If Lincoln was made an infidel or confirmed in his infidelity by his reading of William Ellery Channing, the foregoing is a reasonable sample of the quality of his infidelity: for these are not only characteristic utterances of Channing: they are among the utterances which Lincoln was most certain to have had thrust into his hand, and most likely to have read and to have approved.
The author of this work is not a Unitarian, and he is ready, on any proper occasion, to define to anyone who has a right to know, his own opinions in contradistinction from those of the Unitarian churches. But his loyalty to his own convictions lays upon him no obligation to be unfair to men who hold opinions other than his own. It is to be noted that it is Mr. Herndon, and not some bigoted exponent of orthodoxy, who calls Theodore Parker an infidel. The present writer holds no such opinion of Parker, nor yet of Channing. On the contrary, he is of opinion that their writings were beneficial to Abraham Lincoln, as helping him to define some of his own views constructively and reverently. While Beecher or Bushnell might have done it as well or better, it was not their books which Jesse Fell gave to Lincoln; and Lincoln used what he had. To say that Lincoln's views were like those of Parker or Channing is to affirm that Lincoln was not an infidel, but a Christian.
No. Of Unitarianism he knew nothing, so far as we are informed. He knew the views of certain Unitarians, and these assisted him at important points in defining certain aspects of his faith.
There have been rumors that Mr. Lincoln did come into actual contact with organized Unitarianism. I have been interested in inquiring whether this was true. During the Billy Sunday meetings in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1916, the Unitarians opened a booth there for the distribution of their literature, and there were certain communications in the local press resulting from the counter-irritation of those meetings. Among these was one in the Paterson _Guardian_, signed "Once-in-Awhile." It said:
"The following is, in part, a sketch of my own youthful experience, together with a statement of facts that relate to others who long since have passed on.
"In 1851-52 the Chicago & Alton Railroad was being built, and I was employed on a section of the work at that time. Our section extended from Springfield, Illinois, to a little town called Chatham, situated near the Sangamon River, a distance of about ten miles south from Springfield. The majority of the people who had located in that part of the country at that time were from the central part of New York State, and among them was Elder Shipman, a Unitarian. He was a very able preacher and 'made good' with all who knew him in the Sangamon country. It was not long before he received a call to preach in Springfield. The little Unitarian church there was located just around the corner from Capitol Square. When Elder Shipman was permanently located there, Abraham Lincoln became a regular and seemingly much interested attendant. Nearly all of the boys in our 'gang' had known Elder Shipman way back in New York State, and, there being no ball games or other amusements save an occasional horse race, almost every Sunday all hands would saddle horses and gallop to Springfield to attend the services conducted there by our old-time pastor. At the close of the regular service Mr. Lincoln was often called upon for a few remarks, and many of his sayings are still fresh in my mind today, although that was sixty-three years ago. Since then, in the quiet hours that have passed, I often find myself looking back through the mist of vanished years and fancy I feel the grip of his great, bony hand in mine, or rather mine in his, and hear his kindly voice saying, 'Boys, good-by, come again. Come often!'