Lincoln speech on the Bible?

[wpbinzel]

For what it's worth, this is from Herndon's notes of an "interview" he had with Mary Todd Lincoln in September 1866:

"Mr Linc[oln] had a Kind of Poetry in his Nature: he was [a terribly] firm man when he set his foot down -- none of us -- no man nor woman Could rule him after he had made up his mind. I told him about Sewards intention to rule him --: he said -- "I shall rule myself -- shall obey my own Conscience and follow God in it. Mr Lincoln had no hope & no faith in the usual acceptation of those words: he never joined a Church: he was a religious man always, as I think: he first thought -- to say think -- about this subject was when Willie died -- never before. he felt religious More than Ever about the time he went to Gettysburg: he was not a technical Christian: he read the bible a good deal about 1864" -- Wilson and Davis, eds., Herndon's Informants (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1998), p. 360.