The first is the period of his boyhood, from his birth in Kentucky until his coming of age and the removal of his family from Indiana into Illinois.
The second is the period of his early manhood, from the time he left his father's home until he took up his residence in Springfield.
The third is the period of his life in Springfield, from his first arrival on April 15, 1837, until his final departure on February 11, 1861, for his inauguration4 as President.
The fourth is the period covered by his presidency5, from his inauguration, March 4, 1861, until his death, April 15, 1865.
Before considering at length the testimony6 of the people who knew him, except as that testimony relates to these particular epochs, we will consider the life of Lincoln as it was related to the conditions in which he lived in these successive periods.
The first period in the life of Abraham Lincoln includes[Pg 30] the twenty-one years from his birth to his majority, and is divided into two parts,—the first seven and one-half years of his life in the backwoods of Kentucky, and the following thirteen years in the wilderness7 of southern Indiana.
Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United States, was born near Hodgenville, Kentucky, on Sunday, February 12, 1809. He was the second child of Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, who were married near Beechland, Washington County, Kentucky, on June 12, 1806, when Thomas was twenty-eight and Nancy twenty-three. Nine days before the birth of Abraham Lincoln the territory of Illinois was organized by Act of Congress; the boy and the future State were twin-born. For four years the family lived on the Rock Spring farm, three miles from Hodgenville, in Hardin, now Larue County, Kentucky. When he was four years old his parents moved to a better farm on Knob Creek9. Here he spent nearly four years more, and he and his sister, Sarah, began going to school. His first teacher was Zachariah Riney; his second, Caleb Hazel.
In the autumn of 1816, Thomas Lincoln loaded his household goods upon a small flatboat of his own construction and floated down Knob Creek, Salt River, and the Ohio, and landed on the northern bank of the Ohio River. He thence returned and brought his family, who traveled on horseback. The distance to where the goods had been left was only about fifty miles in a straight line from the old home in Kentucky, but was probably a hundred miles by the roads on which they traveled. Thomas doubtless rode one horse with a child behind him, and Nancy rode the other, also carrying a child behind her saddle.
When the family arrived at the point where the goods had been left, a wagon10 was hired, and Thomas Lincoln, with his wife, his two children, and all his worldly possessions, moved sixteen miles into the wilderness to a place which he had already selected, and there made his home. That winter and the greater part of the following year were spent in a "half-faced camp" from which the family moved in the following autumn to a log cabin, erected11 by Thomas Lincoln. For more[Pg 31] than a year he was a squatter12 on this farm, but subsequently entered it and secured title from the government. Here Nancy Hanks Lincoln died, October 5, 1818, when Abraham was less than ten years old. A year later Thomas Lincoln returned to Kentucky and married Sally Bush Johnson, a widow, with three children. She brought with her better furniture than the cabin afforded, and also brought a higher type of culture than Thomas Lincoln had known. She taught her husband so that he was able with some difficulty to read the Bible and to sign his own name. On this farm in the backwoods in the Pigeon Creek settlement, with eight or ten families as neighbors, and with the primitive13 village of Gentryville a mile and a half distant, Abraham Lincoln grew to manhood. Excepting for a brief experience as a ferryman on the Ohio River and a trip to New Orleans which he made upon a flatboat, his horizon was bounded by this environment from the time he was eight until he was twenty-one.
The cabin in which the Lincoln family lived was a fairly comfortable house. It was eighteen feet square and the logs were hewn. It was high enough to admit a loft15, where Abe slept, ascending16 to it by wooden pins driven into the logs. The furniture, excepting that brought by Sally Bush, was very primitive and made by Thomas Lincoln. Three-legged stools answered for chairs, and the bedsteads had only one leg each, the walls supporting the other three corners.
Of the educational advantages, Mr. Lincoln wrote in 1860:
"It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools so-called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond readin', writin', and cipherin' to the Rule of Three. If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn18 in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education."—Nicolay, p. 10.
Here he attended school for three brief periods. The first school was taught by Azel W. Dorsey, when Abraham was ten years old; the next by Andrew Crawford, when he was four[Pg 32]teen; and the third by a teacher named Swaney, whose first name Mr. Lincoln was unable to recall in later life. His schooling19 was under five different teachers, two in Kentucky and three in Indiana. It was scattered20 over nine years and embraced altogether less than twelve months of aggregate21 attendance.
In Kentucky it is probable that his only textbook was Webster's Elementary Speller. It was popularly known as the "Old Blueback."
Webster's Speller is a good speller and more. Each section of words to be spelled is followed by short sentences containing those words, and at the end of the book are three illustrated23 lessons in Natural History—one on The Mastiff, another on The Stag, and the third on The Squirrel. Besides these are seven fables24, each with its illustration and its moral lesson. I used this book in teaching school in the backwoods of Kentucky, and still have the teacher's copy which I thus employed.
The two Kentucky schools which Lincoln attended were undoubtedly25 "blab" schools. The children were required to study aloud. Their audible repetition of their lessons was the teacher's only assurance that they were studying;[2] and even while he was hearing a class recite he would spend a portion of his time moving about the room with hickory switch in hand, administering frequent rebuke26 to those pupils who did not study loud enough to afford proof of their industry.
