this part of our inquiry draws near its close. we have reserved for this chapter a selection from those religious expressions of abraham lincoln which belong to his mature years, and which are indisputably his. they are largely in addresses, proclamations, and official documents. in them religion is, as a rule, an incidental subject. but it finds frequent expression.
here no literary criticism is necessary, for there is no question about the accuracy of the report. we shall quote nothing that is not contained in an accredited compilation of lincoln's papers or addresses, omitting all that is disputable or open to the suspicion of glossation or coloring or exaggeration.
there is only one question, was abraham lincoln sincere in these utterances? did he speak them as his own profound convictions, or because he was expected to say something of this sort, and took refuge in pious commonplaces? both statements have been made concerning these and like utterances. let us read them with an open mind and discover what evidence they bear of their own sincerity.
these are not reports of private conversations, or utterances addressed to small groups. these are the words which lincoln uttered in the ears of all men; and they afford some evidence of the faith that was in him.
in lincoln's first annual thanksgiving day proclamation, dated october 3, 1863, after reciting the blessings of god to the nation in the harvest and in the success of our arms, he said:
[pg 211]
"no human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. they are the gracious gifts of the most high god, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
"it has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the american people. i do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the united states, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last thursday of november next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent father who dwelleth in the heavens. and i recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union."
in the summer of 1864, a resolution was adopted concurrently by the senate and house of representatives, requesting the president to appoint a day of prayer, mr. lincoln issued the following proclamation, july 7, 1864, in which, after quoting the words of the resolution, he continued:
"now, therefore, i, abraham lincoln, president of the united states, cordially concurring with the congress of the united states in the penitential and pious sentiments expressed in the aforesaid resolutions, and heartily approving of the devotional design and purpose thereof, do hereby appoint the first thursday of august next to be observed by the people of the united states as a day of national humiliation and prayer.
"i do hereby further invite and request the heads of the executive departments of this government, together with[pg 212] all legislators, all judges and magistrates, and all other persons exercising authority in the land, whether civil, military, or naval, and all soldiers, seamen, and marines in the national service and all the other loyal and law-abiding people of the united states, to assemble in their preferred places of public worship on that day, and there and then to render to the almighty and merciful ruler of the universe such homages and such confessions, and to offer to him such supplications, as the congress of the united states have, in their aforesaid resolution, so solemnly, so earnestly, and so reverently recommended."
mr. lincoln issued another special thanksgiving proclamation on may 9, 1864, saying:
"enough is known of army operations within the last five days to claim an especial gratitude to god, while what remains undone demands our most sincere prayers to, and reliance upon, him without whom all human effort is vain. i recommend that all patriots, at their homes, in their places of public worship, and wherever they may be, unite in common thanksgiving and prayer to almighty god."
in a response to a serenade at the white house, on may 9, 1864, following the battle of the wilderness, mr. lincoln said:
"while we are grateful to all the brave men and officers for the events of the past few days, we should, above all, be very grateful to almighty god, who gives us victory."
may 18, 1864, in a letter of reply to a deputation of ministers who presented to him resolutions adopted by the methodist general conference, he said, "god bless the methodist church—bless all the churches—and blessed be god, who, in this our great trial giveth us the churches."
in a letter to a committee consisting of the rev. dr. ide, honorable j. r. doolittle, and honorable a. hubbell, may 30, 1864, mr. lincoln says:
[pg 213]
"in response to the preamble and resolutions of the american baptist home mission society, which you did me the honor to present, i can only thank you for thus adding to the effective and almost unanimous support which the christian communities are so zealously giving to the country, and to liberty. indeed, it is difficult to conceive how it could be otherwise with anyone professing christianity, or even having ordinary perceptions of right and wrong. to read the bible, as the word of god himself, that 'in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,' and to preach therefrom that, 'in the sweat of other men's faces shalt thou eat bread,' to my mind can scarcely be reconciled with honest sincerity. when brought to my final reckoning may i have to answer for robbing no man of his goods; yet more tolerable even this, than for robbing one of himself and all that was his. when, a year or two ago, those professedly holy men of the south met in the semblance of prayer and devotion, and, in the name of him who said, 'as ye would all men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them,' appealed to the christian world to aid them in doing to a whole race of men as they would have no man do unto themselves, to my thinking they contemned and insulted god and his church far more than did satan when he tempted the saviour with the kingdoms of earth. the devil's attempt was no more false, and far less hypocritical. but let me forbear, remembering it is also written, 'judge not, lest ye be judged.'"
on december 7, 1863, in making announcement of union success in east tennessee, he closed as follows: "i recommend that all loyal people do, on receipt of this information, assemble at their places of worship and render special homage and gratitude to almighty god for his great advancement of the national cause."
his third annual message to congress, december 8, 1863, began: "another year of health, and of sufficiently abundant harvests, has passed. for these, and especially for the improved condition of our national affairs, our renewed and profoundest gratitude to god is due."
