I X^lN"COLN :iV,t*o£.i,ECTioisr A DEFENCE of the MOTHER CONVERSION AND CREED Abraham Lincoln Fiat Justitia '^^' f;^^ A DEFENCE OF LINCOLN'S MOTHER, CONVERSION AND CREED Being an open letter to the author of "The Soul ^Abraham Lincoln" By JAMES M. MARTIN Second Edition Published at Minneapolis 1921 Cc2Zi 32 I yr^jo Nancy Hanks THE days of the distaflf, the skillet, the Diitch oven, the open fireplace with its iron crane, are no longer, but homemaking is still the finest of the fine arts. Nancy Hanks was touched with the divine atti tudes of the fireside. Loved and honored for her wit, geniality and intelligence, she justified an ancestry reaching beyond the seas, represented by the notable names of Hanks, Shipley, Boone, Evans and Morris. To her was entrusted the task of training a giant, in whose childhood memories she was hallowed. Of her he said, "My earliest recollection of my mother is sit ting at her feet with my sister, drinking in the tales and legends that were related to us." To him on her deathbed she said, "I am going. away from you, Abra ham, and I shall not return. I know that you will be a good boy ; that you will be kind to Sarah and to your father. I want you to live as I have taught you, and to love your Heavenly Father." "All that I am or hope to be I owe to my angel mother." (Abraha-m Lincol-n.) (From the inscription on inside wall of the granite building erected in Hardin County, Kentucky, on the site of, and housing, the log cabin in which Abraham Lincoln was born.) Open Letter Minneapolis, Minnesota, January 28, 1921. Rev. William E. Barton, Oak Park, Illinois. Dear Sir: I have read with interest your book entitled, "The Soul of Abraham Lincoln." The sub ject has been one of absorbing interest to me from my boyhood. Reared in a Christian home, where the speeches, debates, every message, proclamation, and item of per sonal news of our great President was anxiously awaited and carefully read and studied by an ardent Whig-Republican with real and genuine interest, no subsequent environment has caused me to forget those early lessons, — my reverence of the soul of Abraham Lincoln has grown with my age, and my love of him and of every true word written about him increases as the years go by. (I must crave pardon for this personal tone which seems necessary to set forth my interest in the sub ject.) I learned in those years, when scarcely ten years of age, at my father's fireside, that a mighty leader, an incorruptible statesman, had arisen in the land. The precept of that home was that Lincoln had come to his place in answer to the prayers of God's people, white and black, for generations past, and every utterance of his, that revealed his own soul, showed his Christian belief, or disclosed his faith in an over-ruling Provi dence or dependence upon the God of our nation as his personal God, was eagerly noted, and thanks given therefor at the family altar. Seven The keen sadness of that serious day in April, 1865, has never faded from my memory ; I recall my father's tears as I, then not quite fourteen, draped my horse in black and rode in the solemn funeral procession to listen to a funeral oration by the best talent that the neighborhood afiforded. It was a sad, sad day to those who loved Abraham Lincoln as our family truly loved him. So I am interested in the subject you selected for the title of your work. That the soul of Abraham Lincoln was true, honest, sincere, loving, devout, free from selfishness, prejudice and bias, we then believed, and my father, I know, had, from his diligent study of his every utterance available, and from testimony of contemporary witnesses — ^now dust — determined that Abraham Lincoln was a true, devout, praying Christian, that he loved the Lord his God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength, and his neighbor as himself, and would, I know, have sub scribed to the estimate of Reverend Cbiniquy, Lincoln's client and fast friend, whom you have quoted appro priately in connection with a remarkable interview at the White House, when he said: "I found in him the most perfect type of Chris tianity I ever met. Professedly, he was neither a strict Presbyterian, nor a Baptist, nor a Methodist ; but he was the embodiment of all which is more perfect and Christian in them. His religion was the very essence of what God wants in man." What more could be said except to add the testi mony of another who knew him, and deliberately stated in an oration : "I present Mr. Lincoln as the best specimen of Christian man I have ever encountered in public life." No miscroscope can add to either of these. Eieht In your book you have, with the tradition of sup pressed editions, but for the purpose of argument of course, reprinted the objectionable paragraphs in the works of Herndon and Lamon, the two familiar friends, wherein they each strove, without success, to make his Master appear such a one as he himself was, an infidel — and by your definition of "infidel," and the many interesting illustrations gleaned from your per sonal experiences in the environment of the wilderness (though probably more than fifty years after Lincoln had come out of it), you have, I am sure, explained away the mistaken charge of infidelity, and shown that neither of the friends really meant what he said. The reprinting of the charges will, of course, not hurt Lincoln any more than the many campaign slanders really hurt ; though they pained him, they did no injury to the pure soul of their object. When I took up your volume, I noticed with joy your statement that "This book attempts to be a digest . of all the available evidence concerning the religious faith of Abraham Lincoln. It undertakes also to weigh the evidence and to pass judgment, the author's own judgment, concerning it. If the reader's judgment agrees with the author's, the author will be glad ; but if not, at least the facts are here set forth in their full essential content." (The italics are, of course, my own.) This promise, I soon found with regret, was very far from being kept. Many facts and much evidence, first hand and proven by indisputable testimony, is clearly omitted. This appears most noticeably in regard to the character, beliefs and influence of Mr. Lincoln's mother. When a lawyer has promised the production of cer- Nine tain testimony, and then omits to introduce it, the conjecture is that his case has not developed just as he had planned it. But lawyers are usually frankly partisan. In my humble opinion, you have done injustice to your subject by the manner of your treatment of the mother of Abraham Lincoln. The Religious Infiuence of Lincoln's Mother. You give a chapter of thirty-two pages to "The environment of Lincoln's boyhood," and scarcely a line, surely not a full paragraph without detraction, to the character, teaching or influence of his mother. In efifect, you say you have learned from reading Buckle's History of Civilization, that the development of an individual or a nation is profoundly influenced by environment. I have not read Buckle. Does he show a single authentic case where environment has swept away the firmly fixed spiritual anchor of an individual ? Does your cited authority reverse the judgment of Solomon rendered and formulated in an injunction three thousand years ago?