"The church was filled that morning. It was a good-sized church, but on that day all the seats were filled. I had chosen for my text the words: 'Ye must be born again,' and during the course of my sermon I laid particular stress on the word 'must.' Mr. Lincoln came into the church after the services had commenced, and there being no vacant seats, chairs were put in the altar in front of the pulpit, and Mr. Lincoln and Governor French and wife sat in the altar during the entire services, Mr. Lincoln on my left and Governor French on my right, and I noticed that Mr. Lincoln appeared to be deeply interested in the sermon. A few days after that Sunday Mr. Lincoln called on me and informed me that he had been greatly impressed with my remarks on Sunday and that he had come to talk with me further on the matter. I invited him in, and my wife and I talked and prayed with him for hours. Now, I have seen many persons converted; I have seen hundreds brought to Christ, and if ever a person was converted, Abraham Lincoln was converted that night in my house. His wife was a Presbyterian, but from remarks he made to me he could not accept Calvinism. He never joined my church, but I will always believe that since that night Abraham Lincoln lived and died a Christian gentleman."
Here ends the narrative of Colonel Jacquess. Now compare that which my memory preserved for the past thirteen years and the Colonel's own printed account, and the discrepancies are small. It is with pleasure I am able to confirm my memory by the words of the original narrator. It is with no small degree of pleasure that I am able to prove that Methodism had a hand in the making of the greatest American. Colonel James F. Jacquess has gone to his reward, but it is his honor to have been used by his Master to help in the spiritualization of the great man who piloted our national destinies in a time of exceeding peril. It is an honor to him, and through him to the denomination of which he was a distinguished member.
THE LATER LIFE AND RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN[73]
WHILE the fate and future of the Christian religion in nowise depends upon the sentiments of Abraham Lincoln, yet the life and character of this remarkable man belong to the public, to tell for evil or for good on coming generations; and as the attempt has been made to impute to him the vilest sentiments, even to his dying day, it is fitting and just that the weakness and infidelity charged upon his later life should not go down unchallenged to posterity. The latest biography of Mr. Lincoln, published under the name of Col. W. H. Lamon, but with the large co-operation of Mr. W. H. Herndon, concerns itself with the endeavor to establish certain allegations injurious to the good name of the illustrious man, whose tragic and untimely death has consecrated his memory in the hearts of a grateful nation. Two charges in this biography are worthy of especial notice and disproof,--the charge that he was born a bastard, and the charge that he died an infidel. Mr. Lamon begins his pleasing task by raising dark and unfounded insinuations as to the legitimacy of his hero, and then occupies from twenty-five to thirty pages with evidence to prove that Mr. Lincoln was a confirmed infidel, and died playing a "sharp game on the Christian community"; that, in his "morbid ambition for popularity," he would say good Lord or good Devil, "adjusting his religious sentiments to his political interests." In meeting these insinuations and charges I shall necessarily have recourse to political documents and papers, but it shall not be my aim to parade Mr. Lincoln's political opinions, further than to eliminate from his writings and speeches his religious sentiments.