In regard to his religious views, Lincoln was always exceedingly reticent, but this reserve gives but greater force to the striking proof of the deep faith professed in his proclamations and public addresses, and that his life was actuated by high religious principles. He was too broad, too big brained, to care for doctrinal beliefs or sectarian differences. His mother and father were Free-Will Baptists in Kentucky. In Indiana they became members of what was then known as the Predestinarian church, not from any change in belief, but because it was the only denomination in the neighborhood. When Thomas Lincoln removed to Illinois he united with the Christian church, commonly known as "Campbellites," and in that faith he died. In his early days Lincoln had little opportunity for the practice of religion, and his parents, though religious enough in themselves, as has just been pointed out, took little trouble to inculcate its precepts on his youthful mind. The charge has been brought against him that he was an agnostic, but this arose from the fact that when a young man at Salem, in 1834, he prepared a review of Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason" and Volney's "Ruins of Empires," with a view to reading it before a literary society that had been organized in the neighborhood. A friend of his--Sam Hill--burned the manuscript, which made the young man very indignant, as he had spent much time in its preparation. He had, to an extent, indorsed the views of these deistic writers, and their works had made a deep impression on him, but he came to realize their specious sophistries at their true value and turned away from them with feelings of strong aversion, so that he thanked Sam Hill for the service he had done him in destroying the manuscripts of approval and thus turning his thoughts in the right direction which led him to see the evils of infidel teachings. He never was an unbeliever, and as he advanced in years his religious conceptions deepened and his faith and reliance on the Divine Power strengthened with time. In common with those reared under similar circumstances in rural localities he was highly superstitious, and this superstition he was never able to shake off in after life, though to offset it and counteract the morbid influence it exerted over him he had recourse to humor and tried to look on the bright side of everything, often on the ludicrous side, and gave such free rein to his inclination in this direction that he gained for himself something of the reputation of a humorist and wag, but in reality his love for jesting and telling humorous stories came to him as a second nature, an inheritance from his father, who was renowned in his section for droll sayings, funny anecdotes, and striking illustrations.