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Show J ABE LINCOLN'S EARLY DOUBTS AND WHAT HE SOUGHT IN RELIGION e Speaking of his troubles, the early ones, he said: "Those s 2ys of tr0UDle found me tossed amid a sea of questionings. a They piled big around me. Through it all I groped my way until I found a stronger and higher grasp of thought, one 1 ! l Feacned beyond this life with a clearness and satisfaction I had never known before. The scriptures unfolded before me with a deeper and more logical appeal, through these experiences, than anything else I could find to turn to, or ever before had found in them. I do not claim that all my doubts were removed then, or since that time have been r swept away. They are not. Probably it is to be my lot to go on in a twilight, feeling and reasoning my way through life, J as questioning, doubting Thomas did. But in my poor, maimed, withered way, I bear with me as I go on a seeking spirit of desire' for a faith that was with Him of the olden time. It was a spirit in the lif that He laid stress on and taught, if I read aright. I know 1 see it to be so with me. The fundamental truths reported in the four gospels as from the lips of Jesus Christ, and that I first heard from the lips of my mother, are settled and fixed moral precepts with me. If the church would ask simply for assent t( the Saviour's statement of the substance of the law, 'Thou; shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself,' that church would I gladly unite with." |