Excerpt from The Religion of Abraham Lincoln: Being a Reprint of the Lecture of Rev. Jas; A. Reed in 1872, and the Answering Lecture of W. H. Herndon in 1873 When a great man dies his biographers and eulogists usually begin to iron out the wrinkles of ruggedness in his life; his virtues are enlarged upon and his shortcomings minimized until finally the real man is oblit erated and in his stead a figure free from the traits of ordinary manhood is presented for the contemplation of future generations. This was true in the case of Washington, and is, to some extent, becoming so in the case of Abraham Lincoln. It is proper, therefore, to treasure up and preserve what is written about him by his associates. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.