* *Note— Froude, in his Essay on The Science of History, pays Mr. Buckle the highest compliments for persuasive elo quence, diligence and persistency, but fails to endorse his theories as to the irresistible influence of environment upon mankind, or upon nations. Mr. Buckle maintained that "The Northern nations are hardy and industrious because they must till the earth if they would eat the fruits of it, and because the temperature is too low to make an idle life enjoyable. In the South the soil is more productive, while less food is wanted, and fewer clothes, and in the exquisite air exertion is not needed to make the sense of existence delightful. Therefore, in the South we find men lazy and indolent." Mr. Froude mildly remarks that "There are diflficulties in Ten Environment, of course, should be studied. Envi ronment may warp or develop, may profoundly influ ence an individual life ; but if the anchor is shown to have been firmly fixed, as in Lincoln's case, I venture to say no environment, such as his is known to have been, has ever been shown to sweep that anchor away from the rock of truth. There may be drifting and tossing, slacking and straining of the cable, darkness and storms may for years hide the rock, but the anchor holds, and the bark will not depart. So said the wise man, and so the religious life of Lincoln illustrated. Have you not laid unprofitable stress upon the "character of the preaching which Abraham Lincoln heard in his boyhood" and forgotten his mother's Bible, and his mother's prayers? You, no doubt, say truly that the prevailing and almost the sole type of preaching in that part of Indiana during Lincoln's boyhood "was a very unpro- gressive type" and "against it the bo-y, Abe Lincoln, rebelled." Why? Was it not the influence of his mother's teaching? In attempting to set forth "The True Story of Lincoln's Spiritual Life and Convictions," as the adver tisement of your book expresses it, can Lincoln's these views, the home of the languid ItaHan was the home also of the sternest race of whom the story of mankind retains a record. And, again when we are told that the Spaniards are superstitious because Spain is a country of earthquakes, we remember Japan, the spot in all the World where earthquakes are most frequent, and where at the same time there is the most serene disbelief in any super natural agency whatsoever. "Moreover, if men grow into what they are by natural laws, they can not help being what they are, and if they can not help being what they are, a good deal will have to be altered in our general view of human obligations and responsibilities." Eleven mother, her faith, her religion, her teachings, be ignored ? Can one properly learn the secret of a tree's development and ignore its root? In my humble opinion, it was very much more important to study the mother's religion, who held constant communion with the boy until he was nearly ten years of age, than to study the environments of either that mother or that boy during that period, or to inquire closely into the particular kind of a church that she joined with her husband, in a wilderness where churches were scarce, or the kind of preaching that the boy heard in those days or even the preaching that he heard, or failed to hear, in after years, but of course this is only my opinion. When I say religion, I mean, not the particular creed or doctrine of any church that she may have joined, but what was her girlhood religion, her wo man's faith, her belief in God and about God, and her love of her boy. Lincoln himself has not left the question of his mother's influence in doubt. Probably few prominent men of fifty-si.x have left such indisputable evidence as to the character and influence of his mother, and where and by zvho-m his spiritual anchor was fixed. I do not find that you have quoted any of these items of evidence in your book of upwards of 400 pages, and this is one of the omissions that I com plain of. J. G. Holland, as you know, in 1865, after the assassination, wrote a life of Lincoln, and in the prep aration thereof went into the neighborhoods of all three of the states where Lincoln had lived, and where there were at that time many still living who knew personally Nancy Hanks Lincoln, the President's Twelve mother, and personally gathered the evidence as to both mother and son. That Holland was not lacking in "training in or inclination toward historical investigation" (as you say Bishop Fowler was) must be admitted, and after such investigation he deliberately placed on record the facts that he found, and the conclusions that he came to, as follows : "Mrs. Lincoln, the mother, was evidently a wo man out of place among those primitive surround ings. She was five feet, five inches high, a slender, pale, sad and sensitive woman, with much in her nature that was truly heroic, and much that shrank from the rude life around her. A great man never drew his infant life from a purer or more womanly bosom than her own ; and Mr. Lincoln always looked back to her with an unspeakable affection. Long after her sensitive heart and weary hands had crumbled into dust, and had climbed to life again in forest flowers, he said to a friend, with tears in his eyes : 'All that I a-m, or hope to be, I owe to my angel -mother— blessings on her -me-mory' ."* "His character was planted in this Christian mother's life. Its roots were fed by this Christian mother's love; and those that have wondered at the truthfulness and earnestness of his mature character have only to remember that the tree was true to the soil fro-m ivhich it sprang." Even Herndon, who lifted up his heel against the son — mistakenly, no doubt — left on record a loving tribute to that mother, and he quotes from a friend, present at her deathbed, on October 5, 1818: "The mother knew she was going to die, and called her children (Abe and Sarah) to her bedside. She was very weak, and the children leaned over while she gave her last message. Placing her feeble hand on little Abe's head, she told him to be kind *See Appendix II. Thirteen and good to his father and sister ; to both she said 'Be good to one another,' expressing a hope that they might live as they had been taught by her, to love their kindred and worship God." Holland, again quoting from the White House, in Lincoln's dark days, when he had buried his little Willie, says that after the funeral, when the Christian nurse expressed sympathy for him, Lincoln replied : "I wish I had that childlike faith you speak of, and I trust He will give it to me." And then he spoke of his mother, whom so many years before he had committed to the dust among the wilds of Indiana. In this hour of his great trial, the mem ory of her who had held him upon her bosom, and soothed his childish griefs, came back to him with tenderest recollections. '/ re-member