It is a remarkable fact that the Lincoln family appears never at any time in its history to have been strongly under the influence of Methodism.[11] This is not because they did not know of it; no pioneer could hide so deep in the wilderness as to be long hidden from the Methodist circuit riders. But the prevailing and almost the sole type of religion in that part of Indiana during Lincoln's boyhood was Baptist, and in spite of all that Mrs. Lincoln believed about the freedom of it, it was a very unprogressive type of preaching. The preachers bellowed and spat and whined, and cultivated an artificial "holy tone" and denounced the Methodists and blasphemed the Presbyterians and painted a hell whose horror even in the backwoods was an atrocity. Against it the boy Abe Lincoln rebelled. Many another boy with an active mind has been driven by the same type of preaching into infidelity. Dr. Johnson quotes as indicative of the religious mind of the young Lincoln the four lines[12] which in his fourteenth year he wrote on the flyleaf of his schoolbook, and the two lines which he wrote in the copybook of a schoolmate: "_Abraham Lincoln his hand and pen-- he will be good but God knows When_"; and "_Good boys who to their books apply Will all be great men by and by._" Commenting on these Dr. Johnson says: "These show two things: First, that the youthful boy had faith in his mother's God; and, second, that he believed his mother's teachings."[13] In like manner Dr. Johnson takes the four hymns which Dennis Hanks remembered to have been sung by himself and Abe and says: "A soul that can appreciate these hymns must recognize, first, that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin; second, that Jesus Christ died upon the Cross for the salvation of the world; third, that life without the Saviour is an empty bubble, and, fourth, that loyal devotion to the Christ and his cause is man's highest calling, and the test of true character."--_Lincoln the Christian_, pp. 28-29. This is very far-fetched. It shows only that Abe sang such songs, good, bad, and indifferent, as were current in his day, and without any very fine discrimination either in songs sacred or secular. If one were to make a creed out of any of his poetry in this period, it were better to find it in his jingle, about the Kickapoo Indian, Johnny Kongapod.[14] He was supposed to have composed an epitaph for himself that ran on this wise: "_Here lies poor Johnny Kongapod; Have mercy on him, gracious God, As he would do if he was God And you were Johnny Kongapod._"