Upon receiving a Bible as a gift, Lincoln wrote, “In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Saviour gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it, we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man’s welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it.”
President Abraham Lincoln’s 150-year-old Bible was gifted to his neighbor, Rev. Noyes W. Miner, by his widowed wife, Mary. Miner’s family has passed it down and recently donated it so the public can now view it. (Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum)
She wrote that Miner was “a friend very much beloved by my husband” and historians speculate the former first lady gave the Bible to Miner as a way to protect her husband’s legacy as she had angrily rejected assertions that he was an atheist.
Miner once wrote that Lincoln “believed not only in the overwhelming Providence of God, but in the divinity of the Sacred Scriptures” and that the first lady told him at Ford’s Theater that Lincoln was planning a post-White House visit to Jerusalem to “see the places hallowed by the footsteps of the Saviour.”
Read the entire fascinating article here
Read about Abraham Lincoln in the New World Encyclopedia here: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Abraham_Lincoln