The situation was critical. They did not like to tell the world that they had borne false witness against the dead, nor did they, any more than Galileo, wish to wear a martyr's crown. A compromise was finally effected. It was incidentally ascertained by Reed that their evidence as presented by Lamon was not originally given in the shape of a letter or a written statement, but orally. A happy thought suggested itself--one worthy of the unscrupulous theological pettifogger that he is. The thought was this: "Say to the public, or rather let me say it for you, that you did not _write_ a word of the testimony attributed to you." Just as a witness in court might point to the stenographer's report of his testimony and say, "I did not write a word of that." In addition to this, Mr. Stuart, in endeavoring to explain away, as far as possible, the obnoxious character of his testimony, declared that some things which he did say at the time his testimony was given had been omitted; while something he did not say was inserted. They were both trivial matters, hardly worthy of notice, even if true, and having no especial bearing upon the case. But they served an admirable purpose in enabling Reed to say that the testimony adduced by Lamon was "abridged and distorted." Stuart's disclaimer, then, divested of its misleading verbiage, contains but two points. In the first place, he says: "I could not have said that 'Dr. Smith tried to convert Lincoln from Infidelity so late as 1858, and couldn't do it.'" This sentence, like everything else in these disclaimers, is cunningly worded and intended to deceive. One would naturally suppose the idea he intends to convey is that he never declared that Dr. Smith tried to convert Lincoln and couldn't do it. This, it has been ascertained, is not his meaning. What he means is this: "I could not have said that 'Dr. Smith tried to convert Lincoln from Infidelity, _so late as_ 1858, and couldn't do it.'" His denial is a mere quibble about a date. He did undoubtedly say just what he is reported to have said. But admitting a doubt, and giving him the benefit of this doubt, by throwing out the disputed date, the passage is not less damaging than it was before: "Dr. Smith tried to convert Lincoln from Infidelity, and couldn't do it." But let us omit the entire sentence, and the testimony of Mr. Stuart that remains, about which there is no dispute, that portion of his testimony which he admits to be correct--is as follows: "Lincoln went further against Christian beliefs and doctrines and principles than any man I ever heard; he shocked me. I don't remember the exact line of his argument; suppose it was against the inherent defects, so called, of the Bible, and on grounds of reason. Lincoln always denied that Jesus was the Christ of God--denied that Jesus was the Son of God, as understood and maintained by the Christian church."