At Washington,Lincoln was a regular attendant,though not a communicant,of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church.With the Pastor,the Reverend P.D.Gurley,he formed a close friendship.Many hours they passed in intimate talk upon religious subjects,especially upon the question of immortality.[6]To another pious visitor he said earnestly,"Ihope I am a Christian."[7]Could anything but the most secure faith have written this "Meditation on the Divine Will"which he set down in the autumn of 1862for no eye but his own:"The will of God prevails.In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God.Both may be,and one must be,wrong.God can not be for and against the same thing at the same time.In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party;and yet the human instrumentalities,working just as they do,are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose.I am almost ready to say that this is probably true;that God wills this contest,and wills that it shall not end yet.By His mere great power on the minds of the now contestants,He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest.Yet the contest began.And,having begun,He could give the final victory to either side any day.
Yet the contest proceeds."[8]
His religion flowered in his later temper.It did not,to be sure,overcome his melancholy.That was too deeply laid.
Furthermore,we fail to discover in the surviving evidences any certainty that it was a glad phase of religion.Neither the ecstatic joy of the wild women,which his mother had;nor the placid joy of the ritualist,which he did not understand;nor those other variants of the joy of faith,were included in his portion.It was a lofty but grave religion that matured in his final stage.Was it due to far-away Puritan ancestors?Had austere,reticent Iron-sides,sure of the Lord,but taking no liberties with their souls,at last found out their descendant?
It may be.Cromwell,in some ways,was undeniably his spiritual kinsman.In both,the same aloofness of soul,the same indifference to the judgments of the world,the same courage,the same fatalism,the same encompassment by the shadow of the Most High.Cromwell,in his best mood,had he been gifted with Lincoln's literary power,could have written the Fast Day Proclamation of 1863which is Lincoln's most distinctive religious fragment.
However,Lincoln's gloom had in it a correcting element which the old Puritan gloom appears to have lacked.It placed no veto upon mirth.Rather,it valued mirth as its only redeemer.
And Lincoln's growth in the religious sense was not the cause of any diminution of his surface hilarity.He saved himself from what otherwise would have been intolerable melancholy by seizing,regardless of the connection,anything whatsoever that savored of the comic.
His religious security did not destroy his superstition.He continued to believe that he would die violently at the end of his career as President.But he carried that belief almost with gaiety.He refused to take precautions for his safety.
Long lonely rides in the dead of night;night walks with a single companion,were constant anxieties to his intimates.To the President,their fears were childish.Although in the sensibilities he could suffer all he had ever suffered,and more;in the mind he had attained that high serenity in which there can be no flagging of effort because of the conviction that God has decreed one's work;no failure of confidence because of the twin conviction that somehow,somewhere,all things work together for good."I am glad of this interview,"he said in reply to a deputation of visitors,in September,1862,"and glad to know that I have your sympathy and your prayers..I happened to be placed,being a humble instrument in the hands of our Heavenly Father,as I am,and as we all are,to work out His great purpose....I have sought His aid;but if after endeavoring to do my best in the light He affords me,I find my efforts fail,I must believe that for some purpose unknown to me He wills it otherwise.If I had my way,this war would never have commenced.If I had been allowed my way,this war would have been ended before this;but it still continues and we must believe that He permits it for some wise purpose of His own,mysterious and unknown to us;and though with our limited understandings we may not be able to comprehend it,yet we can not but believe that He who made the world still governs it."[9]
