Mr. Henry B. Rankin, who wrote his _Reminiscences_ in 1916, states that he was a boy in Lincoln's office and his parents knew Lincoln intimately during his years of struggle in New Salem. Mr. Rankin's recollection of a conversation which Lincoln had with Mr. Rankin's mother indicates that Lincoln had some such feeling as far back as his New Salem days. The Rankin family were warm friends of Peter Cartwright, whom they called Uncle Peter, and also of Mr. Lincoln. Mrs. Rankin asked him concerning the rumor that he was an infidel, and Lincoln denied it; but being pressed to explain why he did not then confess his Christian faith, he gave to her much the answer which in later years he gave to Mr. Deming and to Dr. Gurley (_Reminiscences of Lincoln_, pp. 324-26).
I think, then, we are compelled to accept this threefold testimony as establishing beyond any reasonable doubt the answer that Lincoln himself gave to the question, why he did not unite with the Church. It is a great pity that he was not brought into contact with some form of organized Christianity, orthodox and constructive in its essential teachings, but with conditions of church membership as broad as those of entrance into the kingdom of heaven. Churches have learned a little better than they understood in 1846 that a church creed should be a testimony and not a test; that it is entirely consistent with the organization and ideal of a thoroughly orthodox church to receive into its membership any and every person who loves God and his fellow-man even though he doubts thirty-eight of the thirty-nine articles of the creed and is more or less uncertain about the other one.
But we cannot consider the question of Lincoln's possible church membership and his failure to acquire it without asking whether the fault was wholly that of the churches. Other men beside Abraham Lincoln were more liberal than the churches, including old Mentor Graham, but were able to find a home there; though Graham was ultimately turned out of the so-called "hardshell" church for his warm advocacy of the principles of temperance. Some share of the responsibility for his failure to unite with the Church must belong to Lincoln himself.
It is a hazardous thing to suggest any element short of perfection in the life or thought of any popular hero. Nevertheless let us remind ourselves that Lincoln had the defects of his qualities.