In Indiana, Lincoln came under the influence of men who could cipher17 as far as the Rule of Three. He also learned to use Lindley Murray's English Reader, which he always believed, and with much reason, to be the most useful textbook ever put into the hands of an American youth (Herndon, I, 37). He also studied Pike's Arithmetic. Grammar he did not study in school, but later learned it under Mentor27 Graham in Illinois.
[Pg 33]
The first of these schools was only about a mile and a half distant from his home; the last was four miles, and his attendance was irregular.
In the second school, taught by Andrew Crawford, he learned whatever he knew of the usages of polite society; for Crawford gave his pupils a kind of drill in social usages (Herndon, I, 37).
In Swaney's school he probably learned that the earth was round. A classmate, Katy Roby, afterward28 Mrs. Allen Gentry14, between whom and Abraham a boy-and-girl attachment29 appears to have existed, and who at the time was fifteen and Abe seventeen, is authority for the statement that as they were sitting together on the bank of the Ohio River near Gentry's landing, wetting their bare feet in the flowing water and watching the sun go down, he told her that it was the revolution of the earth which made the moon and sun appear to rise and set. He exhibited what to her appeared a profound knowledge of astronomy (Herndon, I, 39; Lamon's Life, p. 70).
It is not necessary for us to assume that Abraham knew very much more about astronomy than the little which he told to Katy Roby; but it is worth while to note in passing that when Abraham Lincoln learned that the earth was round, he probably learned something which his father did not know and which would have been admitted by no minister whom Abraham had heard preach up to this time.
We are ready now to consider the character of the preaching which Abraham Lincoln heard in his boyhood. Direct testimony is fragmentary of necessity; but it is of such character that we are able without difficulty to make a consistent mental picture of the kind of religious service with which he was familiar.
A recent author has said that Lincoln never lived in a community having a church building until he went to the legislature in Vandalia in 1834 (Johnson, Lincoln the Christian31, p. 31). This is probably true if we insist upon its meaning a house of worship owned exclusively by one denomination32, but the same author reminds us that there was a log meeting[Pg 34]-house[3] within three miles of Lincoln's childhood home in Kentucky (p. 22).
Dr. Peters says:
"The prayers that Parson Elkin said above the mound33 of Nancy Hanks were the first public prayers to which Abraham ever listened"—Abraham Lincoln's Religion, p. 24.
This is absurdly incorrect. Abraham Lincoln almost certainly heard public prayers at intervals34, probably from the time he was three months old.
Abraham Lincoln was born in February, or his mother probably would have taken him to church earlier; but by May or June, when there was monthly preaching at the log meeting-house three miles away, she mounted a horse and Thomas Lincoln another, he with Sarah sitting before him at the saddlebow and she with Abraham in her arms, and they rode to meeting. If they had had but one horse instead of two they would have gone just the same. She would have sat behind Thomas with Abraham in her arms and Thomas would have had Sarah on the horse before him. Thomas Lincoln was too shiftless to have a horse-block, but Nancy could mount her horse from any one of the numerous stumps35 in the vicinity of the home. She and every other young mother in the neighborhood knew how to ride and carry a baby, and having once learned the art, the young mother was not permitted to forget it for several years.
Arrived at the log meeting-house, they hitched36 their horses to swinging limbs, where the animals could fight flies without breaking the bridle-reins. Nancy went inside immediately and took her seat on the left side of the room; Thomas remained outside gossiping with his neighbors concerning "craps" and politics, and maybe swapping37 a horse before the service had gotten fairly under way. After a while he heard the preacher in stentorian38 tones lining39 and singing the opening hymn40, the[Pg 35] thin, high voices of the women joining him feebly at first but growing a little more confident as the hymn proceeded. Then Thomas and his neighbors straggled in and sat on the right side of the house. The floor was puncheon and so were the seats; they were rudely split slabs41, roughly hewn, and the second sitting from either end had an added element of discomfort43 in the projection44 of the two legs that had been driven in from the under side and were not sawed off flush with the surface of the slab42. There were no glass windows. On either side of the house one section of a log may have been sawed out about four feet from the floor; but most of the light of the interior came in through the open door in mild weather, or was afforded by the fireplace in cold weather.
On the rude pulpit lay the preacher's Bible and hymn book, if he had a hymn book—no one else had one; and beside these were a bucket of water and a gourd45. There was no time in the service when Thomas Lincoln did not feel free to walk up to the pulpit and drink a gourd of water, and the same was true of every other member of the congregation, the preacher included. As for Nancy, she spread her riding-skirt on the seat under her and when her baby grew hungry she nursed him just as the other women nursed their babies.
To such congregations the author of this present book preached hundreds of times in the woods of Kentucky; and there is no essential feature of the church services which he does not know.
