EDITOR STATE JOURNAL: For some time, I believe, in 1870 there has been a constant and continued effort upon the part of the Hon. W. H. Herndon, Springfield, Ill., to convince and prove to the world that Abraham Lincoln lived and died an infidel. He has succeded, as I suppose, in proving that proposition to his own entire satisfaction and probably to the satisfaction of some others. The last effort I have noticed upon the subject was Herndon's reply to the Rev. J. A. Reed, in a lecture delivered in the court house in Springfield, some months ago. A few days after that lecture was delivered, I was urgently requested by a prominent minister of the gospel and friend of Lincoln's (and also a lady friend now residing in Kansas) to review that speech. I promised each of those persons I would do so at the proper time. That time has now arrived, and I propose noticing a few points in the address of Mr. Herndon, "THE RELIGION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN" also a point or two in his Abbott letter and I think I will be able to show that Mr. Herndon, himself, never knew or understood really what the faith of Lincoln was or what the RELIGIOUS BELIEF OF LINCOLN was. I wish it now and here understood that Mr. Herndon's candor or veracity I do not call in question. Nor will I designedly say anything to offend him. He and I have been for twenty-five years good personal friends, and I hope that friendship may continue. Mr. Herndon has a right to prove Mr. Lincoln an infidel if he can. I claim the same right to prove that LINCOLN WAS NOT AN INFIDEL if I can. If Mr. Lincoln was an infidel, as Herndon says, it is proper for the world to know it. If he was not an infidel the charge is wrong and a slander, for infidelity in the nineteenth century is no honor to any man, dead or alive. Mr. Herndon, in his speech, uses this language: "One side of this question can be proved. It is admitted on all hands that Lincoln once was an infidel; that he wrote a small book, or essay, or pamphlet against Christianity, and that he (Lincoln) continued an unbeliever until late in life." Herndon further says: "It is a rule of law, as well as a rule of common sense, that when a certain state or condition of affairs is once proved to exist, the presumption is, that it still exists until the contrary is proved." Now I stand by that proposition as a true one. Will Mr. Herndon do so? But HE IS WOEFULLY MISTAKEN