So the mere act of baptism or church membership gives a man but a poor title to the Christian name. Paul said, the man was not a Jew who was only one outwardly, that the mere rite of circumcision 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 nobody 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 assent 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 God. 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."