"It was my good fortune to have had for some years an intimate acquaintance with Lincoln's partner for twenty-two years. Mr. Herndon was a man of academic education, and possessed a number of books that in that day would be considered a good library, and he told me that the books of his which fairly fascinated Lincoln were Volney's 'Ruins' and the works of Thomas Paine, especially the latter, of which he had memorized many pages."--Col. E. A. Stevens. Hon. James Tuttle: "He [Lincoln] was one of the most ardent admirers of Thomas Paine I ever met. He was continually quoting from the 'Age of Reason.'" It has been claimed that Lincoln changed his religious opinions after he became President. In a letter, written May 27, 1865, Col. John G. Nicolay, his private secretary, says: "Mr. Lincoln did not, to my knowledge, in any way, change his religious ideas, opinions, or beliefs, from the time he left Springfield till the day of his death." Hon. Leonard Swett, who placed Lincoln in nomination for the Presidency, in answer to an inquiry from a friend, wrote as follows: "You ask me if Lincoln changed his religion towards the close of his life. I think not." Next to Mr. Herndon, Lincoln's biographer, Colonel Lamon, has made the fullest and fairest presentation of Lincoln's religious opinions. He did not accept them but he was familiar with them and he was honest enough to present them. In Illinois he was the friend and confidant of Lincoln. When the time approached for Lincoln to take the Executive chair, and the journey from Springfield to Washington was deemed a dangerous one, to Colonel Lamon was intrusted the responsible duty of conducting him to the national capital. During the eventful years that followed he remained at the President's side, holding an important official position in the District of Columbia. When Lincoln was assassinated, at the great funeral pageant in Washington, he led the civic procession, and was, with Judge David Davis and Major General Hunter, selected to convey the remains to their final resting-place at Springfield. Regarding his friend's religious belief Colonel Lamon says: "Mr. Lincoln was never a member of any church, nor did he believe in the divinity of Christ or the inspiration of the scriptures in the sense understood by evangelical Christians" (Life of Lincoln, p. 486). indefinite expressions about 'Divine Providence,' the 'Justice of God,' 'the favor of the Most High,' were easy and not inconsistent with his religious notions. In this accordingly he indulged freely; but never in all that time [1834 to his death] did he let fall from his lips or his pen an expression which remotely implied the slightest faith in Jesus as the Son of God and the Savior of men (Ibid, p. 502). After Lincoln's death Mrs. Lincoln, herself a Christian, made the following statement: "Mr. Lincoln had no hope, and no faith, in the usual acceptation of those words" (Lamon's Life of Lincoln, p. 489).