Mr. J. B. Spaulding, well known as one of the leading nurserymen and horticulturists of the United States, a man of broad culture and refinement, who resides near Springfield, became intimately acquainted with Lincoln as early as 1851, and for a long time resided on the same street with him in Springfield. Mr. Spaulding says: "Lincoln perpetrated many an irreverent joke at the expense of church doctrines. Regarding the miraculous conception, he was especially sarcastic. He wrote a manuscript as radical as Ingersoll which his political friends caused to be destroyed." EZRA STRINGHAM. A short time since I was conversing with a party of gentlemen in Riverton, Ill. It being near Lincoln's old home, the subject of his religious belief was introduced. An old gentleman, who up to this time had not been taking part in the conversation, quietly observed: "I think I knew Lincoln's religious views about as well as any other man." "What was he?" said one of the party. "An Infidel of the first water," was the prompt response. The old gentleman was Ezra Stringham, one of Lincoln's early acquaintances in Illinois. DR. G. H. AMBROSE. Dr. G. H. Ambrose, of Waldo, Fla., who was associated in the law business at Springfield from 1846 to 1849 with a relative of Mrs. Lincoln, says: "Mr. Lincoln was an Infidel--an outspoken one." J. H. CHENERY. Mr. J. H. Chenery, one of Springfield's pioneers--for many years owner and proprietor of the leading hotel of Springfield--says: "Reed tried to prove that Lincoln was a church man; but everybody here knows that he was not. Once in a great while, and only once in a great while, I saw him accompany his wife and children to church. His attacks upon the church were most bitter and sarcastic. He wrote a book against Christianity, but his friends got away with it." SQUIRE PERKINS. A few years ago there died near Atchison, Kan., an old gentleman named Perkins. He was poor, but honest, and a bright man intellectually. He was a son of Major Perkins who was killed in the Black Hawk war. Lincoln after the fight discovered the scalp of Major Perkins, which his savage assassin had taken but lost. His first impulse was to keep it and take it home to the family of the dead soldier. Then realizing that it would only tend to intensify their grief, he opened the grave and deposited it with the body. This incident led to an intimate acquaintance between Lincoln and the younger Perkins. In June, 1880, Mr. Perkins made the following statement relative to Lincoln's religious belief: "During all the time that I was acquainted with Abraham Lincoln I know that he was what the church calls an Infidel. I do not believe that he ever changed his opinions. When Colfax was in Atchison I had a talk with him about Lincoln. Among other things, I asked him if Lincoln had ever been converted to Christianity. He told me that he had not." W. PERKINS.