The Freethinker will require no other evidence to convince him that Lincoln died a disbeliever than the fact that he once fully investigated this subject and proclaimed himself an Infidel. The mere skeptic who has no settled convictions--who has never examined the evidences against historical Christianity--may become a sincere believer in the Christian religion. The confirmed Freethinker never can, albeit a Thomas Cooper, a Joseph Barker and a George Chainey may profess to. As Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson happily expresses it: "You may take the robin's egg from the nest in yonder tree, and so near is the bird to being hatched you may crack it with the edge of your nail, and the bird is free. But all your power, and all your patient fidelity, and all the mucilage and sticking plaster you can put on it, will never get that birdling back into that little egg again. So complete is the sense of satisfaction, such is the feeling of freedom, which comes from once finding yourself, not merely out of these little sectarian names, but out of the name of the larger and grander sect, which is Christianity, that you will find when the egg is once broken, the _bird_ is free forever." From the church steward's standpoint, there is nothing so desirable as the early conversion of one who is destined to become rich. From the evangelist's point of view, there is nothing like the deathbed repentance of one who has become great. Had the bullet of the assassin not immediately destroyed consciousness, all these stories that we have heard about Lincoln's conversion--the Edwards story, the Smith story, the Brooks story, the Willets story, the Vinton story, and the story of the Illinois clergyman--would never have been invented. Instead of these we would have the story of some domestic, or some intruding priest who saw him during his dying hours. Aaron Burr was kinder to the church than John Wilkes Booth. But whatever the religious opinions of Lincoln were when he died, whether he had changed his belief or not, in view of the fact that he never thought enough of the church to unite with it, the frantic efforts of clergymen and church-members to claim him seem quite uncalled for, if not ridiculous.