her prayers' said he, 'and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life'." Isaac N. Arnold, Esq., was an intelligent, credible witness, an intimate friend, an attorney, and member of Congress, and had exceptional* opportunities to know whereof he testified, and he says : "No more reverent Christian than he ever sat in the executive chair, not excepting Washington. From the time he left Springfield to his death he not only himself continually prayed for divine assistance, but continually asked the prayers of his friends for himself and his country. . . . Doubtless, like others, he passed through periods of doubt and perplexity, but his faith in a Divine Providence began at Piis mother's knee, and ran through all the changes of his life." There is at least one more direct witness from whom you have quoted a remarkable incident* — Father Chiniquy— "The Apostle of Temperance of Canada." After describing his own deliverance from a criminal *See Appendix III. Fourteen charge, based on perjured testimony before the court at Urbana, Illinois, in May, 1856, in which, after the adjournment of court at ten o'clock at night, the first day of the trial, his attorney, Lincoln, informed him that unless he could establish an alibi, he would be convicted in the morning, and added : "The only way to be sure of a favorable verdict tomorrow is that Almighty God would take our part, and show your innocence. Go to Him and pray, for He alone can save you," and when, at three o'clock, an unknown witness came and he was saved, that in Lincoln's talk with him in the morning, he said : "The way you have been saved from their hand, the appearance of that young and intelligent Miss Mofifat, who was really sent by God iij the very hour of need, when, I confess it again, I thought everything was nearly lost, is one of the most extra ordinary occurrences I ever saw. It makes me remember what I have too often forgotten, and what my mother often told me when young — that our God is a prayer-hearing God. This good thought sown into my young heart by that dear mother's hand, was just in my mind when I told you, 'Go and pray, God alone can save you.' But I confess to you that I had not faith enough to believe that your prayer would be so quickly and so marvelously answered by the sudden appearance of that interesting young lady last night." I repeat, I know of no man of prominence, who has not written his own autobiography, who has left more unimpeachable evidence as to where his spiritual anchor was fixed, and who it was that placed it. Neither his mother's character, nor her religious faith can be ignored in any proper study of the spiritual life of Abraham Lincoln. It is true that you have not omitted entire reference Fifteen to the mother. On page 86, when describing the opportunities of the bleak environment, you say, "Herndon tells us of the fondness of the Hanks girls for camp-meetings, and describes one in which Nancy appears to have participated, a little time before her marriage. We have no reason to believe that was her last camp-meeting." The facts that Herndon has left on record, are : "The Hanks girls were great at camp-meetings." "The Hanks girls were the finest singers and shouters in our county." But even he seemed to hesitate to assert that it was Nancy Hanks that participated in the scene, at a certain Kentucky camp-meeting, fantastically described by his informant, an outsider, who, with his girl, stood upon a bench in order to look over into the altar, and to laugh at the shouting. Notwithstanding this reference to camp-meetings, you had deliberately asserted, at the top of page 48: "It is a remarkable fact that the Lincoln family ap pears, never at any time in its history, to have been strongly under the influence of Methodism." Was it the Presbyterians or the hard shell Baptists that conducted camp-meetings in Kentucky during the first decade of 1800? I am somewhat in the dark, never having taught school in that state, even in the 80's, and not being specially educated in historical investigations. To emphasize the fact that you make the statement deliberately, you add a note: "I do not forget that Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks were married by Reverend Jesse Head, who was a Methodist preacher, but I do not find evidence that Mr. Head asserted any marked influence over them. Mr. Head was not only Sixteen a minister, but a Justice of the Peace, and anti-slavery man, and a person of strong and righteous character. I am not sure whether the fact that he performed the marriage is not due in some measure to the fact that he was about the court house, and a convenient minister to find." This insinuation of a hasty marriage is unworthy, and of course unfounded and false. The record shows that the marriage bond was formally executed and filed two days before the wedding, and that the marriage was celebrated at the home of Richard Berry, and the infare at the home of her guardian, to both of which all the neighbors came, etc. Is there any evidence that the active circuit rider. Rev. Jesse Head, "Deacon of the Methodist Episcopal Church" (as he signed himself), was in the habit of loafing around the court house ? Where was this court house located? At another place in your work, you admit that: "I am inclined to think that the Hanks family had Methodist antecedents. Thomas and Nancy Lincoln were married by a Methodist preacher. Rev. Jesse Head. He is known to have been a foe of slavery, and there is some reason to think that the Lincoln family derived some part of its love of freedom from him." There is no question of the correctness of these tardily admitted facts, and I am inclined to think that investigation would show that the hymns that Nancy Hanks sung were those of Charles Wesley, and that at the camp-meetings there were many sermons preached on Free Grace, and "Whosoever will," in short, that she was an ardent, devout, active Methodist. Whether she was a Methodist or not is, in my view, unimportant. She was, as the histories show, a loving, Seventeen sincere, earnest, praying mother, who trained her boy in the way he should go, and any attempt to take from her her rightful crown of glory, and give it to any preacher, or group of preachers, or cast it upon envi ronment, will and should fail. Justice is due to her memory. You have not written into any line the name of the denomination to which you belong, or the specific creed or doctrine to which you adhere. As a historian, of course, your personal views are entirely immaterial. A historian is expected to give all the facts without permitting his own views to influence the record by omissions or otherwise. When a man undertakes, however, to record his own personal judgment, it is important to know what his personal beliefs are, as even unconsciously his mind may be warped thereby. I have no reason for leaving anything to be read between the lines, and frankly say that I am a Metho dist — a layman — and do not believe that my mind has been greatly warped by reading theology. It is not, however, my