text: His three most famous speeches—the House Divided Speech, the Gettysburg Address, and his second inaugural—each contain direct allusions to Providence and quotes from Scripture.In the 1840s, Lincoln subscribed to the Doctrine of Necessity, a belief that the human mind was controlled by a higher power.With the death of his son Edward in 1850 he more frequently expressed a dependence on God.He never joined a church, although he frequently attended First Presbyterian Church with his wife beginning in 1852.In the 1850s, Lincoln asserted his belief in "providence" in a general way, and rarely used the language or imagery of the evangelicals; he regarded the republicanism of the Founding Fathers with an almost religious reverence.The death of his son Willie in February 1862 may have caused him to look toward religion for solace.After Willie's death, he questioned the divine necessity of the war's severity.He wrote at this time that God "could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest.Yet the contest began.And having begun, He could give the final victory to either side any day.Yet the contest proceeds." Lincoln did believe in an all-powerful God that shaped events and by 1865 was expressing that belief in major speeches.By the end of the war, he increasingly appealed to the Almighty for solace and to explain events, writing on April 4, 1864, to a newspaper editor in Kentucky: This spirituality can best be seen in his second inaugural address, considered by some scholars as the greatest such address in American history, and by Lincoln himself as his own greatest speech, or one of them at the very least.Lincoln explains therein that the cause, purpose, and result of the war was God's will.Lincoln's frequent use of religious imagery and language toward the end of his life may have reflected his own personal beliefs or might have been a device to reach his audiences, who were mostly evangelical Protestants.