By Harry Swanson
Abraham Lincoln’s Little Book, Purified by Fire
Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the United States. Lincoln held himself to a high level of ethics and courage throughout his presidency. Abraham Lincoln’s mother died in 1819 when he was just nine years old, leaving his father, Thomas, and eleven-year-old sister, Sarah, in charge of the household. Ten years later in 1828, Sarah would die giving birth to a stillborn which devastated Lincoln.
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By early 1835, Abraham was in a relationship with Ann Rutledge but was not yet engaged. In August of that same year, Ann died of typhoid fever. In 1839, Lincoln met Mary Todd, and they married in 1841. The couple had four sons: Robert Todd, born in 1843; Edward (Eddie) Baker, born in 1846; Willie, born in 1850; and Thomas Tad, born in 1853. Eddie died in 1850, most likely of tuberculosis; Willie died of a fever at the White House in 1862; and Thomas outlived his father Abraham but died of heart failure in 1871. The deaths of Eddie and Willie had an enormous negative impact on both Abraham and Mary, leaving them in deep depression.
Abraham Lincoln led the nation into, through, and out of the Civil War while holding the United States together as one nation. Lincoln held the Founding Fathers in very high regard. Some historians believe it was almost like a religious reverence. Abraham was a man of profound faith. He attended church and read the Bible as a child. He held himself to the highest character and was self-taught in law.
In 1861, Abraham Lincoln was nominated as the Republican candidate for president of the United States, which he won. Abraham fully understood that war between North and South was eminent. In his farewell speech on February 11, 1861, leaving Illinois for Washington, he said, “I now leave not knowing when or whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail.”
It was in 1852 that Abraham Lincoln receives a copy of The Believer’s Daily Treasure from his wife Mary, which offered 365 days of scriptural lessons and fit perfectly in his vest pocket. It was that little book that pulled him through many difficult days in his personal and political life as well as the Civil War.
This book offers a revision of that very book in today’s English for ease of reading and brief commentary on the scriptures for better understanding. If there’s anything we all need today, it’s a greater understanding of the Scriptures to pull us through. By all accounts, it was essential for Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln’s “little book” was a priceless daily study then and a priceless daily study now.