Musings Abraham Lincoln

            President Abraham Lincoln often amazed people with his familiarity of the Bible.  In 1864 news had come of the Cleveland , Ohio , convention of a third party which nominated John C. Fremont for President. A friend drifted into the White House, gave Lincoln an account of the convention, and said that instead of the many thousands expected there were present at no time more than 400 people. The President struck by the number mentioned, reached for the Bible on his desk, searched a moment, then read the words: (from 1 Sam 22:2)

            “And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men.”

            “Take all this book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith,” Lincoln said of the Bible to his friend Joshua Speed in 1864, “and you will live and die a better man.”