, the Saviour's statement of the substance of the law and the Gospel,--'Thou shalt love the Lord thy G.o.d with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind ... and thy neighbor as thyself'--that church will I join with all my heart and soul."

John G. Nicolay, who probably was better acquainted with Lincoln and more closely attached to him than any one outside his own family and near relatives, writes: "I do not remember ever having discussed religion with Mr. Lincoln, nor do I know of any authorized statement of his views in existence. He sometimes talked freely, and never made any concealment of his belief or unbelief in any dogma or doctrine, but never provoked religious controversies. I speak more from his disposition and habits than from any positive declaration on his part.

He frequently made remarks about sermons he had heard, books he had read, or doctrines that had been advanced, and my opinion as to his religious belief is based upon such casual evidence. There is not the slightest doubt that he believed in a Supreme Being of omnipotent power and omniscient watchfulness over the children of men, and that this great Being could be reached by prayer. Mr. Lincoln, was a praying man; I know that to be a fact. And I have heard him request people to pray for him, which he would not have done had he not believed that prayer is answered. Many a time have I heard Mr. Lincoln ask ministers and Christian women to pray for him, and he did not do this for effect. He was no hypocrite, and had such reverence for sacred things that he would not trifle with them. I have heard him say that he prayed for this or that, and remember one occasion on which he remarked that if a certain thing did not occur he would lose his faith in prayer.

"It is a matter of history that he told the Cabinet he had promised his Maker to issue an Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation, and it was not an idle remark. At the same time he did not believe in some of the dogmas of the orthodox churches. I have heard him argue against the doctrine of atonement, for instance. He considered it illogical and unjust and a premium upon evil-doing if a man who had been wicked all his life could make up for it by a few words or prayers at the hour of death; and he had no faith in death-bed repentances. He did not believe in several other articles of the creeds of the orthodox churches. He believed in the Bible, however.... He used to consider it the greatest of all text-books of morals and ethics and that there was nothing to compare with it in literature....

"It would be difficult for any one to define Mr. Lincoln's position or to cla.s.sify him among the sects. I should say that he believed in a good many articles in the creeds of the orthodox churches and rejected a good many that did not appeal to his reason.

"He praised the simplicity of the Gospels. He often declared that the Sermon on the Mount contained the essence of all law and justice, and that the Lord's Prayer was the sublimest composition in human language.

He was a constant reader of the Bible, but had no sympathy with theology, and often said that in matters affecting a man's relations with his Maker he couldn't give a power of attorney.

"Yes, there is a story, and it is probably true, that when he was very young and very ignorant he wrote an essay that might be called atheistical. It was after he had been reading a couple of atheistic books which made a great impression on his mind, and the essay is supposed to have expressed his views on those books,--a sort of review of them, containing both approval and disapproval,--and one of his friends burned it. He was very indignant at the time, but was afterwards glad of it.

"The opposition of the Springfield clergy to his election was chiefly due to remarks he made about them. One careless remark, I remember, was widely quoted. An eminent clergyman was delivering a series of doctrinal discourses that attracted considerable local attention. Although Lincoln was frequently invited, he would not be induced to attend them. He remarked that he wouldn't trust Brother ---- to construe the statutes of Illinois and much less the laws of G.o.d; that people who knew him wouldn't trust his advice on an ordinary business transaction because they didn't consider him competent; hence he didn't see why they did so in the most important of all human affairs, the salvation of their souls.

"These remarks were quoted widely and misrepresented, to Lincoln's injury. In those days people were not so liberal as now, and any one who criticized a parson was considered a sceptic."

An orthodox believer Lincoln may not have been, in fact was not, but he was better,--he had the spirit of Christ which manifests itself more peculiarly in actions than in words. Love to G.o.d and man was his creed, the world was his church, kindly words and merciful deeds his sermons.