[pg 214]
after the capture of mobile and atlanta, on september 3, 1864, mr. lincoln issued his fourth special thanksgiving proclamation, calling on all people to offer thanksgiving to god "for his mercy in preserving our national existence"; and also "that prayer be made for divine protection to our soldiers and their leaders in the field, who have so often and so gallantly periled their lives in battling with the enemy; and for blessings and comforts from the father of mercies to the sick, wounded, and prisoners, and to the orphans and widows of those who have fallen in the service of their country, and that he will continue to uphold the government of the united states against all the effects of public enemies and secret foes."
he issued a proclamation calling for thanksgiving for victories, july 15, 1863:
"it has pleased almighty god to hearken to the supplication and prayers of an afflicted people, and to vouchsafe to the army and navy of the united states victories on land and on sea so signal and so effective as to furnish reasonable grounds for augmented confidence that the union of these states will be maintained, their constitution preserved, and their peace and prosperity permanently restored. but these victories have been accorded not without sacrifice of life, limb, health, and liberty, incurred by brave, loyal, and patriotic citizens. domestic affliction in every part of the country follows in the train of these fearful bereavements. it is meet and right to recognize and confess the presence of the almighty father and the power of his hand equally in these triumphs and in these sorrows.
"now, therefore, be it known that i do set apart thursday, the 6th day of august next, to be observed as a day of national thanksgiving, praise, and prayer, and i invite the people of the united states to assemble on that occasion in their customary places of worship, and, in the forms approved by their own consciences, render the homage due to the divine majesty for the wonderful things he has done in the nation's behalf, and invoke the influence of his holy spirit to subdue[pg 215] the anger which has produced and so long sustained a needless and cruel rebellion, to change the hearts of the insurgents, to guide the counsels of the government with wisdom adequate to so great a national emergency, and to visit with tender care and consolation throughout the length and breadth of our land all those who, through the vicissitudes of marches, voyages, battles, and sieges, have been brought to suffer in mind, body, or estate, and finally to lead the whole nation through the paths of repentance and submission to the divine will back to the perfect enjoyment of union and fraternal peace."
on march 30, 1863, president lincoln issued a proclamation appointing another national fast-day. it reads as follows:
"whereas, the senate of the united states, devoutly recognizing the supreme authority and just government of almighty god in all the affairs of men and of nations has by a resolution requested the president to designate and set apart a day for national prayer and humiliation:
"and whereas, it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of god; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the holy scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose god is the lord:
"and insomuch as we know that by his divine law nations, like individuals, are subject to punishments and chastisements in this world, and may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people? we have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown; but we have forgotten god. we have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceit[pg 216]fulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the god who made us:
"it behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended power, and confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness:
"now, therefore, in compliance with the request and fully concurring in the views of the senate, i do by this my proclamation designate and set apart thursday, the 30th day of april, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting, and prayer. and i do hereby request all the people to abstain on that day from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite at their several places of public worship and their respective homes in keeping the day holy to the lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion. all this being done in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by divine teachings, that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace."
in 1863 washington's birthday occurred on sunday, and rev. alexander reed, superintendent of the united states christian commission, invited mr. lincoln to preside at a meeting in the house of representatives on that day. in reply mr. lincoln said: "whatever shall be sincerely, and in god's name, devised for the good of the soldier and seaman in their hard spheres of duty, can scarcely fail to be blest.... the birthday of washington and the christian sabbath coinciding this year, and suggesting together the highest interests of this life and of that to come, is most propitious for the meeting proposed."
january 5, 1863, in reply to a letter, mr. lincoln wrote the following:
[pg 217]
"it is most cheering and encouraging for me that in the efforts which i have made and am making for the restoration of a righteous peace for our country, i am upheld and sustained by the good wishes and prayers of god's people. no one is more deeply than myself aware that without his favor our highest wisdom is but as foolishness and that our most strenuous efforts would avail nothing in the shadow of his displeasure."
"i am conscious of no desire for my country's welfare that is not in consonance with his will, and no plan upon which we may not ask his blessing. it seems to me that if there be one subject upon which all good men may unitedly agree, it is imploring the gracious favor of the god of nations upon the struggles our people are making for the preservation of their precious birthright of civil and religious liberty."
second annual message to congress, december 1, 1862:
"while it has not pleased the almighty to bless us with a return of peace, we can but press on, guided by the best light he gives us, trusting that in his own good time and wise way all will be well."
reply to a committee of colored people who presented him with a bible, september 4, 1864:
"this occasion would seem fitting for a lengthy response to the address which you have just made. i would make one if prepared; but i am not. i would promise to respond in writing had not experience taught me that business will not allow me to do so. i can only say now, as i have often before said, it has always been a sentiment with me that all mankind should be free. so far as able, within my sphere, i have always acted as i believe to be right and just; and i have done all i could for the good of mankind generally. in letters and documents sent from this office, i have expressed myself better than i now can.
