“Let’s drive to Battle Creek and see the Lincoln Bible,”
the caller said when I picked up the phone. I agreed to meet as soon as I could
drive across town. I put the phone back in place and headed for the parking lot
of a nearby church, where I climbed into the pastor’s sporty sedan and
anxiously headed for the Kellogg Foundation Headquarters an hour away. This “Lincoln
Bible” significantly influenced two historic Americans that we traditionally
celebrate every spring: Isabella Baumfree (Sojourner Truth), and America’s
sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln.
Sojourner (pictured left) left her adopted Battle Creek home to visit the
White House in mid-1864. With the war still in progress, she hoped to encourage
President Lincoln with a personal visit, before giving assistance at the
Freedman’s Village. Accompanied by Lucy Colman, she met the President, most
likely assisted by Elizabeth Keckley, Lincoln’s housekeeper.1
Sojourner met the President at 8:00 a.m. on Saturday
morning. During their historic meeting, Lincoln displayed for Sojourner the Bible
the black community of Baltimore, Maryland had presented him--dubbed the
“Lincoln Bible.” Upon viewing it, she remarked, “This is beautiful indeed; the colored people of Baltimore have given
this to the head of the government, and that government once sanctioned laws
that would not permit its people to learn enough to enable them to read this
book.” In addition, the President signed Sojourner’s Book of Life--her
autograph book--writing, “for Aunty Sojourner Truth, Oct. 29, 1864 A. Lincoln.”
She described Lincoln’s Bible as “of the usual pulpit
size, bound in violet-colored velvet. On the corners were the bands of solid
gold, and carved upon a plate, also of gold, not less than one-fourth of an
inch thick, on the left hand corner, was a design representing the President in
a cotton-field knocking the shackles off the wrist of a slave, who held one
hand aloft as if invoking blessings upon the head of his benefactors. At Lincoln’s
feet was a scroll upon which was written ‘Emancipation’, and on the other cover
was a similar plate bearing this inscription: ‘To Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, the friend of
Universal Freedom. From the Loyal colored people of Baltimore, as a token of
respect and gratitude. Baltimore, July 4th, 1864.’”2
Following this visit, Sojourner assisted at the
Freedmen’s Village, but after her death, her traveling companion and
benefactor, Frances Titus commissioned Art Professor Franklin C. Courter of
nearby Albion College to paint a rendition of the 1864 White House meeting. The
professor specialized in Lincolniana, but had never met Sojourner. For this
work he received $100, which was then displayed at the 1893 Chicago Columbian
Exposition.
The professor’s painting eventually returned to Battle
Creek and enjoyed prominent display in the parlor at Dr. John Kellogg’s
prestigious health Sanitarium. The original painting burned in the Sanitarium
fire of 1903, but a local photographer, Frank Perry, had fortunately photographed
it. Perry’s photograph of Courter’s oil painting then became a popular piece of
art sold to the public. Residents of the region still stop and study the local
copy that is frequently found displayed on the walls of Battle Creek’s City
Hall.
The President’s son, Robert Lincoln, presented his
father’s Bible to Fisk University of Nashville in 1916 as a tribute to its
founder, General Clinton Bowen Fisk. Probably no single institution has played
so central a role as Fisk in the shaping of black learning and culture in
America. Thus, Thomas Nelson, a Nashville publisher, eventually gave a grant
that provided the restoration of the historic bible in a specially constructed
display case.
That display came to Battle Creek the week of October
28--November 1, 1995, during which the Touring Fisk Singers presented an
area-wide concert in nearby Kalamazoo. That occasion provided a fitting tribute
to a book that spelled freedom for the former New York slave and brought Battle
Creek its first national recognition in 1857 as the home of Sojourner Truth.
That book empowered our sixteenth president to
write-and-issue his Emancipation Proclamation, pursue the preservation of our
historic Union, as well as find guidance for his torturous Civil War years in
the Lincoln White House.
The teachings of that book--the Biblical conviction--that
all men are created equal, under God, gives foundation to human freedom. It
helped birth the United States of America played a pivotal part in creating a
democratic government … of the people … by the people … for the people.
