That Lincoln was unwilling to make his doubt the occasion of dogmatic negation is evident from one or more of the acquaintances of Lincoln, whom Herndon interviewed in an effort to adduce testimony against his faith, and whom Lamon quoted in that part of his book in which he made his attack upon the religion of Lincoln. The following from I. W. Keys, the man who loaned to him _Vestiges of Creation_, is interesting in itself and especially interesting in its relation to the group of testimonies which these two men assembled:
"In my intercourse with Mr. Lincoln, I learned that he believed in a Creator of all things, who had neither beginning nor end, and, possessing all power and wisdom, established a principle, in obedience to which worlds move, and are upheld, and animal and vegetable life come into existence. A reason he gave for his belief was that, in view of the order and harmony of all nature which we behold, it would have been created and arranged by some great thinking power. As to the Christian theory, that Christ is God, or equal to the Creator, he said that it had better be taken for granted; for, by the test of reason, we might become infidels on that subject, for evidence of Christ's divinity came to us in a somewhat doubtful shape; but that the system of Christianity was an ingenious one at least, and perhaps was calculated to do good."--LAMON: _Life of Lincoln_, p. 490.
Emphatic proof of Mr. Lincoln's faith is to be found in the positive declaration of the two men who have done most to destroy the world's confidence in it, Lamon and Herndon. In Lamon's later book of _Reminiscences_, he did much to counteract the harsh and to my mind incorrect impression given in his earlier book. But even in that book he affirmed that while Lincoln rejected the New Testament as a book of divine authority, he accepted its precepts as binding upon him and was a believer in the supernatural even to credulity (p. 503, 504).
In that same work Herndon set forth that Lincoln was a firm believer in God and attempted, as he said, "to put at rest forever the charge that Mr. Lincoln was an atheist." He declared, however, that Lincoln did not believe in a special creation, but in an "evolution under law"; not in special revelation, "but in miracles under law"; and that "all things both matter and mind were governed by laws universal, absolute, and eternal" (p. 494).