Already Bishop Fowler, to whom Colonel Jacquess alluded in his address at Springfield as having no adequate account of Lincoln's conversion, had accepted the story and incorporated it into the final version of his famous lecture (_Patriotic Orations_, p. 102). The death of Colonel Jacquess and the additions made by his brother give this incident its permanent form in the _Christian Advocate_ article of November 11, 1909. I am glad to have been able to obtain from the _Christian Advocate_ their last copy of that issue, outside their office file, and it appears in full in the Appendix to this volume. It may be accepted as the authoritative form of this story. That the story as told by Colonel Jacquess must have had some element of truth I think beyond question; that it occurred exactly as he related it, I greatly doubt. The years between 1839 and 1897 numbered fifty-eight, and that is more than ample time for a man's memory to magnify and color incidents almost beyond recognition. The story as it is thus told lacks confirmatory evidence.[53] If Lincoln was converted in a Methodist Church in 1839 and remained converted, a considerable number of events which occurred in subsequent years might reasonably have been expected to have been otherwise than they really were. Each reader must judge for himself in the light of all that we know of Abraham Lincoln how much or how little of this story is to be accepted as literal fact. The present writer cannot say that he is convinced by the story. _Was Abraham Lincoln a Freemason?_ In an address delivered before Harmony Lodge, in Washington, D. C., on January 28, 1914, Dr. L. D. Carman delivered an address, which has since been printed, entitled "Abraham Lincoln, Freemason." In this address it was set forth that "It was not an unusual practice in the early days of Masonry in this country in sparsely settled localities, remote from an active lodge, for several members of the fraternity to get together, form an emergent or occasional lodge, and make Masons." Abraham Lincoln was presumed to have been made such a Mason because of utterances of his, quoted at length, which appeared to show familiarity with Masonic usage.[54] Those utterances, when examined, carry no such presumption, nor was there any occasion for such an emergent lodge. A lodge existed at Petersburg, near New Salem, and a number of Lincoln's friends belonged to it; their names are on record. The records of the Springfield Lodge, also, are preserved, and bear no mention of his name; nor is there any evidence so far as the present author knows that on any occasion he was ever in a Masonic Lodge. Orators may use the symbolic language of architecture without knowledge of speculative Masonry, and Lincoln used it so. CHAPTER XXI WHY DID LINCOLN NEVER JOIN THE CHURCH?