"'We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.' "If this isn't _Calvinism_ pure and simple, then I don't know what Calvinism is. "Now, Mr. Editor, if you can show me any reference in _Mr. Lincoln's own words_ that point as strongly toward 'Unitarianism' and those truths which _it_ claims as peculiarly its own, I shall be glad to see it. "CHARLES B. TOLEMAN." A number of Lincoln's old neighbors, contributing to the Irwin article in denial of the alleged infidelity of Lincoln, affirm that he was a Universalist. In their denial of his infidelity they were correct; and also in their detection of the fallacy of Herndon in which he counted every opinion to be infidel that did not conform to the severe orthodoxy with which he was familiar. As between Herndon and these writers, they were correct. Lincoln's "infidelity" consisted in good part of his denial of eternal punishment. But that did not make him an infidel; neither did it constitute him technically a Universalist. The substratum of his belief was the old-time predestinarianism which he heard in his youth and never outgrew. How he could make this blend with his wide departures from conventional orthodoxy in other points, those can best understand who have heard the kind of preaching on which Lincoln grew up. Its effect is not easily obliterated. _Was Abraham Lincoln a Methodist?_ This question would seem to require no answer, yet it is one that should receive an answer, for claims have been made, and are still current, which imply that Lincoln was actually converted in the Methodist Church, whose doctrine he accepted because Calvinism was repugnant to him; and that while he continued to attend the Presbyterian Church, he was essentially a Methodist. Lincoln had a very high regard for the Methodist Church. It was rent asunder during the Civil War, and the Northern branch of the church which had long been vigorously anti-slavery was warmly loyal. On May 18, 1864, in a letter of reply to a deputation of ministers from that body, he said, "God bless the Methodist Church--bless all the churches, and blessed be God who, in this our great trial, giveth us the churches."