In the autumn, just before fodder-pulling time, there was an occasional camp-meeting or big revival46, followed by a baptizing, which brought multitudes of people from long distances. They brought their provisions, or they stayed with friends, one cabin proving elastic47 enough to accommodate two or three households. Under these conditions the author of this book has slept many nights in houses of one room, with as many beds as the room could well contain, inhabited not only by the family but by visitors of both sexes; and in all that experience he is unable to recall any incident that was immodest.
When the converts of the camp-meeting or revival were[Pg 36] baptized, they were led into the water with due solemnity; but as each one came to the surface he or she was likely to break forth48 into shouting, a proceeding49 which, as the author can testify, was sometimes embarrassing, if not indeed perilous,[4] to the officiating clergyman.
Herndon tells us of the fondness of the Hanks girls for camp-meeting and describes one in which Nancy appears to have participated a little time before her marriage (I, 14). We have no reason to believe that that was her last camp-meeting.
Thomas Lincoln is alleged50 by Herndon to have been a Free-will Baptist in Kentucky, a Presbyterian in the latter part of his life in Indiana, and finally a Disciple51 (I, 11). He does not state where he obtained his information, but it is almost certain that he got it from Sally Bush Lincoln on the occasion of his visit to her in 1865; as she is the accredited52 source of most of the information of this character.
I am more than tempted53 to believe that either she or Herndon was incorrect in speaking of Thomas Lincoln's earliest affiliation54 as a Free-will Baptist. There were more kinds of Baptists in heaven and on earth than were understood in her philosophy; and I question whether the Free-will Baptists, who originated in New England, had by this time penetrated55 to so remote a section of Kentucky. What she probably told Herndon was that he was not of the most reactionary56 kind—the so-called "Hardshell" or anti-missionary Baptists. Of them we shall have something to say later. The Scripps biography, read and approved by Lincoln, said simply that his parents were consistent members of the Baptist Church. Nicolay and Hay do not record the membership of Thomas Lincoln in the Presbyterian Church, and one is more than tempted to question the accuracy of Herndon at this point. Presbyterianism had at that date very little part in the shaping[Pg 37] of the life of the backwoods of Illinois and Indiana, as we shall see when we come to the life of Lincoln in Illinois. Nicolay and Hay tell us that "Thomas Lincoln joined the Baptist church at Little Pigeon in 1823. His oldest child, Sarah, followed his example three years later. They were known as consistent and active members of that communion" (Nicolay and Hay, I, 32-33). If Sarah joined the Baptist church in 1826, and the family was remembered as active in that church, the relation of Thomas Lincoln with the Presbyterians in Indiana must have been brief, for he left that State in 1830. We are assured that he observed religious customs in his home and asked a blessing57 at the table; for one day, when the meal consisted only of potatoes, Abraham said to his father, that he regarded those as "mighty58 poor blessings59" (Herndon, I, 24). While Thomas Lincoln was not an energetic man, there is no reason to doubt the consistency60 of his religion, in which he was certainly aided by Sally Bush Lincoln. That he died in the fellowship either of the Disciples61 or of the New Lights is probably correct; but the Presbyterian membership in Indiana, while not impossible, appears more likely to have been a mistake in Herndon's interpretation62 of Mrs. Lincoln's narrative63.
Herndon's statement concerning Thomas Lincoln's religion is as follows:
"In his religious belief he first affiliated64 with the Free-will Baptists. After his removal to Indiana he changed his adherence65 to the Presbyterians—or Predestinarians, as they were then called—and later united with the Christian—vulgarly called Campbellite—Church, in which latter faith he is supposed to have died" (I, 11-12).
I am satisfied that Herndon is mistaken in two if not in all three of these assertions. I am confident that Predestinarian was not a popular or commonly understood name for Presbyterians, but it was a name for one type of Baptists. Mrs. Lincoln probably told Herndon that her husband joined in Indiana, not the hardshell, or most reactionary kind of Baptists, but the Predestinarians. Knowing that predestina[Pg 38]tion was a doctrine66 of Presbyterianism, Mr. Herndon assumed that that was what the name implied. It implied nothing of the sort. Thomas Lincoln probably belonged to the old Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists, not quite as hard in their shell as the Hardshells, but very different from the Free-will Baptists or the Presbyterians, the kind whose preachers were accustomed to shout—"I'd rather have a hard shell than no shell at all!"
Dennis Hanks[5] was far from being impeccable authority on matters where his imagination permitted him to enlarge, but he seldom forgot anything, and still less frequently made it smaller than it really was. If Thomas Lincoln had ever sustained any relation to the Presbyterian Church, he would surely have told it, or some member of his family, jealous as those members were for the reputation of "Grandfather Lincoln," would not have failed to report it. In his interview with Mrs. Eleanor Atkinson, in which his family participated, Dennis evinced a definite attempt to set forth Thomas Lincoln in as favorable a light as possible, and there was a high and deserved tribute to his "Aunt Sairy," Thomas Lincoln's second wife.
