"This individual testimony is clear and overwhelming, without the documentary and other evidence scattered profusely through the rest of the volume. How does Mr. Reed undertake to refute it? In the first place, firstly, he pronounces it a 'libel,' and in the second place, secondly, he is 'amazed to find'--and he says he has found--that the principal witnesses take exception to Mr. Lamon's report of their evidence. This might have been true of many or all of Mr. Lamon's witnesses without exciting the wonder of a rational man. Few persons, indeed, are willing to endure reproach merely for the truth's sake, and popular opinion in the Republican party of Springfield, Ill., is probably very much against Mr. Lamon. It would, therefore, be quite in the natural order if some of his witnesses who find themselves unexpectedly in print should succumb to the social and political terrorism of their place and time, and attempt to modify or explain their testimony. They zealously assisted Mr. Herndon in ascertaining the truth, and while they wanted him to tell it in full they were prudently resolved to keep their own names snugly out of sight. But Mr. Reed's statement is not true, and his amazement is entirely simulated. Two only out of the ten witnesses have gratified him by inditing, at his request, weak and guarded complaints of unfair treatment. These are John T. Stuart, a relative of the Lincolns and Edwardses, and Jim Matheny, both of Springfield, whom Mr. Lincoln taught his peculiar doctrines, but who may by this time be deacons in Mr. Reed's church. Neither of them helps Mr. Reed's case a particle. Their epistles open, as if by concert, in form and words almost identical. They say they did not _write_ the language attributed to them. The denial is wholly unnecessary, for nobody affirms that they did write it. They talked and Mr. Herndon wrote. His notes were made when the conversation occurred, and probably in their presence. At all events, they are both so conscious of the general accuracy of his report that they do not venture to deny a single word of it, but content themselves with lamenting that something else, which they did _not_ say, was excluded from it. They both, however, in these very letters, repeat emphatically the material part of the statements made by them to Mr. Herndon, namely, that Mr. Lincoln was to their certain knowledge, until a very late period of his life, an 'Infidel,' and neither of them is able to tell when he ceased to be an Infidel and when he began to be a Christian. And this is all Mr. Reed makes by his re-examination of the two persons whom he is pleased to exalt as Mr. Lamon's 'principal witnesses.' They are but two out of the ten. What of the other eight? They have no doubt been tried and plied by Mr. Reed and his friends to no purpose; they stand fast by the record. But Mr. Reed is to be shamed neither by their speech nor their silence." CHAPTER X. TESTIMONY OF LINCOLN'S RELATIVES AND INTIMATE ASSOCIATES