aim, and if you can comprehend it, it is not my wish or desire to prove that Lincoln was a Methodist. I think Father Chiniquy came nearer the truth when he said that Lincoln was the embodiment of all which is more perfect and Christian in more than one denomination. Personally, I believe that Lincoln's belief embodied more that was distinctively Methodist than Calvinist, and I do resent the slight you have attempted to place upon his mother. Eighteen Rev. Col. J. F. Jaquess — Conversion I respectfully submit that in your book you did injustice to my friend and former pastor. Rev. Edward L. Watson, D. D., now of Baltimore, in that you charge him with having reported hearsay details as direct testimony, and have done wrong to the memory of Rev. Col. Jaquess in your assertion of the question- ableness of the story as told by him, and wrong to the memory of Mr. Lincoln, in repeatedly asserting that his life, after 1847 (or even 1839), was not consistent with the truth of the events recited by Colonel Jaquess. You have given over two pages to a subhead, "Was Abraham Lincoln a Methodist?" Who did you ever know to claim that Lincoln was a Methodist? In your book you say: (1) "This question would seem to require no answer, yet it is one that should receive an answer, for claims have been made, and are still current, which imply that Lincoln was actually converted in the Methodist church, whose doctrine he accepted because Calvinism was repugnant to him ; and that while he continued to attend the Presbyterian church, he was essentially a Methodist." (2) "At a reunion of the Seventy-third Illinois Volunteers held in Springfield on September 28 and 29, 1897, the colonel of that regiment. Rev. James F. Jaquess, D. D., related an incident in which he stated that while he was serving a Metho dist church in Springfield in 183Q, Mr. Lincoln attended a series of revival services held in that church, and was converted." (3) "Twelve years later, in 1909, in connection with the Centenary Celebration of the birth of Lincoln, the story was reprinted, zvith certain added details obtained frora the brother of Colonel Jaquess. Nineteen The death of Colonel Jaquess and the additions made by his brother give this incident its permanent form in the Christian Advocate article of November 11, 1909." (See appendix.) (4) "That the story as told by Colonel Jaquess must have some element of truth I think beyond question; that it occurred exactly as he related it, I greatly doubt. .The years between 1839 and 1897 numbered fifty-eight, and that is more than ample time for a man's memory to magnify and color incidents almost beyond recognition." "The story as it is thus told lacks confirmatory evidence. // Lincoln was converted in a Methodist church in 1839 and remained converted, a consider able number of events which occurred in subsequent years might reasonably have been expected to have been otherwise than they really were. Each reader must judge for himself in the light of all that we know of Abraham Lincoln how much or how little of this story is to be accepted as literal fact. The present writer cannot say that he is convinced by the story." (In Note) — "It is a story which it is impossible to fit into the life of Lincoln. In Latest Light on Lincoln, Page 396, Chapman says, 'There is every reason for giving this remarkable story unquestion ing credence.' On the contrary, there is every good reason for questioning it at every essential point, and the questions do not evoke satisfactory answers."After thus attempting to discount the story, and discredit both Dr. Watson and Colonel Jaquess, you published in full Dr. Watson's article of November 11, 1909, in the Appendix to your volume. A careful reading of the article, even if not sympa thetic, will show the many errors in your attempted repudiation of its truth. Dates are sometimes impor tant, and every lawyer knows that testimony from memory as to dates is very unreliable, and usually Twenty practically worthless. It behooves a historian, there fore, to check up the dates, unless they are based specifically upon record. The date that Rev. Jaquess preached the sermon upon "Ye must be born again"^which Mr. Lincoln listened to, and afterwards went to the parsonage where Mr. Jaquess and his wife prayed with him, was in May, 1847, not in 1839. I give simply the proper date, and will hereafter give the evidence that sustains it. Mr. Jaquess' own story, as told by himself at the Eleventh Annual Reunion of the Survivors of the Seventy-third Regiment, held September 28 and 29, 1897, and which Dr. Watson correctly copied into his article of November 11, 1909, is as follows: "Very soon after my second year's work as a minister in the Illinois conference, I was sent to Springfield. ... It was one Sunday morning, a beautiful morning in May . . . the church happened to be filled that morning. It was a good sized church, but on that day all the seats were filled. I had chosen for my text the words, 'Ye must be born again,' and during the course of my sermon I laid particular stress on the word 'm-ust.' Mr. Lincoln came in the church after the services had commenced, and there being no vacant seats, chairs were put in the altar in front of the pulpit and Mr. Lincoln and Governor French and wife sat in the altar during the entire services, Mr. Lincoln on my left and Governor French on my right, and I noticed that Mr. Lincoln appeared to be deeply interested in the sermon. A few days after that Sunday Mr. Lincoln called on me and informed me that he had been greatly impressed with my remarks on Sunday and that he had come to talk to me further on the matter. I invited him in, and my wife and I talked and prayed with him for hours. Now, I have seen many persons con- Twenty-one verted; I have seen hundreds brought to Christ, and if ever a person was converted, Abraham Lin coln was converted that night in my house. His wife was a Presbyterian, but from remarks he made to me he could not accept Calvinism. He never joined my church, but I will always believe that since that night Abraham Lincoln lived and died a Christian gentleman." Now, what is there in this story that is improbable, false, or inconsistent with the future life, habits and actions of Mr. Lincoln ? What did he do after May, 1847, that was inconsistent with the most critical con struction of Colonel Jaquess' statement? Dr. Watson, in his article in the Christian Advocate, quoted this statement, word for word. He added nothing to it, except his own expression of pleasure that he was able to prove that Methodism had a hand in the making of the greatest American. If you had read with care the first part of Dr. Watson's article, you would have seen that he was giving from memory the narrative told him personally by Colonel Jaquess twelve years before. There is not one syllable in the narrative admitted by Dr. Watson, to be "added details obtained from the brother of Colonel Jaquess," and your repeated assertion that Dr. Watson had reported "additions made by his brother" is wrong, and a wrong on your