"Aunt Sairy sartainly did have faculty67. I reckon we was all purty ragged68 and dirty when she got there. The fust thing she did was to tell me to tote one of Tom's carpenter benches to a place outside the door, near the hoss trough. Then she had me an' Abe an' John Johnson, her boy, fill the trough with spring water. She put out a gourd full of soft soap, and another one to dip water with, an' told us boys to wash up fur dinner. You just naturally had to be somebody when Aunt Sairy was around. She had Tom build her a loom69, an' when she heerd o' some lime burners bein' round Gentryville, Tom had to mosey over an' git some lime an' whitewash70 the cabin. An' he made her an ash hopper fur lye, an' a chicken-house nothin' could git into. Then—te-he-he-he!—she set some kind of a dead-fall trap fur him, an' got Tom to jine the Baptist Church. Cracky, but Aunt Sally was some punkins!"—American Magazine, February, 1908, p. 364.
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I am of opinion that what Mrs. Sarah Bush Lincoln told Herndon was that her husband sometimes attended the Presbyterian service, and that the church he joined was the Baptist, but not the Hardshell Baptist. But evidence is wholly lacking that he had any connection with the Presbyterian Church, or with the Free-will Baptists, of which latter sect22 he probably never heard.
The church at Farmington of which Thomas Lincoln became a member is not now in existence. I have endeavored through investigation71 in Farmington, and by correspondence with Mr. Robert T. Lincoln, to ascertain72 its denomination. It called itself "Christian," and Herndon did not doubt that that name indicated that it was a church of the denomination sometimes called "Campbellite." But that is not certain. Other denominations73 claim that as their distinctive74 name, and one of them was at that time active in that part of Illinois. My inquiries75 have brought me no certain knowledge on this point; but Mr. Jesse W. Weik is of opinion that the denomination was that known as "New Light." It is possible that Herndon was in error in every one of his three affirmations concerning the religion of Thomas Lincoln, and that the President's father was never a Free-will Baptist, never a Presbyterian, and never a Disciple or Campbellite. I have endeavored to learn whether his change from the Baptist to the "Christian" church was a matter of conviction or convenience, but on this I have found nothing except a statement from the minister who buried him, in which it would appear that his change of polity was a matter of conviction. This minister spoke76 very highly of Thomas Lincoln, whom he had known well in the latter years of his life.
There has been undue77 attempt to credit the pious78 boy Abraham with the religious service conducted over the grave of his mother by Rev30. David Elkin[6] some months after her[Pg 40] demise79. There is no good authority for this legend. Herndon probably tells the truth about it:
"Within a few months, and before the close of the winter, David Elkin, an itinerant80 preacher whom Mrs. Lincoln had known in Kentucky, happened into the settlement, and in response to the invitation from the family and friends, delivered a funeral sermon over her grave. No one is able now to remember the language of Parson Elkin's discourse81, but it is recalled that he commemorated82 the virtues83 and good phases of character, and passed in silence the few shortcomings and frailties84 of the poor woman sleeping under the winter's snow."
—Herndon, I, 28.
This does not compel us to believe that there had been no preacher in the Pigeon Creek settlement since the death of Nancy Hanks.[7] It was customary among these Kentucky-bred people to hold the funeral service some weeks or months after the burial. The author of this volume has attended many such services.
The reasons require some explanation. The dead were commonly buried on the day following death. There were, of course, no facilities for embalming85 or preserving the corpse86 for any great length of time. Preachers were nearly all farmers; and the particular minister with whose church the family was[Pg 41] affiliated might be living at a considerable distance and be at that time at some distant place upon his wide circuit. No minister expected to preach every Sunday in any one place. A monthly appointment was the maximum attempted; and the more remote settlements were not reached statedly by any one preacher oftener than once in three months. There were occasional services, however, by other ministers riding through the country and preaching wherever they stayed overnight. It was the author's custom when coming unexpectedly into a valley to spread word up and down the creek that there would be preaching that night in the schoolhouse or in the home where he was entertained. The impromptu87 announcement never failed to bring a congregation.
What took David Elkin into Indiana we do not know. He may have been looking for a better farm than he had in Kentucky, where he could dig out a living between his preaching appointments. He may have been burdened for the souls of certain families formerly88 under his care and now gone out like the Lincolns into a howling wilderness. The late summer and early autumn between the end of corn-plowing and the beginning of fodder-pulling afforded such a minister opportunity to throw his saddlebags over his horse and start on a longer circuit than usual; and the winter gave him still another opportunity for long absence. He took no money and he collected none, or next to none, but he had free welcome everywhere with pork and corn pone89 for supper and fried chicken for breakfast. Many a time the author of this volume has ridden up to a house just before suppertime, has partaken with the family of its customary cornbread and bacon or ham, and after preaching and a good night's rest has been wakened in the morning before the rising of the sun by a muffled90 squawk and flutter as one or more chickens were pulled down out of the trees. After this fashion did the people of the backwoods welcome the messengers of the Lord.
Not necessarily on his next appearance in a settlement is the preacher requested to conduct the funeral service of persons deceased since his last visit. The matter is arranged with more of deliberation. A date is set some time ahead and word is[Pg 42] sent to distant friends.[8] After a time of general sickness such as had visited Pigeon Creek in the epidemic91 of the "milk sick," Parson Elkin may have had several funerals to preach in the same cemetery92 or at the schoolhouse nearest at hand. I have known a half-dozen funerals to be included in one sermon with full biographical particulars of each decedent and detailed descriptions of all the deathbed scenes, together with rapturous forecasts of the future bliss93 of the good people who were dead and abundant warnings of the flaming hell that awaited their impenitent94 neighbors. Even those people who had not been noted95 for their piety96 during life were almost invariably slipped into heaven through a deathbed repentance97 or by grace of the uncovenanted mercies of God. It is the business of all preachers to be very stern with the living and very charitable toward the dead.[9]
I must add a further word about the custom of deferred98 funerals. Although the burial was conducted without religious service, it was not permitted to be celebrated99 in neglect. The news that a man was dying would bring the sympathetic neighbors from miles around, and horses would be tied up the creek[Pg 43] and down while people waited in friendly sorrow and conversed101 in hushed voices in the presence of the solemn dignity of death. That night a group of neighbors would "sit up" with the dead, and keep the family awake with frequent and lugubrious102 song.
Next day the grave must be dug; and that required a considerable part of the male population of the settlement. If only two or three men came in the morning they would sit and wait for others and go home for the dinner and come back. It thus has happened more than once in my experience that we have brought the body to the burial and have had to wait an hour or more in sun or wind for the finishing of the digging of the grave.
I remember well an instance in which death occurred in the family of one of the county officials. His wife died suddenly, and under sad conditions. I mounted my horse and rode four or five miles to his home. I hitched my horse to the low-swinging limb of a beech8 tree and threaded my way among other horses into the yard, which was filled with men, and up to the porch, which was crowded with women. Passing inside, I spoke my word of sympathy to the grief-stricken husband and his children. Then I passed out into the yard and moved from group to group among the men. Presently a neighbor of the sorrowing husband approached me and asked me to step aside with him for private converse100. This was strictly103 in accordance with the custom of the country, and I walked with him behind the corn-crib. He said to me: "Mr. McCune"—naming the bereaved104 husband—"wants to know whether you have come here as a preacher or as a neighbor?" I answered, "Tell him that I have come as a neighbor." With this word he returned to the house. Up on the hillside I could see the leisurely105 movements of the grave-diggers. From the shed behind the house came the rhythmic106 tap of the hammer driving in the tacks107 that fastened the white glazed108 muslin lining of the home-made coffin109. We had some little time still to wait before either the grave or the coffin would be finished. Presently the neighbor returned to where I waited behind the corn-crib and brought with him Mr. McCune. The[Pg 44] latter shook my hand warmly and said, in substance: "I appreciate your coming and the respect which you thus show for me and for my dead wife. I was glad to see you come when you entered the house, but was a little embarrassed because I knew it to be your custom to preach the funeral sermon at the time of the burial. I have no objection to that custom; and while we are Baptists [he pronounced it Babtist, and so I have no doubt did Thomas Lincoln], there is no man whom I would rather have preach my wife's sermon than you. We shall undoubtedly have a Baptist preacher when the time for the funeral comes, but I hope you also will be present and participate in the service. But it is not our custom to hold the service at the time of the burial, and we have distant friends who should be notified. Moreover, there is another consideration. I have been twice married, and I never yet have got round to it to have my first wife's funeral preached. It seems to me that it would be a discourtesy to my first wife's memory to have my second wife's sermon preached before the first. What I now plan to do is to have the two funerals at once, and I hope you will be present and participate."
I need only add that before I departed from that region he was comfortably married to his third wife, not having gotten round to it to have the funeral sermon of either of his first two wives. I am unable to say whether when he finally got round to it there was any increase in the number. It never was my fortune to conduct the joint110 funeral of two wives of the same man at the same time; but I have more than once been present where a second wife was prominent among the mourners; and I sometimes believed her to be sincerely sorry that the first wife was dead.
It is not easy for people who have not lived amid these conditions and at the same time to have known other conditions to estimate aright the religious life of a backwoods community. Morse, whose biography of Lincoln is to be rated high, is completely unable to view this situation from other than his New England standpoint. He says:
"The family was imbued111 with a peculiar112, intense, but unenlightened form of Christianity, mingled113 with curious[Pg 45] superstition114, prevalent in the backwoods, and begotten115 by the influence of the vast wilderness upon illiterate116 men of a rude native force. It interests scholars to trace the evolution of religious faiths, but it might not be less suggestive to study the retrogression of religion into superstition. Thomas Lincoln was as restless in matters of creed117 as of residence, and made various changes in both during his life. These were, however, changes without improvement, and, so far as he was concerned, his son Abraham might have grown up to be what he himself was contented118 to remain" (I, 10).
This criticism is partly just, but not wholly so. There was superstition enough in the backwoods religion, and Abraham Lincoln never wholly divested119 himself of it; but it was not all superstition. There was a very real religion on Pigeon Creek.
In like manner, also, it is difficult for Lincoln's biographers to strike an even balance between adoring idealization of log-cabin life and horrified120 exaggeration of its squalor. Here again Morse is a classic example of the attempt to be so honest about Lincoln's poverty as to miss some part of the truth about it.
The Lincoln family was poor, even as poverty was estimated in the backwoods. Lincoln himself was painfully impressed with the memory of it, and Herndon and Lamon, who understood it better than most of his biographers, felt both for themselves and for Lincoln the pathos121 of his descent from "the poor whites"; but there is no evidence that Lincoln felt this seriously at the time. His melancholy122 came later, and was not the direct heritage of his childhood poverty. Life had its joys for families such as his. Poverty was accepted as in some sort the common lot, and also as a temporary condition out of which everybody expected sometime to emerge. Meantime the boy Abraham Lincoln had not only the joy of going to mill and to meeting, but also the privilege of an occasional frolic. We know of one or two boisterous123 weddings where he behaved himself none too well. Besides these there were other unrecorded social events on Pigeon Creek where the platter rolled merrily and he had to[Pg 46] untangle his long legs from under the bench and move quickly when his number was called or pay a forfeit124 and redeem125 it. He played "Skip-to-My-Lou" and "Old Bald Eagle, Sail Around," and "Thus the Farmer Sows His Seed," and he moved around the room singing about the millwheel and had to grab quickly when partners were changed or stand in the middle and be ground between the millstones. As large a proportion of people's known wants were satisfied on Pigeon Creek as on some fashionable boulevards. We need not seek to hide his poverty nor idealize it unduly126; neither is it necessary to waste overmuch of pity upon people who did not find their own condition pitiable.
What kind of man had been produced in this environment and as the result of the conditions of his heredity and of his inherent qualities? What do we know about the Abraham Lincoln who in 1830 took simultaneous leave of Indiana and his boyhood, and entered at once upon his manhood and the new State, that, twin-born with him, was waiting his arrival?
He was a tall, awkward, uncouth127 backwoodsman, strong of muscle, temperate128 and morally clean. He had physical strength and was not a bully129; was fond of a fight but fought fairly and as a rule on the side of weakness and of right. He was free from bad habits of all kinds, was generous, sympathetic, and kind of heart. He was as yet uninfluenced by any women except his own dead mother and his stepmother. He was socially shy, and had not profited greatly by the meager130 lessons in social usage which had been taught in Andrew Crawford's school. He was fond of cock-fighting and of boisterous sports, and had a sufficient leadership to proclaim himself "the big buck1 of the lick" and to have that declaration pass unchallenged.
He could read, write, and cipher, and was eager for learning. He was ambitious, but his ambitions had no known focus. He was only moderately industrious131, but could work hard when he had to do so. He had some ambition to write and to speak in public, but as yet he had little idea what he was to write or speak about. He was a great, hulking back[Pg 47]woodsman, with vague and haunting aspirations132 after something better and larger than he had known or seemed likely to achieve.
What do we know about the spiritual development of the young Boanerges who grew almost overnight in his eleventh year into a six-footer and was so wearied by the effort that he was slow of body and mind and was thought by some to be lazy ever afterward?
We know the books he read—the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, ?sop's Fables, Robinson Crusoe, and Weems' Life of Washington. It was a good collection, and he made the most of it. Sarah Bush Lincoln noted that while he did not like to work he liked to read, and she said, "I induced my husband to permit Abe to study" (Herndon, I, 36).
John Hanks said of him, "He kept the Bible and ?sop's Fables always within reach, and read them over and over again."
Sarah Bush did not claim that he showed any marked preference for the Bible. Lamon quotes her as saying, "He seemed to have a preference for the other books" (Life, pp. 34, 486). But he certainly read the Bible with diligence, as his whole literary style shows. Indeed, if we had only his coarse "First Chronicles of Reuben," which we could heartily133 wish he had never written, and whose publication in Herndon's first edition was one of the chief reasons for an expurgated edition,[10] we should know that even then Abe Lincoln, rough, uncouth and vulgar as he was, was modeling his style upon the Bible.
We are told that when he went to church he noted the oddities of the preachers and afterward mimicked134 them (Lamon: Life, pp. 55, 486). This might have been expected, for two reasons. First, he had a love of fun and of very boisterous fun at that; secondly135, he had a fondness for oratory136, and this was the only kind of oratory he knew anything about.
[Pg 48]
It is a remarkable137 fact that the Lincoln family appears never at any time in its history to have been strongly under the influence of Methodism.[11] This is not because they did not know of it; no pioneer could hide so deep in the wilderness as to be long hidden from the Methodist circuit riders. But the prevailing138 and almost the sole type of religion in that part of Indiana during Lincoln's boyhood was Baptist, and in spite of all that Mrs. Lincoln believed about the freedom of it, it was a very unprogressive type of preaching. The preachers bellowed139 and spat140 and whined141, and cultivated an artificial "holy tone" and denounced the Methodists and blasphemed the Presbyterians and painted a hell whose horror even in the backwoods was an atrocity142. Against it the boy Abe Lincoln rebelled. Many another boy with an active mind has been driven by the same type of preaching into infidelity.
Dr. Johnson quotes as indicative of the religious mind of the young Lincoln the four lines[12] which in his fourteenth year he wrote on the flyleaf of his schoolbook, and the two lines which he wrote in the copybook of a schoolmate:
"Abraham Lincoln
his hand and pen—
he will be good but
God knows When";
[Pg 49]
and
"Good boys who to their books apply
Will all be great men by and by."
Commenting on these Dr. Johnson says: "These show two things: First, that the youthful boy had faith in his mother's God; and, second, that he believed his mother's teachings."[13]
In like manner Dr. Johnson takes the four hymns143 which Dennis Hanks remembered to have been sung by himself and Abe and says:
"A soul that can appreciate these hymns must recognize, first, that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin; second, that Jesus Christ died upon the Cross for the salvation144 of the world; third, that life without the Saviour145 is an empty bubble, and, fourth, that loyal devotion to the Christ and his cause is man's highest calling, and the test of true character."—Lincoln the Christian, pp. 28-29.
This is very far-fetched. It shows only that Abe sang such songs, good, bad, and indifferent, as were current in his day, and without any very fine discrimination either in songs sacred or secular146. If one were to make a creed out of any of his poetry in this period, it were better to find it in his jingle147, about the Kickapoo Indian, Johnny Kongapod.[14] He was supposed to have composed an epitaph for himself that ran on this wise:
"Here lies poor Johnny Kongapod;
Have mercy on him, gracious God,
As he would do if he was God
And you were Johnny Kongapod."
[Pg 50]
It matters not for our purpose that these lines were not strictly original with Johnny Kongapod. We meet them in George Macdonald's story "David Elginbrod," and they have been used doubtless in rural England for generations. But they involve a certain rude and noble faith that the Judge of all the earth will do right and that divine justice and human justice have a common measure. Lincoln never forgot that, and he learned it on Pigeon Creek.
Herndon is our authority, if we needed any, that the Baptist preaching of Lincoln's boyhood made him a lifelong fatalist.[15] He emerged into manhood with the conviction that "whatever is to be will be," and Mrs. Lincoln declared that this was his answer to threats concerning his assassination148; that it had been his lifelong creed and continued still to be the ruling dogma of his life.
It would have gladdened the heart of Sarah Bush if her stepson, whom she loved with a tenderness almost surpassing that which she bestowed149 upon her own flesh and blood, had manifested in his youth some signs of that irresistible150 grace which was supposed to carry the assurance of conversion151 as an act not of man but of the Holy Spirit. He did not manifest that grace in the form in which she desired. She could not consistently blame him very much, for, according to her own creed and that of Thomas Lincoln, nothing that he could have done of his own volition152 would have mattered very much.
Horace Bushnell's Christian Nurture153 had not yet been written; and if it had there was not a preacher among the Baptists in southern Indiana who would not have denounced it as a creation of the devil. There were no Sunday schools in those churches, and when they began to appear they were vigorously opposed. There was no Christian nurture for the boy Abe Lincoln save the sincere but lethargic154 religion of his father and the motherly ministrations of his stepmother.
But "Abe was a good boy." With tears in her eyes Sarah Bush could remember that he never gave her a cross word. He was unregenerate, but not unlovable; and he had more faith than perhaps he realized.
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1
buck
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| n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃 | |
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2
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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3
sketching
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| n.草图 | |
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inauguration
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| n.开幕、就职典礼 | |
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presidency
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| n.总统(校长，总经理)的职位(任期) | |
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6
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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12
squatter
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| n.擅自占地者 | |
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13
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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14
gentry
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| n.绅士阶级，上层阶级 | |
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15
loft
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| n.阁楼，顶楼 | |
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16
ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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17
cipher
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| n.零；无影响力的人；密码 | |
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18
sojourn
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| v./n.旅居，寄居；逗留 | |
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19
schooling
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| n.教育；正规学校教育 | |
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20
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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21
aggregate
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| adj.总计的，集合的；n.总数；v.合计；集合 | |
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22
sect
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| n.派别，宗教，学派，派系 | |
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23
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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24
fables
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| n.寓言( fable的名词复数 )；神话，传说 | |
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25
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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26
rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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27
mentor
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| n.指导者，良师益友；v.指导 | |
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28
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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29
attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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30
rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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31
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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32
denomination
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| n.命名，取名，(度量衡、货币等的)单位 | |
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33
mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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34
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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35
stumps
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| （被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分 | |
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36
hitched
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| （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的过去式和过去分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
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37
swapping
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| 交换，交换技术 | |
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38
stentorian
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| adj.大声的，响亮的 | |
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39
lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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40
hymn
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌 | |
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41
slabs
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| n.厚板，平板，厚片( slab的名词复数 )；厚胶片 | |
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42
slab
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| n.平板，厚的切片；v.切成厚板，以平板盖上 | |
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43
discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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44
projection
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| n.发射，计划，突出部分 | |
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45
gourd
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| n.葫芦 | |
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46
revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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47
elastic
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| n.橡皮圈，松紧带；adj.有弹性的；灵活的 | |
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48
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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49
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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50
alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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51
disciple
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| n.信徒，门徒，追随者 | |
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52
accredited
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| adj.可接受的；可信任的；公认的；质量合格的v.相信( accredit的过去式和过去分词 )；委托；委任；把…归结于 | |
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53
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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54
affiliation
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| n.联系，联合 | |
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55
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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56
reactionary
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| n.反动者，反动主义者；adj.反动的，反动主义的，反对改革的 | |
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57
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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58
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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59
blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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60
consistency
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| n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度 | |
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61
disciples
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| n.信徒( disciple的名词复数 )；门徒；耶稣的信徒；（尤指）耶稣十二门徒之一 | |
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62
interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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63
