The Soul of Ann Rutledge: Abraham Lincoln's Romance

In the tremendous output of Lincolniana that has been given to literature, it seems strange that no adequate story has been given of one of the greatest loves in history.

Many writers have referred to it and to its moulding power on the lover's after life. Some have thrown sidelights on the character of the woman. Some have mentioned her rare gift of song and her unusual endowment of mind, and one writer has given a careful description of her personal appearance. But so far as careful and exhaustive research shows, all this matter has never been woven into one story.

It is also strange that there has been so much controversy regarding the religious views of Abraham Lincoln, and by those whose faith is based on the evidence required by the Great Teacher When He said, "Ye shall know them by their fruits." Nor should it ever have been taken as an evidence of lack of faith because he did not accept the creedal beliefs of his day, for had not the Christ Himself strenuously denied much that was insisted on in His day, Christianity could never have been possible.

In this story both the love and the faith of one of earth's noblest souls is simply and intimately told.

In an age when the cynical opinion is too often heard, that between men and women there can be no different or more lasting love than the mating instinct of animals, and at a time when the death of millions of the world's best men has brought into fresh insistence the age-long question, "If a man die shall he live again?" a fresh and different setting forth of Abraham Lincoln's master passion for a woman, and his calm and unshakable faith in immortality, may be of more than usual interest and value.