m this silence.
He could not categorically deny Cartwright's accusation and at the same
time satisfy his own unsparing conception of honesty. That there was
no real truth in the charge of irreligion, the allusions in the Speed
letters abundantly prove. The tone is too sincere to be doubted;
nevertheless, they give no clue to his theology. And for men like
Cartwright, religion was tied up hand and foot in theology. Here was
where Lincoln had parted company from his mother's world, and from its
derivatives. Though he held tenaciously to all that was mystical in
her bequest to him, he rejected early its formulations. The evidence of
later years reaffirms this double fact. The sense of a spiritual world
behind, beyond the world of phenomena, grew on him with the years; the
power to explain, to formulate that world was denied him. He had no
bent for dogma. Ethically, mystically, he was always a Christian;
dogmatically he knew not what he was. Therefore, to the challenge to
prove himself a Christian on purely dogmatic grounds, he had no reply.
To attempt to explain what separated him from his accusers, to show how
from his point of view they were all Christian--although, remembering
their point of view, he hesitated to say so--to draw the line between
mysticism and emotionalism, would have resulted only in a worse
confusion. Lincoln, the tentative mystic, the child of the starlit
forest, was as inexplicable to Cartwright with his perfectly downright
religion, his creed of heaven or hell--take your choice and be quick
about it!--as was Lincoln the spiritual sufferer to New Salem, or
Lincoln the political scientist to his friends in the Legislature.

But he was not injured by his silence. The faith in him held by too many
people was too well established. Then, as always thereafter, whatever
he said or left unsaid, most thoughtful persons who came close to him
sensed him as a religious man. That was enough for healthy, generous
young Springfield. He and Cartwright might fight out their religious
issues when they pleased, Abe should have his term in Congress. He was
elected by a good majority.(14)

VI. UNSATISFYING RECOGNITION

Lincoln's career as a Congressman, 1847-1849, was just what might have
been expected--his career in the Illinois Legislature on a larger scale.
It was a pleasant, companionable, unfruitful episode, with no political
significance. The leaders of the party did not take him seriously as a
possible in