The publication of this story produced a profound sensation among the personal friends of the dead President. It revealed to them the unpleasant fact, assuming Holland's account to be correct, either that Newton Bateman, who had hitherto borne the reputation of being a man of veracity, was an unscrupulous liar, or that Abraham Lincoln, whose reputation for honesty and candor, long anterior to 1860, had become proverbial, was a consummate hypocrite; and loath as they were to believe the former, they rejected with disdain the latter. Referring to this story, Lamon, in his "Life of Lincoln," says: "There is no dealing with Mr. Bateman except by a flat contradiction. Perhaps his memory was treacherous or his imagination led him astray, or, peradventure, he thought a fraud no harm if it gratified the strong desire of the public for proofs of Mr. Lincoln's orthodoxy" (Life of Lincoln, p. 501). While Bateman undoubtedly misrepresented Lincoln in his account of their conversation--for it is not denied that he had an interview with Lincoln--it is quite probable that he did not to the extent represented by Holland. Bateman doubtless exaggerated the affair, and Holland magnified Bateman's report of it. In an article originally published in the _Index_, and subsequently quoted by Lamon, Lincoln's law partner, Mr. Herndon, says: "I doubt whether Mr. Bateman said in full what is recorded there. I doubt a great deal of it. I know the whole story is untrue--untrue in substance, untrue in fact and spirit. As soon as the [Holland's] 'Life of Lincoln' was out, on reading that part here referred to, I instantly sought Mr. Bateman and found him in his office. I spoke to him politely and kindly, and he spoke to me in the same manner. I said substantially to him that Mr. Holland, in order to make Mr. Lincoln a technical Christian, made him a hypocrite; and so his 'Life of Lincoln' quite plainly says. I loved Mr. Lincoln, and was mortified, if not angry, to see him made a hypocrite. I cannot now detail what Mr. Bateman said, as it was a private conversation, and I am forbidden to make use of it in public. If some good gentleman can only get the seal of secrecy removed I can show what was said and done. On my word, the world may take it for granted that Holland is wrong--that he does not state Mr. Lincoln's views correctly" (Lamon's Life of Lincoln, p. 496). In a lecture on "Lincoln's Religion," delivered in Springfield in 1874, alluding to the same subject, Mr. Herndon says: