In this chapter I wish to present some radical thoughts, not from the pen of Lincoln himself, but which in the work from which they are taken bear unmistakable signs of his approval. Mr. D. W. C. Shattuck, an old and respected merchant of Way-land, Mich., has in his possession a book which belonged to Lincoln. Its history is as follows: Shortly after Lincoln's election to the Presidency a young man from Springfield, Ill., and a relative or intimate acquaintance of Lincoln's, came to board with Mr. Shattuck, who then resided in Kalamazoo. Looking over the contents of his trunk one day the young man picked up a book and at the same time remarked: "That book belongs to Abe Lincoln. I forgot to return it to him before leaving Springfield. It is his favorite book, and I must not fail to return it." Mr. Shattuck expressing a desire to peruse the work, it was handed to him, and the young man being soon after unexpectedly called away, it was forgotten. It proved to be a volume of the writings of Lord Bolingbroke, the great English Infidel. On a fly-leaf was the signature of Abraham Lincoln. In the work certain passages which seem to have especially impressed Lincoln are marked with a pencil and in a manner peculiar to him. The following are the passages he marked, which I have copied from the book, and which evidently received his unqualified indorsement: "Abbadie says in his famous book, that the Gospel of St. Matthew is cited by Clemens Bishop of Borne, a disciple of the Apostles; that Barnabas cites it in his epistle; that Ignatius and Polycarp receive it; and that the same Fathers, that give testimony for Matthew, give it likewise for Mark. Nay, your lordship will find, I believe, that the present Bishop of London, in his third pastoral letter, speaks to the same effect. I will not trouble you nor myself with any more instances of the same kind. Let this, which occurred to me as I was writing, suffice. It may well suffice; for I presume the fact advanced by the minister and the Bishop is a mistake. If the Fathers of the First Century do mention some passages that are agreeable to what we read in our Evangelists, will it follow that these Fathers had the same gospels before them? To say so is a manifest abuse of history, and quite inexcusable in writers that knew, or should have known, that these Fathers made use of other gospels, wherein such passages might be contained, or they might be preserved in unwritten tradition. Besides which I could almost venture to affirm that these Fathers of the First Century do not expressly name the gospels we have of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John." "Writers of the Roman religion have attempted to show, that the text of the Holy Writ is on many accounts insufficient to be the sole criterion of orthodoxy; I apprehend too that they have shown it. Sure I am that experience, from the first promulgation of Christianity to this hour, shows abundantly with how much ease and success the most