It was the teachings of that book that guided the dreams
of a slave-girl and led her to become one of America’s early female preachers, abolitionist,
women’s rights advocate, and premier social reformer--under God. That young
slave girl first learned at Mau Mau Bett’s knee, that her only security in life
was in the God of heaven. There, she learned “never steal, never lie and always
obey your master … God is your only protection.”
When finally she ran away, she fled like Abraham of old,
not knowing where she was going. In the Providence of God, she met a
freedom-loving couple that taught her “the law is bigger than slavery.” When that
Quaker couple paid twenty-five dollars to John Dumont, her former slave master,
she concluded she and her daughter now belonged to them and she asked about
taking their name.
“Call me Isaac Van Wagener,” he said, “and my wife is
Maria Van Wagener.” With that introduction, he added, “There is but one master
and He who is your master is my master.”
Stories abound that corroborate the bible’s impact upon Isabella
Baumfree, aka Sojourner Truth. Princeton scholar, Nell Pointer,
concluded “Truth was first and last an itinerant preacher, stressing both
itineracy and preaching . . . Pentecostal that she was, Truth would have
explained that the force that brought her from the soul murder of slavery into
the authority of public advocacy was the power of the Holy Spirit . . . Without
doubt, it was Truth’s religious faith that transformed her from Isabella, a
domestic servant, into Sojourner Truth, a hero for three centuries - at least.”3
While some have questioned the authenticity of Lincoln’s
Christianity, few deny the influence of the Bible in his life. Sherwood Eddy
suggested that of all the presidents of the United States, Lincoln was probably
one of the least orthodox, yet the most religious. He once confessed to
visiting Synod leaders from the Baltimore Presbytery that “. . . I have often
wished that I was a more devout man than I am. Nevertheless, amid the greatest
difficulties of my Administration, when I could not see any other resort, I
would place my whole reliance in God, knowing that all would go well, and that
He would decide for the right. . .”
Lincoln admitted to a Connecticut Congressman “I have
never united myself to any church, because I have found difficulty in giving my
assent without mental reservation, to the long complicated statements of
Christian doctrine which characterize their articles of belief and confessions
of faith. When any church will inscribe over its altars, as its sole
qualification for membership, the Savior’s condensed statement of the substance
of both law and gospel, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself,’
that church I will join with all my heart and all my soul.”4
When Lincoln read The
Christian Defense by Dr. James Smith, pastor of First Presbyterian Church,
Springfield, IL in 1849-56, it influenced him deeply. That influence proved sufficient for Tolstoy
to refer to Lincoln as “a Christ in miniature.” The noted infidel, Robert
Ingersoll, called him “the gentlest memory of our world.”
During the nation’s darkest hours of civil turmoil,
Lincoln quietly entered his quarters one day and Mrs. Keckley, his housekeeper,
took note of his dejected entrance. She enquired as to where he had been, to
which he replied somewhat sullenly, “War Department.” She inquired about the
news. “Yes, plenty of news,” he replied, “but not good news. It is dark, dark
everywhere.”
The President then reached for his bible and began to
read. After about fifteen minutes, the “dejected look was gone and Lincoln’s countenance
was lighted up with new resolution and hope.” Mrs. Keckley, noticing his
changed demeanor, made excuse to pass behind the couch on which he sat. She
wished to see for herself what he was reading and she recognized the book of
Job.5
What other book do we have that could bring together an
illiterate former-black-slave and the President of the United States? No other
book brings together such a diverse cross-section of humanity and glues them into
one common bond--under God. No other book in the history of humanity has
influenced so many people and impacted their lives so positively in their
deepest hours of struggling for survival, as has the Bible (pictured is MLK"s Bible).
Celebrating President’s Day,
Black History Month,
and Bible reading; this is
walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com
_____
1
Nell Painter Notes from SOJOURNER TRUTH A
LIFE A SYMBOL. (N. Y.: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000), p.203-4.
2
Painter (328) credits the Bernice Bryant Lowe Collection, “Sojourner Truth Papers”,
Section VIII, Bentley Michigan Historical Collections, Bentley Historical
Library, U of MI., Ann Arbor.”
3 Painter, p.4.
3 Painter, p.4.
4
Edgar DeWitt Jones; Lincoln and the
Preachers. (NY: Harper, 1940), p. 141.
5
Ruth Randall. Mary Lincoln. (New
York: Little, Brown, 1953), p. 229.
