"I am not saying that Mr. Lincoln subscribed to the Unitarian articles of faith, but I have good and sufficient reason to believe that he did, and, if I am not mistaken, the proof is wanting that he ever subscribed to faith in articles of any other religious denomination."
I challenged the veracity of this letter, reprinting it in _The Advance_, of which I was editor, and asking these questions:
1. Who is Mr. Once-in-Awhile, and why does he not sign his real name?
2. How does it happen that no one else of those who attended the alleged Unitarian church in Springfield in the days when Lincoln is supposed to have been there has risen up to tell this story some time during the last half century; and why does it come to us from Paterson and not from Springfield?
3. Who is this Elder Shipman concerning whom this letter tells us? We are informed that the Unitarian Year Book shows no such man.
4. Where was this Unitarian church "just around the corner from Capitol Square"? Around which corner, and what became of it?
We are informed that there was no Unitarian church in Springfield sixty-three years ago. We were not there and do not know: but if one was there, where was it? When was it organized? Who were its ministers?
5. With so popular a preacher as Mr. Shipman appears to have been, is it altogether likely that he would have made the habit of calling upon a layman who attended his church to speak at the close of the service?
6. If Mr. Lincoln was in the habit of attending this Unitarian church, how did the Presbyterian church of Springfield get the impression that Mr. Lincoln attended there with his wife, and why did he continue to attend the Presbyterian church after he went to Washington?
7. Lincoln is known to have said that if he knew any church whose only creed was the command of Jesus to love God with all one's heart and his neighbor as himself, he would join that church, and Unitarians have frequently declared that if Mr. Lincoln had ever come into contact with the Unitarian Church he must on the basis of that declaration have united with it. We are not clear if their inference is correct, but we are clear that there has been a very general impression among Unitarians that he was not familiar with that church and creed.