Lincoln's Christianity by Michael Burkhimer

[maharba]

As Herndon and others have concluded, so I agree. Lincoln was an atheist. As it appears certain to me that Lincoln scorned The Thanksgiving Proclamation to others as 'just some nonsense of Sewards". But the longsuffering public, then, believed the sincerity. >>

I wonder how many (Fehenbachers included?) realized that it was Seward and not Lincoln wrote the Thanksgiving Proclamation. With this knowledge in view, it makes it all but certain that Lincoln truly was again scorning a religious themed item (appearing to be from Lincoln himself), at the same time giving out to the poor public the golden notion of himself in traditional Christian unity with them. That surely does not sound to me like 'a man evolving from atheism to deism or Christianity'.

For the benefit though of Christianized-Lincoln advocates, I have to admit that I do find these quotes,

"In regard to this great book (a bible given to him by ex-slaves), I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Saviour gave to the world was communicated through this book."

Rev Phineas Gurley said that Lincoln "now believed his heart was changed, and that he loved the Saviour, and...was his intention soon to make a profession of religion."

And it gets even worse, for my viewpoint of understanding. I have seen narratives which detail how president Abraham Lincoln was secretly baptized, in his final days. Several compelling articles detail that, online.
A parallel in the case of (atheist to reformed Christian?) Charles Darwin is given where a mysterious traveling divine 'Lady Hope' visited Darwin in his last illness and miraculously converted him on his death bed to a really good Christian. So...I suppose these things surely do happen.