"Mr. Lincoln's maxim and philosophy were, 'What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.' He never joined any church. He was a religious man always, I think, but was not a technical Christian" (Herndon's "Religion of Lincoln"). It may be charged that Mrs. Lincoln subsequently repudiated a portion of this testimony. In anticipation of such a charge I will here state a few facts. This testimony was given by Mrs. Lincoln in 1865. When it was given, while her heart was pierced by the pangs of her great grief, her mind was sound. About Jan. 1, 1874, a brief article, purporting to come from her pen, appeared, in which the testimony attributed to her was in part denied. At the time this denial was written, Mrs. Lincoln had been for more than two years insane. The chief cause in dethroning her reason was the death of her universally beloved Tad (Thomas), which occurred on July 15, 1871. Referring to this sad event, Mr. Arnold, one of the principal witnesses on the Christian side of this controversy, says: "From this time Mrs. Lincoln, in the judgment of her most intimate friends, was never entirely responsible for her conduct" (Life of Lincoln, p. 439). The only effect of this denial on the minds of those acquainted with the circumstances, was to excite a mingled feeling of pity and disgust--pity for this unfortunate woman, and disgust for the contemptible methods of those who would take advantage of her demented condition and make her contradict the honest statements of her rational life. Before dismissing this witness, I wish to advert to a subject with which many of my readers are familiar. For years, both before and after Lincoln's death, the religious press of the country was continually abusing Mrs. Lincoln. If a ball was held at the White House, she became at once the recipient of unlimited abuse. If Lincoln attended the theater, she was accused of having dragged him there against his will. It was almost uniformly asserted that he would not have gone to the theater on that fatal night had it not been for her, and in not a few instances it was infamously hinted that she was cognizant of the plot to murder him. But even the Rev. Dr. Miner, who was acquainted with the facts, is willing to vindicate her from these imputations. He says: "It has been said that Mrs. Lincoln urged her husband to go to the theater against his will. This is not true. On the contrary, she tried to persuade him not to go."