In a certain formal sense the baptized man or woman is a Christian, just as all foreigners who have been naturalized are Americans before the law, but the simple act of naturalization will not make any man a good American. There is a vast difference between naturalizing a man and nationalizing him. He is an American who is an American at heart, who owes but one allegiance, is loyal to but one country, and is true to but one flag, whose sympathies and choices, whose heroic labors and sacrifices in behalf of his country make him deserve the peerless name of American.

So the mere act of baptism or church membership gives a man but a poor t.i.tle to the Christian name. Paul said, the man was not a Jew who was only one outwardly, that the mere rite of circ.u.mcision was nothing, that the true Jew was one inwardly and at heart. If Paul could thus express himself as to the qualifications which characterized a member of the Jewish church, which was avowedly a ritualistic organization, it must be safe to say the same thing about those who profess a belief in the Christian church, which differed from the Jewish, mainly in caring less for rites and more for rightness.

Faith has its fundamental place in the plan of salvation, but faith, according to some people's understanding of it, is a vivid perception of, or rather a subscription to truth as the church fathers, or, more likely the church grandmothers, defined it. Faith, in this sense of the word, makes n.o.body a Christian. The devils believe and tremble.

It is of great importance to rightly believe the truth which relates to Christ and His kingdom, but the most unhesitating a.s.sent of the intellect to the most orthodox creeds, catechisms, commentaries, and systems ever framed will make no man a Christian. An upright and down square life is worth more than a whole ton of tall talk.

The grandest profession of religion is a life all devoted to glorifying Christ, by living in obedience to His commands, and thus making the world a little less accursed and more worthy of G.o.d.

A man may be a member of the most orthodox church in Christendom, he may sit at all the communions for a lifetime, but if he be mean and selfish and careless of the world's condition, he is no Christian. While, on the other hand, a man may, like Abraham Lincoln, have peculiarities of religious beliefs, and yet if he spend his whole life for others, as Lincoln did, then he is so much like Christ, emulating His example so well that he has good claim to be called a Christian.

"Blest is the man whose softening heart Feels all another's pain, To whom the supplicating eye Was never raised in vain; Whose breast expands with generous warmth, A stranger's woes to feel, And bleeds in pity o'er the wound He wants the power to heal; To gentle offices of love His feet are never slow-- He views through Mercy's melting eye A brother in a foe."

Abraham Lincoln never joined a church, because the creeds of his day and of his community were too inclusive of detail in doctrine and exacting in their ritual and terminology. He had no sympathy with theologians. He frequently declared that it was blasphemy for a preacher to "twist the words of Christ around, so as to sustain his own doctrine and confirm his own private views," and he often remarked that "the more a man knew of theology, the further he got away from the spirit of Christ."

Many preachers in the past have been strong factors in the march of civilization, but courageous preachers have always been scarce. As a rule, they have been more conservators of the past than moulders of the future, clinging with grim tenacity to the traditions and teachings of the early fathers.

Among the Church of England preachers in Virginia, while nearly all opposed separation from the mother country, there were few so militant as the famous John Peter Muhlenberg, who, from his pulpit at Woodstock, Virginia, declared: "There is a time for all things, a time to preach and a time to pray, but there is also a time to fight, and that time has now come," and suiting the action to the word, threw off his gown, disclosing a uniform beneath, and followed by three hundred men of his congregation, marched to join Washington's forces.

In Colonial times in New England, the pulpit occupied a more general sphere and exerted more general influence than to-day. Ministers preached that the Hebrew Commonwealth was the model for the new Republic, and so strenuously that as an effect our government a.s.sumed that form which prevailed among the Hebrews under the judges and had the divine sanction.

In the agitation of the slave question, as a cla.s.s, the preachers were mostly silent. Had they roused themselves to the defence of right, they could have created a public sentiment towards the inhuman and shameless traffic which would have destroyed slavery without the necessity of a civil war in which tens of thousands of lives were sacrificed and millions of money were lost.