part to Dr. Watson. That Dr. Watson had carried in his mind for twelve years without memoranda the narrative as clearly as stated, is really remarkable. He wrote it out in 1909 without having before him, very evidently, any memo randa of the incident, — not even the garbled accounts printed in the Minneapolis newspapers in May, 1897. It appears that after Colonel Jaquess had told the incident to Dr. Watson, in May, 1897, that he was invited by him to attend the Minneapolis Ministers' Twenty-two Monday Meeting, which he did, and told to them there the same story that he related in September of the same year, before the soldiers' reunion in Springfield. Dr. Watson having apparently partially prepared his article of 1909, discovered, after doing so, that the record was in the minutes of the proceedings of the reunion of the Regiment of 1897, and instead of re writing his own memory report, he says : "The narra tive as told thus far is as my memory recalls it. Since writing it, the same, as told by Colonel Jaquess has recently been discovered by me in the minutes of the proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Reunion Survivors Seventy-third Regiment, Illinois Infantry Volunteers, page 30, a copy of which is before me," and he then quotes the record, both of which are before me. As to the dates given by Dr. Watson from memory, there are three, only one of them is important — 189^1 — the date that he came to Minneapolis, is correct ; "1896," the date when he met Colonel Jaquess, should be 1897; and 1839 as the date of Colonel Jaquess' sermon that Lincoln listened to, should be 1847; but only one of them is important — 1847. If you had investigated the question, as a historian, before condemning it, you would have noticed this error in dates, because Colonel Jaquess was not a minister of the gospel in 1839. You will note that Colonel Jaquess says that the date that he came to Springfield was "very soon after my second year's work as a minister." Methodist ministers were ap pointed annually, but never more than three years to the same place, and seldom more than two. The year book of Depauw University — 1884— gives Colonel Jaquess as an alumnus, with the following: "Graduated 1845, entered Illinois Conference; 1845 Twenty-three appointed to Shawneetown Circuit; 1846 Petersburg; 1847-48 Springfield; 1849 President Female College, Jackson; 1855 Paris Station; 1856 President College, Quincy, Illinois ; . . . Address : London, Eng land." Hon. Augustus C. French was Governor of Illinois from December 9, 1846, to 1852, an irregular term, caused by the Constitution being amended during his first term. Lincoln was in Springfield in May, 1847, and until November, when he was absent for two years in Wash ington, D. C, in Congress. This record does not contradict, but corroborates the story of Colonel Jaquess that in May, soon after his second year in the ministry, he had the opportunity of preaching a sermon to which Abraham Lincoln and Governor French and his wife might have listened. Did he? Who is the witness? Was he credible? Let us look for a moment at your discounts : ( 1 ) You assert that it is implied that Lincoln was actually converted in the Methodist church, whose doctrine he accepted, and that while he continued to attend the Presbyterian church, he was essentially a Methodist. The record does not disclose any discussion of a distinctive "doctrine," accepted or otherwise. It was the necessity of a new birth that interested Lincoln. There was no continuing to attend the Presbyterian church, because Lincoln had not commenced in 1847, much less in 1839, according to your own record, to attend that church with his wife. It was not until after February 1, 1850, that he even became acquainted with Dr. James Smith, of Sacred Memory. Twenty-four (2) You are wrong in asserting that, in 1897, be fore his comrades in Springfield, Rev. James F. Jaquess, D. D., related an incident in which he stated that "while he was serving a Methodist church in Springfield in 1839, Mr. Lincoln attended his service," etc. Colonel Jaquess pointed out the correct date, and a historian should not have perpetuated the erroneous date, given expressly from memory of a narrator, not claiming to have been especially "trained in historical research." (3) You are doubly wrong in asserting that "The story was reprinted with certain added details obtained from the brother of Colonel Jaquess." The brother added not a syllable, and even much less than a sympathetic reading of the article of No vember 11, 1909, would have shown this clearly, and that your assertions were a direct reflection on Dr. Watson. (4) Your grounds for discrediting the story is the assumption that Colonel Jaquess had magnified and colored the incident almost beyond recognition during the fifty years that elapsed between the incident and the telling. Stories grow by retelling. There is no evidence that Colonel Jaquess repeated the story more than three times, once to Dr. Watson, once to the Minne apolis ministers, and once to his comrades at their reunion. Your questioning reflects on the character of Colonel Jaquess, and calls for a showing of the kind of man he really was, which I will aim to touch on hereafter. Why Colonel Jaquess did not repeat this story over Twenty-five and over again during the fifty years, so that others who had written about Lincoln should have learned of it before 1897, is explained by the fact that Colonel Jaquess was not living in America at the time the questions were being raised as to the religious beliefs of Abraham Lincoln. At the close of the war in 1866, he went into the Freedmen's Bureau, and until 1875 was engaged there and in work of restoration in the South. He then became interested in business which took him to Eng land, and for over twenty years he resided abroad. The record only shows that he was able to attend two of the reunions of his regiment, at both of which he made the annual address. In 1889 he came from London, expressly to attend that meeting, and after traveling 4,000 miles and meeting his comrades at their reunion, he stayed but twenty-four hours, and returned to meet pressing engagements in England. The other time that he met with the regiment was in September, 1897, when he not only made the annual address, but related the incident in regard to Mr. Lincoln, which Dr. Watson quoted. Bishop Fowler's oration, to which he referred, and which recalled the incident to his mind, was delivered first in Minneapolis in 1894, not in 1904, as you give the date on page 111. I had heard that admirable oration twice before 1904, and do not accept your at tempted detractions. The Bishop, even if not having "had any training in or inclination toward historical investigation," had the advantage of being personally acquainted with Lincoln, and with many of his advisors. Whether Dr. Jaquess had heard of the life of Twenty-six Lincoln by Herndon, or by Lamon, does not appear, but he had heard of Bishop Fowler's lecture, and as he says that that lecture reminded him that, "I happen to