A man can live by a faith of which he has not full assurance--so said the sensible old Puritan, Richard Baxter--he can live on it though it take him nearly all his life to gain assurance; and I am certain he would have added, had he been asked, that if assurance never came, and our heart condemn us, "God is greater than our heart." The carefully written paragraph in Lincoln's hand appears to indicate that the thought was one which deeply impressed Lincoln. Perhaps he felt that his own faith was of that sort, a faith on which a man could live, while going forward in the study and pursuit of the will of God, not seeking one's own comfort or the joy of complete assurance, but finding in the daily performance of duty the essential quality of true faith. CHAPTER XXIII THE CREED OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN ABRAHAM LINCOLN made no effort, so far as we know, to formulate a creed. It would have been an exceedingly difficult thing for him to have accomplished. His utterances on religious subjects were not made as dogmatic affirmations. He merely uttered as occasion seemed to him to demand such sentiments and principles as expressed those aspects of truth which he felt and believed to need expression at those particular times. Nevertheless, these utterances together cover a somewhat wide range; and while they were not intended to epitomize any system of Christian doctrine, they make a nearer approach to an epitome of this character than on the whole might reasonably have been expected. It will be interesting and profitable to close this study with a series of short quotations from documents, letters, and addresses, certified as authentic and touching directly upon points of Christian doctrine. In most instances these have been quoted already, with their context, but they are here brought together in briefer form in order to facilitate our inquiry whether they afford any material out of which might be made some approach to a statement of Christian faith. _Materials for a Lincoln creed_: I sincerely hope father may recover his health, but, at all events, tell him to remember to call upon and confide in our great and good and merciful Maker, who will not turn away from him in any extremity. He notes the fall of a sparrow, and numbers the hairs of our heads, and He will not forget the dying man who puts his trust in Him.... If it be his lot to go now he will soon have a joyous meeting with many loved ones gone before, and where the rest of us with the help of God hope ere long to join them.--Letter to his dying father, January 12, 1851. _Complete Works_, I, 165.