Extra Credit Questions

[RJNorton]

This is one professor's opinion on an incident that apparently occurred in New Salem in 1834. The professor seems to think Lincoln's immediate political future was perhaps at risk.

Professor Michael Nelson wrote the following:

Paine and Volney's shared disdain—and that of Lincoln's new friends—for a doctrine that tarred people with sins they were foreordained to commit confirmed Lincoln in his contempt for the religion of his youth. In 1834, at age 25, he wrote a long essay attacking the divine character of the Bible and of doctrines as various as the Virgin Birth and the Trinity in hopes of having it published. The owner of the store in which Lincoln brandished his manuscript, Samuel Hill, seized it from Lincoln's hand and threw it in the fire. Hill's concern was less religious heresy than political viability. Lincoln was a candidate for the state legislature. Thanks in no small measure to Hill's saving him from himself, he was elected.

https://web.archive.org/web/200901230336...olns-soul/

I would be curious what forum members think of Professor Nelson's statement.