know something on that subject (Lincoln's religion) that very few persons know. My wife, who has been dead nearly two years, was the only witness of what I am going to state to you as having occurred," and then he narrates the occurrence to his comrades. Your next statement is that the story, as it is thus told, lacks confirmatory evidence. The character of Dr. Jaquess, then in his seventy-seventh year, would seem to be sufficient in itself ; but you say that a considerable number of events which occurred in sub sequent years might reasonably have been expected to have been otherwise than they really were, if Lincoln had been converted in a Methodist church. What are those events? Is a definition of "con version," as well as a definition of "infidelity," re quired ? You will note the language of Dr. Jaquess : "Now, I have seen many persons converted. I have seen hundreds brought to Christ, and if ever a person was converted, Abraham Lincoln was converted that night in my house. He never joined my church, but I will always believe that since that night Abraham Lincoln lived and died a Christian gentleman." Was not this last true? In fact, is it not corrobo rated in every known event which occurred in Lincoln's life in subsequent years? When Lincoln returned from Washington in 1849, Colonel Jaquess had gone from Springfield.* Who his successor was I have not inquired. ?Note— W. G. Jaquess, "The Drummer Boy of Chicka- mauga," now Superintendent of Schools of Tunica County, Mississippi, in a letter to his cousin, Miss Fannie M. Jaquess, said, "In a conversation with Senator CuIIom, Twenty-seven Lincoln with his logical mind was not liable to attend church where the preaching was poor, and I know of no evidence that he attended any church after his return from Washington, until after February, 1850, when his wife attended, and in 1852 joined the Presbyterian church. He went with her to hear Dr. Smith, who was an able preacher. Dr. Smith did not claim, so far as your records show, that Mr. Lincoln was converted under his preaching, or in his church (he never joined it), and the most that can be claimed is that he enjoyed Dr. Smith's preaching — that he was helped by it, and that Dr. Smith with his book "The Christian's Defense," helped Lirjcoln to dissolve his doubts; he found the arguments "unanswerable." It was a question of intellect and mind. Conversion rather is a matter of heart, I take it. I have heard that Satan often comes back with old or new doubts after conversion. Lincoln seems to have been so assailed again in 1862, and it was an Episcopal rector who helped him. (Johnson on Lincoln the Christian, pp. 30-34.) It seems to me that the story, as told by Colonel Jaquess, does fit into the life of Lincoln, and that there is no good reason for questioning any essential point of Colonel Jaquess' narrative. You call New Salem Mr. Lincoln's Alma Mater- well and good. Mr. Lincoln came from his Alma Mater on his borrowed horse, with his mother's Bible, Aesop's Fables, and Pilgrim's Progress, but like many another young man, he evidently had been using his of Illinois, several years ago, in discussing old times, father's name was mentioned quite often, and he remarked that he and Mr. Lincoln frequently went to hear father preach, and that they both enjoyed his sermons very much." He further said: "I have not seen Mr. Barton's book." Twenty-eight intellect and his reason while in that school, and came out with many unsolved doubts. He had, for the time being, gotten away from his mother's prayers, although he carried and read, and had memorized much of his mother's Bible, and the book and preaching of Dr. Smith was what was needed to help him over the doubts. The evidence seems clear, aside from Colonel Jaquess' report, that somewhere between the time he alighted in front of Joshua Speed's Store, April 15, 1837, and that February day in 1861, when he stood on the platform of the train, there had been a decided change of heart — a new birth — a conversion. His whole life shows it, and I know of no event subsequent to 1847 that contradicts the fact narrated by Colonel Jaquess. That there was much unbelief in Springfield, as well as in New Salem, is evidenced by the fact that each of the three close friends of Lincoln — Herndon, Lamon and Speed — believed himself to be an infidel. After twenty-five years of such environment, Mr. Lincoln came forth on his way to the presidency, with his mother's Bible in his hand, a prayer upon his lips, and a firm faith in his heart that there was a prayer- hearing God, and that if the great God who assisted Washington, would be with and aid him, he would not fail in his allotted task. Lincoln was converted just as Dr. Jaquess related. It is interesting to note that Lincoln's closest friend, Joshua Speed, after his conversation with Lincoln in the Summer of 1864, upon belief in the Bible, over came his skepticism and joined the Methodist Episcopal church. You have deliberately so reflected upon Colonel Twenty-nine Jaquess, "the Fighting Parson," that a slight acquaint ance with him should be sought. You lay down as the first question in weighing testimony, "Is the witness credible?" It is well. What kind of a man was Rev. James Frazier Jaquess, D. D., pastor of the Methodist Epis copal church, Springfield, from the Spring of 1847 until 1849? [Fall of 1846 until 1848.] Chapter 8, of the History of the "Preacher Regi ment," sometimes called "The Methodist Regiment," which was enlisted by Colonel Jaquess, and com manded by him from Shilo to the end of the war, is devoted to the life of its colonel, was written by one who knew him well, and says of him as a preacher and teacher: "During his whole career as a preacher and teacher, Mr. Jaquess was a man of strongly marked individuality. His address was polished and win ning, his presence magnetic to a marked degree. He influenced all with whom he came in contact, and made friends by the thousand in all parts of the country. He was in great demand in the pulpit and on the platform, his oratory being of the earnest, electric kind, that was popular with all classes of people, from the ripest scholar to the humblest laborer or frontiersman. He was never abashed in any company, and no man ever felt abashed in his. He took a living interest in all public afifairs ; but in his chosen sphere as a Christian minister he shone to unsurpassed advantage. Whenever it was an nounced that he was to preach, whether at a city church, a cross-road schoolhouse, or a backwoods camp-meeting, hundreds flocked to hear and went away to praise." Just the man Lincoln would be expected to wish to hear, and to be willing to pay a quarter to be sure that he might not be bored by a journeyman. Thirty After Shilo, he resigned as chaplain of the Sixth lUinois, and asked the privilege of raising and com manding a "Methodist Regiment" for the war. This regiment was unique, nearly all of the commissioned officers from the colonel down, and twenty of the privates, were licensed Methodist preachers, while something over 600 of the