In the second place, Mr. Stuart complains that the rumors concerning Dr. Smith's attempted conversion of Lincoln which he had mentioned to Mr. Herndon at the time of giving his testimony, were omitted. They were, and very properly, too. Mr. Stuart, or any other good lawyer, would have omitted them. Mr. Herndon desired him to testify about what he _knew_, and not about what he had _heard_, especially as he was going to headquarters in regard to these rumors. He wrote to Dr. Smith himself about them, received his testimony, and gave it to the public. Stuart affects to believe that this story, which Ninian Edwards is dragged around by Reed to verify, may possibly have been true. But in the same sentence, he refutes this idea, and refutes the claim itself, by saying: "I had no personal knowledge as to his alleged change of opinion." Stuart was a family connection of Lincoln, and if Lincoln had been converted, he, as well as every other person in Springfield, would have known it. He states that Dr. Smith's first visit to Lincoln was "at the suggestion of a lady friend." To have avoided another glaring contradiction in the evidence of his witnesses, Reed should have had Major Stuart state that this "lady friend" was Thomas Lewis. As it is, the account given by Stuart of Dr. Smith's first visit and acquaintance with Lincoln is entirely at variance with the account given by Mr. Lewis in his letter, quoted in chapter I. Mr. Stuart evidently entertained no very kind opinion of Colonel Lamon's work, and this made him all the more disposed to accede to Reed's demands. His position on the slavery question, for a time, was one which, in the light of subsequent events, he had no reason to be proud of, and Lamon in narrating the acts of Lincoln's life found it necessary frequently to refer to this. Such passages as the following were calculated not only to make him offended at Lamon, but jealous of Herndon: "John T. Stuart was keeping his eye on Lincoln, with the view of keeping him on his side--the totally dead conservative side." "Mr. Lincoln was beset by warm friends and by old coadjutors, and besought to pause in his anti-slavery course while there was yet time. Among these there was none more earnest or persuasive than John T. Stuart, who was but the type of a class.... But Mr. Herndon was more than a match for the full array against him. An earnest man, instant in season and out of season, he spoke with the eloquence of apparent truth and of real personal love" (Life of Lincoln, pp. 374, 352).