Reference has been made to the fact that Methodism did not at any time appear greatly to influence the Lincoln family in matters of theology, and that the early environment of the family from the birth of Lincoln was Baptist. I am inclined to think that the Hanks family had Methodist antecedents. Thomas and Nancy Lincoln were married by a Methodist preacher, Rev. Jesse Head. He is known to have been a foe of slavery, and there is some reason to think that the Lincoln family derived some part of its love of freedom from him. From time to time Lincoln met Methodist preachers who deeply impressed him. One of these was Rev. Peter Akers, whom he heard in 1837, when Lincoln was twenty-eight years of age. "He and a group of associates went out to hear him at a camp-meeting six miles west of Springfield, at the 'Salem Church.' The Rev. Peter Akers was a vigorous and fearless man. He spoke of certain prophecies, and predicted 'the downfall of castes, the end of tyrannies, and the crushing out of slavery.' On the way home they were earnestly discussing the sermon. Lincoln is alleged to have said: 'It was the most instructive sermon, and he is the most impressive preacher, I have ever heard. It is wonderful that God has given such power to men. I firmly believe his interpretation of prophecy, so far as I understand it, and especially about the breaking down of civil and religious tyrannies; and, odd as it may seem, I was deeply impressed that I should be somehow strangely mixed up with them."--TARBELL, _Life of Lincoln_, I, 237. In the lecture on Abraham Lincoln by Bishop Fowler, as finally prepared for the press, is an incident which apparently was not in its earlier editions. At a reunion of the Seventy-third Illinois Volunteers, held in Springfield on September 28, 29, 1897, the colonel of that regiment, Rev. James F. Jacquess, D.D., related an incident in which he stated that while he was serving a Methodist Church in Springfield in 1839, Mr. Lincoln attended a series of revival services held in that church, and was converted. The story was heard with great interest by the old soldiers of that regiment, many of whose officers had been Methodist preachers, and it was printed in the Minutes of the Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Reunion of Survivors of the Seventy-third Illinois Infantry. Twelve years later, in 1909, in connection with the Centenary Celebration of the birth of Lincoln, the story was reprinted, with certain added details obtained from the brother of Colonel Jacquess. As thus wrought into literary form, it was printed in the New York _Christian Advocate_ in an article entitled "The Conversion of Lincoln," by Rev. Edward L. Watson, of Baltimore.