soldiers in the ranks were members of the Methodist Episcopal church. When mustered out, the record showed that it had been in ten battles, and many skirmishes, and of the 972 members, 215 had been killed or died of wounds or disease, while 182 had been discharged on account of wounds or dis abilities ; that its colonel had two horses killed under him in battle. His son of fourteen years was a drum mer boy, captured and escaped, and is the subject of the romance, "The Boy of Chickamauga." In 1864, when all at home were tired of the war, certain parties from the South were in Canada, at Niagara Falls, talking peace, and Horace Greeley was urging Lincoln to treat with them, and the Peace Party in the North was growing like a snowball upon a descending incline. Lincoln beHeved it would be desir able, if possible, to sound Jeiiferson Davis personally, and as he expressed it, "draw his fire." Colonel Jaquess had proposed undertaking such a trip to General Rosencrans, who wrote to Lincoln, forwarding Jaquess' letter by J. R. Gilmore, the anti- slavery writer and lecturer, of Boston.* Gilmore had three interviews with the President, who, while anxious to obtain the information, said the trip, if made, must be taken on individual, unofificial responsibihty, and that it would be dangerous, and finally Lincoln insisted that Gilmore accompany Jaquess. The trip was made. *See Appendix IV. Thirty-one They carried "terms" to be talked to, but under np circumstances to be known as dictated by Lincoln. These were characteristic — "Surrender, Union, Eman cipation, — then Amnesty, Compensation for Slaves." Lincoln said, "I know Jaquess will be discreet. Explain to him why I can not see him personally. I don't want to hurt his feelings." A two hour conference was had with Mr. Davis and Benjamin, his secretary of state. A partial report was published in the September and December Atlantic Monthly, 1864, as "Our Visit to Richmond." The balance as "A Suppressed Chapter in History" in the same magazine, April, 1887. The result was that they drew from Davis personally the ultimatum, "We are not fighting for slavery, we are fighting for independence," and Lincoln said to Gil more, "This may be worth as much to us as a half dozen battles. Jaquess was right, God's hand is in it. Publish a card of the result of your visit ; get it into the Tribune ; everybody is agog to hear your report. It win show the country that I didn't fight shy of Greeley's Niagara business without a reason." The result of the visit was published all over the North, the Peace Party melted away and Lincoln was triumphantly re-elected. When Gilmore was urging the President to give Jaquess an official standing for his trip, Lincoln said, "I know Jaquess. He feels that he is acting as God's servant and messenger, and he would recoil from any thing like political finesse. We want to draw Davis' fire, but we must do it fairly." Garfield, Chase, Sumner and Rosencrans all ap proved of Colonel Jaquess' action, and were with Thirty-two President Lincoln delighted with the result as a great service to the country. Gilmore in his report in 1864, in the Atlantic, said of his companion: "A man more cool, more brave, more self-confident, more self-devoted than this quiet 'Western Parson,' it never was my fortune to en counter." Now it was just thirty-three years from the time of Colonel Jaquess' return from Richmond with the word that war or disunion was the only terms possible, and the whole country was ringing with his name, that he related to his comrades in arms the story of Lincoln's visit to his parsonage in Springfield in 1847. He was then still vigorous and clear-headed, though in his seventy-seventh year. He was not the man either to magnify dr exaggerate. He was a credible witness, and I submit that Dr. Chapman was correct when he recorded this incident "with complete assurance of its correctness," and that he was far more correct than you when he wrote in his Latest Light on Lincoln, "There is every reason for giving this remarkable story unquestioning credence." I beg to enclose a copy of the photograph of the witness. I am informed by his niece. Miss Fanny M. Jaquess, Acting Secretary of the Woman's Christian Association of Minneapolis, that she understands the original was taken in 1889, on the occasion of the reunion that year.* ?Note — W. G. Jaquess, Superintendent of Education, Tunica, Miss., writes : "I am sure the address of father at the reunion of the 73rd was correct in every detail. I doubt if father repeated this story often, in fact am sure he did not. I never heard him do so but a very few times. I am sure the facts were so fixed in his mind that he could not have been mistaken." At the request of a Mr. Leslie "I sent the pro ceedings of the reunion in which father's statement ap peared, and was promised a copy of Rev. Barton's book, but have not seen it." Thirty-three Creed You have compiled for Abraham Lincoln a "creed" of nine articles. I have no fault to find with any one article taken from his addresses, messages, proclama tions, and personal letters, written by himself. Half truths by omission is a fault. You say in regard to the selections you have made for your purpose: "We might go much farther and could find a considerable body of additional material, but this is sufficient and more than sufficient for our purpose. In these utterances may be found something of the determinism that was hammered into Lincoln by the early Baptist preachers and riveted by James Smith, along with some of the humanitarianism of Parker and Channing, and much which lay unstratifiedi in Lincoln's own mind but flowed spon taneously from his pen or dropped from his Ups because it was native to his thinking and had come to be a component part of his life. Anyone who cares to do so may piece these utterances together and test his success in making a creed out of them. " They lend themselves somewhat readUy to such an arrangement." As to the early preaching, you had already recorded that against it, "the boy Abe Lincoln rebelled," and that he only mimicked and ridiculed their hammering. You have again forgotten his mother, and failed to give her credit for the "much which lay unstratified in Lincoln's own mind — which was native to his thinking and had come to be a component part of his life." In your study of fourteen pages of the question of "Why did Lincoln never join the church ?" you found yourself compeUed to accept Lincoln's own answer, as established beyond any reasonable doubt, as being his Thirty-four own, and might, it seems to me, have been properly made an article of this constructed creed : "I believe that whosoever loves the Lord, his God, with all his heart and soul, and mind and strength, and his neighbor as himself, is a Christian and should be admitted as a member of the visible church." The testimony supporting this article in the re ported language of Mr. Lincoln himself is : "I have never united myself to any church, because I have found difficulty in giving my assent, without mental reservation, to the