"I have often been asked what were Mr. Lincoln's religious opinions. When I knew him in early life, he was a skeptic. He had tried hard to be a believer, but his reason could not grasp and solve the great problem of redemption as taught. He was very cautious never to give expression to any thought or sentiment that would grate harshly upon a Christian ear. For a sincere Christian he had great respect. He often said that the most ambitious man might live to see every hope fail; but no Christian could live and see his hope fail, because fulfillment could only come when life ended. But this was a subject we never discussed. The only evidence I have of any change, was in the summer before he was killed. I was invited out to the Soldiers' Home to spend the night. As I entered the room, near night, he was sitting near a window intently reading his Bible. Approaching him I said, 'I am glad to see you so profitably engaged.' 'Yes,' said he, 'I am profitably engaged.' 'Well,' said I, 'if you have recovered from your skepticism, I am sorry to say that I have not.' Looking me earnestly in the face, and placing his hand on my shoulder, he said, 'You are wrong, Speed; take all of this Book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man.'"--SPEED: _Lecture on Abraham Lincoln_, pp. 32, 33.
The Bible which the colored people presented to Lincoln was kept and prized by him. Hon. H. C. Deming, in his address before the Legislature of Connecticut, just after Lincoln's death, referred to it:
"The interview which I am recalling was last summer [1864] just after General Fremont had declined to run against him for the Presidency. The magnificent Bible, which the negroes of Washington[24] had just presented to him lay upon the table, and while we were both examining it, I recited the somewhat remarkable passage from the Chronicles, 'Eastward were six Levites, northward four a day, southward four a day, and toward Assuppim two and two. At Parbar westward, four at the causeway, and two at Parbar.'[25] He immediately challenged me to find any such passage as that in _his_ Bible. After I had pointed it out to him, and he was satisfied of its genuineness, he asked me if I remembered the text which his friends had applied to Fremont, and instantly turned to a verse in the first of Samuel, put on his spectacles, and read in his slow, peculiar, and waggish tone,--'And everyone that was in distress and everyone that was in debt, and everyone that was discontented gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men.'"[26]