With such testimony, gathered from gentlemen of the highest standing, and much more that I could add to confirm it, I leave the later life and religious sentiments of Abraham Lincoln to the dispassionate and charitable judgment of a grateful people. While it is to be regretted that Mr. Lincoln was not spared to indicate his religious sentiments by a profession of his faith in accordance with the institutions of the Christian religion, yet it is very clear that he had this step in view, and was seriously contemplating it, as a sense of its fitness and an apprehension of his duty grew upon him. He did not ignore a relation to the Christian church as an obsolete duty and an unimportant matter. How often do we hear him thanking God for the churches! And he was fast bringing his life into conformity to the Christian standard. The coarse story-telling of his early days was less indulged in in his later life. Hon. Isaac N. Arnold, and Mr. Carpenter, as well as Mr. Lincoln's physician at Washington, Dr. Stone, all testify that "while his stories and anecdotes were racy, witty, and pointed beyond all comparison," yet they "never heard one of a character needing palliation or excuse." His physician, Dr. Stone, testifies that "Mr. Lincoln was the purest-hearted man he ever came in contact with." His disposition to attend the theater in later life (if to anyone it seems to need apology) was not so much a fondness for the playhouse as a relief from his mental anxiety, and an escape from the incessant pressure of visitors at the White House. "It is a well-known fact," says Dr. Miner, "that he would not have been at the theater on that fatal night, but to escape the multitude who were that evening pressing into the White House to shake hands with him. It has been said that Mrs. Lincoln urged her husband to go to the theater against his will. This is not true. On the contrary, she tried to persuade him not to go, but he insisted. He said, 'I must have a little rest. A large and overjoyed, excited people will visit me tonight. My arms are lame by shaking hands with the multitude, and the people will pull me to pieces.' He went to the theater, not because he was interested in the play, but because he was care-worn and needed quiet and repose. Mrs. Lincoln informed me that he seemed to take no notice of what was going on in the theater from the time he entered it till the discharge of the fatal pistol. She said that the last day he lived was the happiest of his life. The very last moments of his conscious life were spent in conversation with her about his future plans, and what he wanted to do when his term of office expired. He said he wanted to visit the Holy Land and see the places hallowed by the footprints of the Saviour. He was saying there was no city he so much desired to see as _Jerusalem_; and with that word half spoken on his tongue, the bullet of the assassin entered his brain, and the soul of the great and good