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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64
affiliated
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| adj. 附属的, 有关连的 | |
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65
adherence
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| n.信奉，依附，坚持，固着 | |
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66
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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67
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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68
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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69
loom
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| n.织布机，织机；v.隐现，(危险、忧虑等)迫近 | |
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70
whitewash
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| v.粉刷，掩饰；n.石灰水，粉刷，掩饰 | |
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71
investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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72
ascertain
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| vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清 | |
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73
denominations
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| n.宗派( denomination的名词复数 )；教派；面额；名称 | |
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74
distinctive
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| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
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75
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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76
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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77
undue
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| adj.过分的；不适当的；未到期的 | |
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78
pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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79
demise
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| n.死亡；v.让渡，遗赠，转让 | |
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80
itinerant
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| adj.巡回的；流动的 | |
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81
discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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82
commemorated
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| v.纪念，庆祝( commemorate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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83
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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84
frailties
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| n.脆弱( frailty的名词复数 )；虚弱；（性格或行为上的）弱点；缺点 | |
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85
embalming
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| v.保存（尸体）不腐( embalm的现在分词 )；使不被遗忘；使充满香气 | |
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86
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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87
impromptu
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| adj.即席的，即兴的；adv.即兴的(地)，无准备的(地) | |
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88
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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89
pone
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| n.玉米饼 | |
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90
muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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91
epidemic
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| n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的 | |
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92
cemetery
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| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
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93
bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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94
impenitent
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| adj.不悔悟的，顽固的 | |
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95
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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96
piety
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| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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97
repentance
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| n.懊悔 | |
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98
deferred
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| adj.延期的，缓召的v.拖延，延缓，推迟( defer的过去式和过去分词 )；服从某人的意愿，遵从 | |
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99
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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100
converse
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| vi.谈话，谈天，闲聊；adv.相反的，相反 | |
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101
conversed
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的过去式 ) | |
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102
lugubrious
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| adj.悲哀的，忧郁的 | |
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103
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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104
bereaved
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| adj.刚刚丧失亲人的v.使失去（希望、生命等）( bereave的过去式和过去分词)；（尤指死亡）使丧失（亲人、朋友等）；使孤寂；抢走（财物） | |
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105
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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106
rhythmic
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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107
tacks
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| 大头钉( tack的名词复数 )； 平头钉； 航向； 方法 | |
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108
glazed
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| adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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109
coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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111
imbued
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| v.使（某人/某事）充满或激起（感情等）( imbue的过去式和过去分词 )；使充满；灌输；激发（强烈感情或品质等） | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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114
superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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115
begotten
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| v.为…之生父( beget的过去分词 )；产生，引起 | |
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illiterate
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| adj.文盲的；无知的；n.文盲 | |
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creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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divested
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| v.剥夺( divest的过去式和过去分词 )；脱去（衣服）；2。从…取去…；1。（给某人）脱衣服 | |
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horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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boisterous
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| adj.喧闹的，欢闹的 | |
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124
forfeit
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| vt.丧失；n.罚金，罚款，没收物 | |
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redeem
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| v.买回，赎回，挽回，恢复，履行（诺言等） | |
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unduly
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| adv.过度地，不适当地 | |
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uncouth
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| adj.无教养的，粗鲁的 | |
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temperate
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| adj.温和的，温带的，自我克制的，不过分的 | |
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bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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meager
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| adj.缺乏的，不足的，瘦的 | |
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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132
aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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mimicked
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| v.（尤指为了逗乐而）模仿( mimic的过去式和过去分词 )；酷似 | |
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secondly
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| adv.第二，其次 | |
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oratory
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| n.演讲术；词藻华丽的言辞 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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bellowed
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| v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的过去式和过去分词 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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140
spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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whined
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| v.哀号( whine的过去式和过去分词 )；哀诉，诉怨 | |
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atrocity
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| n.残暴，暴行 | |
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hymns
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌( hymn的名词复数 ) | |
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salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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saviour
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| n.拯救者，救星 | |
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secular
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| n.牧师，凡人；adj.世俗的，现世的，不朽的 | |
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jingle
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| n.叮当声，韵律简单的诗句；v.使叮当作响，叮当响，押韵 | |
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assassination
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| n.暗杀；暗杀事件 | |
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bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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150
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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152
volition
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| n.意志；决意 | |
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153
nurture
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| n.养育，照顾，教育；滋养，营养品；vt.养育，给与营养物，教养，扶持 | |
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154
lethargic
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| adj.昏睡的，懒洋洋的 | |
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