I have admitted that in Lincoln's experience there was a time when his faith faltered. It is interesting to know in what manner he came to have the faith which in the maturity of his royal manhood and in the zenith of his intellectual powers he expressed. One of his pastors--for he sat under the ministry of James Smith, has told in what way Lincoln came to be an intelligent believer in the Bible, in Jesus as the Son of God, and in Christianity as Divine in its origin, and a mighty moral and spiritual power for the regeneration of men and of the race. Mr. Smith placed before him, he says, the arguments for and against the Divine authority and inspiration of the Scriptures. To the arguments on both sides Lincoln gave a patient, impartial, and searching investigation. He himself said that he examined the arguments as a lawyer investigates testimony in a case in which he is deeply interested. At the conclusion of the investigation he declared that the arguments in favor of the Divine authority and inspiration of the Bible is unanswerable. So far did Lincoln go in his open sympathy with the teachings of the Bible that on one occasion in the presence of a large assembly, he delivered the address at an annual meeting of the Springfield, Illinois, Bible Society. In the course of his address he drew a contrast between the decalog and the most eminent lawgiver of antiquity, in which he said: "It seems to me that nothing short of infinite wisdom could by any possibility have devised and given to man this excellent and perfect moral code. It is suited to men in all the conditions of life, and inculcates all the duties they owe to their Creator, to themselves, and their fellow men." Lincoln prepared an address, in which he declared that this country cannot exist half slave and half-free. He affirmed the saying of Jesus, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Having read this address to some friends, they urged him to strike out that portion of it. If he would do so, he could probably be elected to the United States Senate; but if he delivered the address as written, the ground taken was so high, the position was so advanced, his sentiments were so radical, he would probably fail of gaining a seat in the supreme legislative body of the greatest republic on earth. Lincoln, under those circumstances, said: "I know there is a God, and that He hates the injustice of slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that His hand is in it. If He has a place and a work for me, and I think he has, I believe I am ready. I am nothing but truth is everything. I know I am right, because I know that liberty is right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God." And yet we are asked to believe that a man who could express himself in this way and show this courage was a doubter, a skeptic, an unbeliever, an agnostic, an infidel. "Christ is God." This was Lincoln's faith in 1860, found in a letter addressed to the Hon. Newton Bateman.