The book might conceivably have come into Lincoln's possession through the Green boys, or the brother of Ann Rutledge, returning from Illinois College to New Salem; for it was a book which might easily have been floating around Jacksonville, and picked up by a student there, and later discarded because he had no special interest in the Greek of the New Testament. Lincoln would have been more likely to feel a passing interest in it then than at any other period of his career, for he was widening his educational horizon, and had not as yet set any limits to his learning in one or another direction. He might have picked it up, or it might have been handed him by some minister, during his early years in Springfield; but by that time Lincoln must have given up any passing notion that he might ever learn Greek. He could hardly have procured it and would not have cared for it before he lived in New Salem: he must have ceased to think of the possibility of learning Greek before he had lived long in Springfield. I assume, also, that the erasure of the words "from God" and the substitution of the words "from nature" is in Lincoln's hand; though the two words are written at the very bottom of the page, with no support for the hand, and are not as well written as the signature, and their authenticity might be questioned. I am disposed to think that he wrote it, and this, evidently, was the opinion of Mr. Burton, as indicated by a note in the book in his handwriting. It might be mentioned in passing that the word "God" is not in this verse in the New Testament, either Greek or English. It reads, "Ye have loved me, and have believed that I came forth from the Father." Perhaps if Dr. Nielson had followed the text literally, Lincoln would not have troubled to amend it. I accept it as a genuine document, and one of real interest; but the lack of a date makes it almost valueless as proof of Lincoln's settled belief. I place it, conjecturally, in the New Salem period of his life, though it may date from the beginning of his life in Springfield. I have not read the entire book, nor compared the Greek throughout with the English, but I note that in this passage the English is not translated from the Greek, but the Greek is translated backward from the English, and that inexactly. I judge this to be not the effect of bad scholarship but the result of a desire to convey a lesson. For instance, the Greek of this passage is made into a personal confession by the change of person in the first part of the verse, without corresponding change in the second part, leaving the first verb without a direct object, so that a literal translation reads,-- "I love and believe that I came forth from God." Dr. Nielson probably knew why he did it so, but Professor Anthon would have been likely to say that that was not very good Greek syntax. It served its purpose, however, as showing, what this section was intended to show, the various uses of the Greek conjunctions.