In the _Open Court_ for Nov. 26, 1891, Mr. McCrie contributes an article on "What Was Abraham Lincoln's Creed?" Concerning Lincoln's allusions to God, he says: "A Deity thus shelved or not shelved, according to the dictates of political expediency, or of individual opinion as to the 'propriety' of either course is no Deity at all. He is as fictional as the 'John Doe' or 'Richard Roe' of a legal writ, and anyone making use of such a creation--the puppet, not the parent, of his own Egoity--is supposed to know with what he is dealing. Orthodox religionism may well despair of Abraham Lincoln as of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, or President Jefferson." GEN. M. M. TRUMBULL Gen. Trumbull, of Chicago, in the _Open Court_ of Dec. 3,1891, writes: "The religion that begs the patronage of presidents doubts its own theology, for the true God needs not the favor of men.... Some of his [Lincoln's] tributes to Deity are merely rhetorical emphasis, but others were not. Cicero often swore 'By Hercules,' as in the oration against Catiline, although he believed no more in Hercules than Abraham Lincoln believed in any church-made God." REV. DAVID SWING, D.D. In a sermon on "Washington and Lincoln," the most eminent and popular divine of Chicago, Dr. Swing, said: "It is often lamented by the churchmen that Washington and Lincoln possessed little religion except that found in the word 'God.' All that can here be affirmed is that what the religion of those two men lacked in theological details it made up in greatness. Their minds were born with a love of great principles.... There are few instances in which a mind great enough to reach great principles in politics has been satisfied with a fanatical religion.... It must not be asked for Washington and Lincoln that, having reached greatness in political principles, they should have loved littleness in piety." REV. JENKIN LLOYD JONES. The Rev. J. Lloyd Jones, one of Chicago's most eloquent divines, in a sermon preached in All Souls Church, Dec. 9, 1888, gave utterance to the following: "Are there not thousands who have loved virtue who did not accept Jesus Christ in any supernatural or miraculous fashion, who if they knew of him at all knew of him only as the Nazarine peasant--the man Jesus? Such was Abraham Lincoln, the tender prophet of the gospel of good will upon earth; Charles Sumner, the great apostle of human liberty; Gerrit Smith, the St. John of political reform; William Ellery Channing, our sainted preacher; Theodore Parker, the American Luther, hurling his defiance at the devils of bigotry; John Stuart Mill and Harriet Martineau--yes, to take an extreme case, the genial and over-satirical Robert G. Ingersoll, are among those who love goodness and foster nobility, though they have no clear vision into futurity and confess no other lordship in him of Nazareth save the dignity of aim and tenderness of life." REV. JOHN W. CHADWICK.