Benjamin's experience with skeptical and infidel books recalls the
experience of two young men, when about the same age, with
publications of kindred character, which came very near depriving the
United States of two good Presidents.
Before Abraham Lincoln began the study of law, he was connected with a
clique or club of young men, who made light of religion, and read
books that treated it as a delusion. It was at this time that he read
Paine's "Age of Reason" and Volney's "Ruins," through which he was
influenced to array himself against the Bible for a time,--as much of
a skeptic, almost, as any one of his boon companions. But his early
religious training soon asserted itself, and we hear no more of
hostility to religion as long as he lived. On the other hand, when he
was elected President, he spoke as follows to his friends and
neighbors, who had assembled at the station to bid him adieu on
leaving for Washington, on the eve of the late bloody Civil war:
"My Friends: No one not in my position can appreciate the sadness I
feel at this parting. To this people I owe all that I am. Here I have
lived more than a quarter of a century. Here my children were born,
and here one of them lies buried. I know not how soon I shall see you
again. A duty devolves on me, which is greater, perhaps, than that
which has devolved upon any other man since the days of Washington.
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