The Lincoln and Beecher Story
A few weeks since we published an article from the Sunday School Times, entitled, “When Lincoln and Beecher Prayed Together,” by Samuel Scoville, Jr. The Christian Advocate of February 12 reviews the article at some length, and, while attributing no motive to deceive on the part of the writer, shows conclusively that such an interview was highly improbable, and publishes a statement from Mr. Lincoln’s private secretary, William O. Stoddard, to show that it would have been absolutely impossible for Mr. Lincoln to have absented himself from Washington for six hours or hardly one hour, day or night, without at least one of six persons knowing it, and that any one of these would have told the others. Mr. Stoddard closes: “The story is incredible, impossible.” Surely, there is some mistake somewhere, and it looks as tho Mr. Scoville was in the mistake. This is a good illustration of the fallibility of human documents.