"in regard to this great book, i have but to say, it is the best gift god has given to man. all the good saviour gave to the world was communicated through this book. but for[pg 218] it we could not know right from wrong. all things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it. to you i return my most sincere thanks for this very elegant copy of the great book of god which you present."—complete works of lincoln by john g. nicolay and john hay. new and enlarged edition, twelve volumes. new york: francis d. tandy company, 1905, x, 217-18.
compiling these and kindred passages from his authentic works, his two secretaries, nicolay and hay, were impressed anew with the manifest sincerity and deep religious conviction which they expressed. commenting upon these as a whole, and having particularly in mind certain stories which given to the public could not, from their date and nature, have been mere conventional expressions, and others so manifestly personal that no consideration of the public opinion could have had any weight with him, they said:
"he was a man of profound and intense religious feeling. we have no purpose of attempting to formulate his creed: we question if he himself ever did so. there have been swift witnesses who, judging from expressions uttered in his callow youth, have called him an atheist; and others who, with the most laudable intentions, have remembered improbable conversations which they bring forward to prove at once his orthodoxy and their own intimacy with him. but leaving aside these apocryphal endeavors, we have only to look at his authentic public and private utterances to see how deep and strong in all the latter part of his life was the current of his religious thought and emotion. he continually invited and appreciated, at their highest value, the prayers of good people. the pressure of the tremendous problems by which he was surrounded; the awful moral significance of the conflict in which he was the chief combatant; the overwhelming sense of personal responsibility which never left him for an hour—all contributed to produce, in a temperament naturally serious and predisposed to a spiritual view of life and conduct, a sense of reverent acceptance of the guidance of a superior power. from the morning when, standing amid the falling[pg 219] snowflakes in the railway car at springfield, he asked the prayers of his neighbors in those touching phrases whose echo rose that night in invocations from thousands of family altars, to that memorable hour when on the steps of the capitol he humbled himself before his creator in the sublime words of the second inaugural, there is not an expression known to have come from his lips or pen but proves that he held himself answerable in every act of his career to a more august tribunal than any on earth. the fact that he was not a communicant of any church, and that he was singularly reserved in regard to his personal religious life, gives only the greater force to these striking proofs of his profound reverence and faith.
"in final substantiation of this assertion, we subjoin two papers from the hand of the president, one official and the other private, which bear within themselves the imprint of a sincere devotion and a steadfast reliance upon the power and benignity of an overruling providence. the first is an order which he issued on the 16th of november, 1864, in the observance of sunday.
lincoln's sunday rest order, november 15, 1862:
"the president, commander-in-chief of the army and navy, desires and enjoins the orderly observance of the sabbath by the officers and men in the military and naval service. the importance for man and beast of the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of christian soldiers and sailors, a becoming deference to the best sentiments of a christian people, and a due regard for the divine will, demand that sunday labor in the army and navy be reduced to the measure of strict necessity.
"the discipline and character of the national forces should not suffer, nor the cause they defend be imperiled by the profanation of the day or name of the most high. 'at this time of public distress'—adopting the words of washington in 1776—'men may find enough to do in the service of god and their country without abandoning themselves to vice and[pg 220] immorality.' the first general order issued by the father of his country, after the declaration of independence, indicates the spirit in which our institutions were founded and should ever be defended. 'the general hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country.'
"the date of this remarkable order leaves no possibility for the insinuation that it sprang from any political purposes or intention. mr. lincoln had just been re-elected by an overwhelming majority; his own personal popularity was unbounded; there was no temptation for hypocrisy or deceit. there is no explanation of the order except that it was the offspring of sincere convictions.
"but if it may be said that this was, after all, an exoteric utterance springing from those relations of religion and good government which the wisest rulers have always recognized in their intercourse with the people, we will give another document of which nothing of the sort can be said. it is a paper which mr. lincoln wrote in september, 1862, while his mind was burdened with the weightiest question of his life,—the weightiest with which this country has had to grapple. wearied with all the considerations of law and of expediency with which he had been struggling for two years, he retired within himself and tried to bring some order into his thoughts by rising above the wrangling of men and parties, and pondering the relations of human government to the divine. in this frame of mind, absolutely detached from any earthly considerations, he wrote this meditation. it has never been published. it was not written to be seen of men. it was penned in the awful sincerity of a perfectly honest soul trying to bring himself into closer communion with its maker.
meditation on the divine will, september [30], 1862:
"the will of god prevails. in great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of god. both may be, and one must be, wrong. god cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. in the present civil[pg 221] war it is quite possible that god's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party; and yet the best instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect his purpose. i am almost ready to say that this is probably true: that god wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. by his mere great power on the minds of the now contestants he could have saved or destroyed the union without a human contest. yet the contest began. and, having begun, he could give the final victory to either side any day. yet the contest proceeds."—nicolay and hay, life of lincoln, century, august, 1889. vol. 35, pp. 567-68.