long, complicated statements of Christian doctrine which characterize their articles of belief and confessions of faith. When any church will inscribe over its altars, as its sole qualification for membership, the Saviour's condensed statement of the substance of both law and gospel, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 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 all my soul." Whether you are right or not in your contention that the fault was not all with the churches, but that "Some share of the responsibility for his failure to unite with the church must belong to Lincoln himself," it would have been much fairer and seemed less par tisan to not have omitted from a "creed" thrust upon him in the first person, this article sigain and again, an nounced by him and proven beyond a reasonable doubt by three credible witnesses, one of them Rev. Phineas D. Gurley, Presbyterian pastor, of Washington, one Hon. Henry C. Deming, Congressman for Connecticut, who testified to it June 8, 1865, before there was time to permit any growth or exaggeration. You say "Lincoln lacked some of the finer feelings." He never lacked in scrupulous, conscientious honesty; Thirty-five he never tried to mislead a court or jury by suppressing material testimony, rather he ran away and washed his hands. You entirely ignore the teaching of his mother, slight her as he never did, and yet repeat "though a Calvinist in his early training" — "The Calvinism which he inherited and heard through his childhood." Trained by whom? Inherited from whom? Heard where? Not at his mother's knee. I am sure your historical research has found no evidence that any such inher itance, training or teaching came from this mother. The mother and the mother's influence can not be thus ignored in any "True Story of Lincoln's Life and Convictions."* The People Called Methodists Having, on page 48, asserted, for an evident pur pose, as a statement of fact, "that the Lincoln family appears never at any time in its history to have been strongly under the influence of Methodism," thus slighting and ignoring entirely the mother, and your own statement on page 36, as to her participation be fore and after her marriage in campnmeetings in Ken tucky, you again, on page 64, make the assertion that Lincoln's "association with Methodists was largely in the political arena, where he crossed swords three times with Peter Cartwright." This statement lacks histor ical accuracy. *Note— In the "Outlook" of April 14, 1920, Lyman Ab bott, reviewing Dr. Barton's book, says: "Herndon says he was a fatalist — Barton that he was a Calvinist. He certainly was not a John Calvin Calvinist. John Calvin held that man had lost his freedom in the fall; and Abraham Lincoln's whole understanding of life was based on his belief in the free will, and therefore the moral responsibility of man." Thirty-six After complimenting the Presiding Elder Cart wright, as a doughty hero of the cross, who exerted a mighty influence for good in early Illinois, you say : "He, Lincoln, could not have failed to respect such men, but it is not altogether certain that he was tempted to love them." It is not altogether certain just what you mean by "them," but I hold no brief for the Methodists ; they need no defense. I was impeUed to write this letter by reason of the glaring injustice and wrong attempted to be done to Abraham Lincoln's mother, and to my friend. Dr. Watson, and the memory of his friend. Dr. Jaquess. Both of these wrongs grated upon my sense of justice. As to Lincoln's love of Methodists, the history is too full to require citations. They and their influence were ever with his family and with him, in increasing numbers and force, from the cabin in Kentucky to the White House and the tomb, where Bishop Simpson pronounced the funeral oration. The soul of Abraham Lincoln was too large to admit of prejudice or bickering over sects, doctrines, or dogmas. While he prayed, "God bless the Methodist church," he added, "Bless aU the churches," and while at his invitation both Bishop Simpson and Bishop Janes prayed with him in the White House, so did his Quaker lady friend more than once, and he said to her, "I feel helped and strengthened by your prayers." He also found strength and help from the Episcopal rector, Francis Vinton, D. D., as well as from the prayers of Dr. Smith and Dr. Gurley, the pastors of his wife's Presbyterian churches. He was one of the elect who learned of the doctrine by willing to do the will of his Master, and any attempt to contract that Thirty-seven great soul to promote a dogma is unworthy and un seemly. Neither Dr. Smith nor Dr. Gurley ever made such an attempt, or intimated such a claim. Bishop Simpson is the only one to whom it is known that Lincoln showed his proposed Emancipation Proclamation before he read it to the Cabinet, and he suggested that there ought to be a recognition of God in that important paper, which may have led to Lin coln's accepting and adopting the last sentence in prac tically the language submitted by a member of his Cabinet. Dr. Bowman, afterwards Bishop, was chaplain of the Senate during the last year of the war, and tells of Bishop Simpson being sent for by Lincoln on many occasions for consultation upon public matters, and that Lincoln held him in the highest esteem, and at tached much importance to his counsel ; never failed to attend upon his ministry, as he preached often in Washington, while Lincoln was in the White House, and Dr. Bowman gives this instance: "On one occasion, with two or three friends, I was conversing with Mr. Lincoln, near the distant window in the 'Blue Room,' when, unexpectedly, the door opened and Bishop Simpson entered. Im mediately the President raised both arms, and started for the bishop almost on a run. When he reached him he grasped him with both hands and exclaimed, 'Why, Bishop Simpson, how glad I am to see you !' In a few moments we retired, and left them alone. I afterwards learned that they spent several hours in private, and that this was one of the times when the bishop had been speciaUy asked by the President to come to Washington for such an interview." The task would be endless to show the many cases where not only Lincoln was influenced by, but where it Thirty-eight is "altogether certain" that he was not only tempted but that he did love such men, — among them Rev. Peter Akers, D. D., at the camp-meetings near the Salem church; Dr. Jaquess', in Springfield; Dr. Bow man, Bishop Janes and Bishop Simpson at Washing ton — but enough. As I have said before, I have no desire to prove that Lincoln was a Methodist, nor have I any need to defend the Methodist church or individual Methodists. This letter has been called forth by the injustice at tempted to be done to the memory of Lincoln's angel mother, and the slight deliberately attempted to be placed upon my personal friend and former pastor. Dr. Watson, and I am. Sir, Yours for an unbiased and true story of Lincoln's Spiritual Life and Convictions, 405 Marquette Avenue. Thirty-nine fc/-"^ ^Sj- *