"I knew Mr. Lincoln when he first came here, and for years afterwards. He was an avowed and open infidel, sometimes bordered on atheism. I have often and often heard Lincoln and one W. D. Herndon, who was a free-thinker, talk over this subject. Lincoln went further against Christian beliefs and doctrines and principles than any man I ever heard: he shocked me. I don't remember the exact line of his argument: suppose it was against the inherent defects, so called, of the Bible, and on grounds of reason. Lincoln always denied that Jesus was the Christ of God,--denied that Jesus was the Son of God, as understood and maintained by the Christian Church. The Rev. Dr. Smith, who wrote a letter, tried to convert Lincoln from infidelity so late as 1858, and couldn't do it."--LAMON, _Life of Lincoln_, p. 488. It later developed that these quotations which appeared in Lamon's book in the form of letters to Herndon were in some instances, if not in all, Herndon's own reports of conversations with these friends of Lincoln, and not, in any case, signed letters. Several of the putative authors repudiated the statements attributed to them. Dr. C. H. Ray was quoted as saying: "I do not know how I can aid you. You [Herndon] knew Mr. Lincoln far better than I did, though I knew him well; and you have served up his leading characteristics in a way that I should despair of doing, if I should try. I have only one thing to ask: that you do not give Calvinistic theology a chance to claim him as one of its saints and martyrs. He went to the Old-School Church; but, in spite of that outward assent to the horrible dogmas of the sect, I have reason from himself to know that his 'vital purity,' if that means belief in the impossible, was of a negative sort."--LAMON, _Life of Lincoln_, pp. 489-90. Hon. David Davis was quoted as saying: "I do not know anything about Lincoln's religion, and do not think anybody knew. The idea that Lincoln talked to a stranger about his religion or religious views, or made such speeches, remarks, etc., about it as are published, is to me absurd. I knew the man so well: he was the most reticent, secretive man I ever saw, or expect to see. He had no faith, in the Christian sense of the term,--had faith in laws, principles, causes, and effects--philosophically: you [Herndon] know more about his religion than any man. You ought to know it, of course."--LAMON, _Life of Lincoln_, p. 489. Lamon also printed a letter from James H. Matheny, who had been Lincoln's "best man" at his wedding, and a long-time and intimate friend. It would be included in this chapter, as it is to be referred to in the next, but it is reserved for a more important use in the chapter on "Lincoln's Burnt Book."