Theodore Parker, Bishop Simpson, Albert Barnes, E. H. Chapin, Rabbis Sabato Morais and David Einhorn, and above all, Henry Ward Beecher, const.i.tuted the few conspicuous examples of the preachers who came out strongly for abolition, but the stand these great men took was effective, and once the die was cast, practically all the preachers became leaders in the movement for emanc.i.p.ation.

The att.i.tude of Lincoln on slavery was not determined by churchmen.

Lincoln made a wide distinction between churchmen and Christians.

Christianity is unselfish service born of love; churchianity is often a form without a G.o.d, a wearing of religion as a cloak and not as an armor,--it never obeys a command unless it is too feeble to resist, and in many cases, is a perfidy and treason against the law of Christ.

In Springfield, when Lincoln found that twenty of the twenty-three ministers of the different denominations and the majority of the members of the princ.i.p.al churches were arrayed against him in his Presidential campaign, he drew forth from his pocket a New Testament, saying to some friends present: "I have carefully read the Bible and I do not so understand this book. These men well know that I am for freedom in the territories, freedom everywhere, as free as the Const.i.tution and laws will permit, and that my opponents are for slavery. They know this and yet, with this book in their hands, in the light of which human bondage cannot live a moment, they are going to vote against me. I know that Liberty is right, for Christ teaches it and Christ is G.o.d. I shall be vindicated and these men will find that they have not read their Bible aright."

Despite the great abolition preachers and those who followed their example, some of the churches in Lincoln's time made a choice of public favor and sided with slavery, though, as has been stated, the majority of the ministers were strongly moved to follow in the lead of their distinguished brethren who had unfurled the flag of freedom, yet withal the church did not exert sufficient force to make herself a power in determining the issue. At this time the opportunity was afforded her of moulding public sentiment, and it may be readily inferred that had she possessed the solid Christianity of Abraham Lincoln the terrible war could have been averted and the country kept from being plunged in blood and gloom, but in this, the greatest of all crises, the church failed to do her duty as she should have done, and as a result, the bloodiest war of history devastated and almost desolated the land. Of course, once the war was declared the church stood solidly behind the President, but she had no other alternative compatible with reason and common sense, not to speak of patriotism. At length the preachers recognized the manner of man the country had in its great leader, and so they looked to him for counsel and for guidance. Lincoln was practically demonstrating that his religion was as good as theirs, and they, in turn, were now trying to make their religion as good as Lincoln's.

All along the Christianity of Lincoln had the true ring in it. It was of that type beautifully described in these lines:

"Creeds and confessions, high church or the low I cannot say; but you would vastly please us If some pointed scripture you would show To which of these belonged the Saviour, Jesus.

I think to all or none. Not curious creeds, Or ordered forms of church rule He taught, But love of soul that blossomed into deeds With human good and human blessings fraught.

On me nor priest nor presbyter nor pope, Bishop nor dean may stamp a party name, But Jesus with His largely human scope The service of my human life may claim; Let prideful priests do battle about creeds-- The church is mine that does most charitable deeds."

There was not a day, nay, not an hour of Lincoln's life but was devoted to some good work, some act of charity, some message of consolation or comfort or mercy to the miserable and the suffering; in short, Abraham Lincoln carried his religion into daily life; it accompanied him everywhere and on all occasions.

Every phase of his character was a demonstration of the Golden Rule.

From boyhood to manhood, from manhood to fame, honesty was his distinguishing trait. As a lawyer all his transactions were above suspicion. He would not take a case to which there could possibly be attached any stain of falsehood or foul-dealing. To a man who once offered him a case of which he could not approve, he gave this explanation, quoted by his partner, Herndon, who vouches for it: "There is no reasonable doubt that I can gain your case for you. I can set a whole neighborhood at loggerheads, I can distress a widowed mother and her six fatherless children, and thereby get you $600, which rightly belongs, as it appears to me, as much to them as it does to you. I shall not take your case, but I will give you a little advice for nothing,--you seem to be a splendid, energetic man,--I would advise you to try your hand at making $600 in some other way."