An excerpt from Bill Tammeus's post on November 20, 2012, called, "Abe Lincoln and Jerusalem":
Beliefnet.com has offered readers this excerpt from a just-released book about Lincoln by Stephen Mansfied, Lincoln's Battle with God (a book I've not had a chance to read).Related: The Spiritual Side of Mr. Lincoln.
Mansfield, based on words later reported by Mary Lincoln, reports that as the play was going on, the president was whispering to his wife about some ideas on how they would spend the future. After the war and his term, Lincoln said to Mary, according to this account, “We will not return immediately to Springfield. We will go abroad among strangers where I can rest.”
Where did Lincoln have in mind? Again Mansfield:
"'We will visit the Holy Land,' Lincoln continued, leaning toward Mary so as not to disturb the others."
Then Mansfield reports that Lincoln added these words: “We will visit the Holy Land and see those places hallowed by the footsteps of the Savior. There is no place I so much desire to see as Jerusalem.”
Mansfield acknowledges there are reasons to doubt the veracity of these final words, but he quotes several experts as saying they believe the words to be true.
