Abraham Lincoln: Was He a Christian?Remsburg, John E. (John Eleazer)
Religion
Abraham Lincoln: Was He a Christian?
Remsburg, John E. (John Eleazer)
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 -- Religion
Mr. Sunderland called upon the President in 1862. In his letter to Reed
he says: "For one half hour [he] poured forth a volume of the deepest
Christian philosophy I ever heard." Notwithstanding ten years had
elapsed since that visit, he proceeded to give from memory a verbatim
report of Lincoln's remarks. The report is too long to reproduce in
this work, and even if correct, would add but little to the weight of
Christian evidence already presented. It is merely an ethical discourse,
and aside from a few indirect admissions in favor of Christianity for
which Sunderland doubtless drew upon his imagination, there is nothing
that Paine or any other Deist might not with propriety have uttered.
Those who wish to peruse Mr. Sunderland's letter will find it in
_Scribner's Monthly_ for July, 1873.
Dr. Miner, like Dr. Sunderland, had a quiet chat with the President, and
what was said he assures us is too deeply engraved on his memory ever
to be effaced. But, unlike Dr. Sunderland, he does not favor us with a
transcript of it. He does not repeat a word that was uttered. He states,
however, that, "If Mr. Lincoln was not really an experimental Christian,
he was acting like one." But how does an experimental Christian act? If
he behaves himself, if he is intelligent and honest, his actions are not
materially different from those of a good Freethinker. Dr. Miner did not
believe that Lincoln was an experimental Christian, and in his article
there is an implied admission that he knew nothing about his religion.
He says that, "Like the immortal Washington, he believed in the efficacy
of prayer." The comparison is happily drawn. Lincoln probably did
believe as much in the efficacy of prayer as Washington; that is to say,
he did not believe in it at all, in the evangelical sense. There is
no evidence that Washington believed in prayer, no proof that he ever
uttered a prayer. That story about his praying at Valley Forge is as
truly a myth as the story about the hatchet. The Rev. E. D. Neill, an
eminent Episcopal minister, and a relative of the person who is reported
to have seen Washington engaged in prayer, pronounces it a fiction.
Dr. Gurley is represented as saying: "I considered him sound not only
on the truth of the Christian religion, but on all its fundamental
doctrines and teachings." This, remember, is from a Calvinistic
standpoint. Lincoln, then, not only accepted Christianity, but its most
ultra variety--Calvinism. He believed in original sin, predestination
(including infant damnation), particular redemption, irresistible grace,
and perseverance of the saints. Because he sometimes went with his wife
to the Presbyterian church, of which she was an adherent, the priests of
this denomination have the contemptible assurance to assert that he was
a rigid Calvinist!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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