CHAPTER XVI.

THE STORY OF MY DESCENT FROM THE FAITH OF MY CHILDHOOD, TO DOUBT AND

UNBELIEF.

My parents were Methodists of the strictest kind, and they did their

utmost to make their children Methodists. And they were very successful.

They had eleven children, ten of which became members of the Methodist

Society before they were twenty years of age; and even the odd one did

not escape the influence of religion altogether.

I was a believer in God and Christ, in duty and immortality, from my

earliest days. And my faith was strong. Things spiritual were as real to

me as things natural. Things seen and things unseen, things temporal and

things eternal, formed one great whole,--one solemn and boundless

universe. I lived and breathed in a spiritual world.

My parents were rigorously consistent. They were true Christians. They

not only talked, but looked and lived as persons who felt themselves in

the presence of a great and holy God, and in the face of an awful

eternity; and the influence of their godly life, and daily prayers, and

solemn counsels fell on me with a power that was irresistible.

If the doctrine taught me in my early days had been the doctrine of

Christ, and the doctrine of Christ alone, in a form adapted to my

youthful mind, the probability is, that I should have grown up to

manhood, and passed through life a happy, useful and consistent

Christian. But I was taught other doctrines. Though my father and mother

taught me little but what was Christian, doctrines were taught me by

others that shocked both my reason and my sense of right. I was taught,

among other things, that in consequence of the sin of Adam, God had

caused me to come into the world utterly depraved, and incapable, till I

was made over again, of thinking one good thought, of speaking one good

word, or of doing one good deed. I felt that I did think good thoughts,

and that I had good feelings, and that I both said and did good things.

But this I was told was a great delusion:--that nothing was good, and

that nothing was pleasing to God, unless it came from faith in Christ.

But I _had_ faith in Christ. I believed in Him with all my heart. I had

believed in Him from the first. The answer was that I had believed with

a _common_ kind of faith, but that it was another kind of faith that was

necessary to salvation, and that whatsoever did not spring from this

other kind of faith, was sin. And I was given to understand, that if I

thought otherwise, it was because of the naughtiness of my heart, which,

I was told, was deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. What

this other kind of faith was, I did not know, and could not learn. I was

then told that the natural man could not understand the things of the

Spirit, and that before I could understand them, I must experience a

change from nature to grace; all of which was past my comprehension. I

was then informed that I must wait till God revealed those things unto

me by His Spirit. But this made the matter no plainer.

I was further taught, that I was, in some way, answerable for Adam's

sin,--that God made Adam the federal head of all mankind, and that all

were bound by what he did;--that if he had done right, all would have

come into the world pure, and good, and happy, and sure of eternal life;

but that through his sin, we wore all born, not only utterly depraved,

but guilty and liable to eternal damnation.

Then followed strange things about satisfaction to offended justice,

trust in Christ's merits and righteousness, justification, regeneration,

and sanctification, all mysteries as dark to me as night.

Sometime after, I found in my Catechism the doctrine of God's absolute

and infinite fore-knowledge,--the doctrine that from eternity God knew

who should be saved and who should be lost. This gave me the most

terrible shock of all. It was plain that my doom was fixed forever. For

if it was certainly foreknown, it must he unchangeably fixed.

These dreadful doctrines filled me with horror. They all but drove me

mad. For a time, when I was about eight or nine years old, they _did_

drive me mad. They were more than my nature could bear. I felt that if

things were as these doctrines represented them to be, the ways of God

were horribly unjust. And as I could do no other than believe the

doctrines, my whole soul rose in rebellion against God. I supposed, as a

matter of course, that I should be sent to hell for my rebelliousness;

still I rebelled. It seemed a dreadful thing that God should hang one's

eternal destiny on things that were not in one's own power. I thought

that if people could not do all that God required of them, He ought to

allow them to fall back into their original nothingness. My mind

especially revolted against the arrangement which God was said to have

made with Adam, and the terrible consequences entailed thereby on his

posterity. To bring men into being, and force them to live on forever,

and at the same time to hang their eternal destiny on another, or on

something beyond their power, seemed dreadfully unjust. I felt that

every man ought to be allowed a fair trial for himself, and to stand or

fall by his own doings. And nothing could make me feel that I was really

answerable for the sin of Adam, any more than that Adam was answerable

for my sins. And how God could impute one man's sin to another, was past

all comprehension. And I felt, that if matters were managed as they were

represented to be, the government of the universe was not right.

But supposing that God had a right to do as He pleased, and not knowing

that He was so good that it was impossible that He should ever please to

do wrong, I suffered in silence. But I often said to myself, 'God does

not deal fairly with mankind,' and my feelings towards Him were anything

but those of love and gratitude. So far was I from feeling any

obligation to Him, that I looked on my existence as a tremendous curse,

and I would gladly have consented to undergo any amount of torment, for

any length of time short of eternity, for the privilege of being allowed

to return to my original nothingness. The thought that even this was too

much to be hoped for,--that it was fixed unchangeably that I must live

on forever, and that there was but one dark path, which I might never be

able to find, by which I could escape the unbounded and unending

torments of hell, darkened all the days of my early youth, and made me

exceedingly miserable. Some kind of blind unbelief, or a partial

spiritual slumber at length came over me, and made it possible for me to

live. But even then my life was anything but a happy one.

I cannot give the story of my life at length; but I afterwards got over

the difficulties of my early creed, or exchanged the blasphemous horrors

of theology for the teachings of Christ, and became a cheerful, joyous

Christian, and a happy and successful Christian minister.

As I have said in Chapter fourteenth, I regarded the Bible as the Word

of God from my early childhood. I believed every word to be true, and

every command to be binding. My faith, at first, rested on the testimony

of my parents and teachers, and of those among whom I lived. Every one I

heard speak of the Book, spoke of it as divine, and the thought that it

might be otherwise did not, that I remember, ever enter my mind. This my

hereditary faith in the Bible was strengthened by the instinctive

tendencies of my mind to believe in God, and in all the great doctrines

which the book inculcated.

The first attempt to _prove_ the divinity of the Bible, of which I have

any recollection, was made by my mother, while I was yet a child. What

_led_ her to make the attempt I do not remember. It might be some

perplexing question that I had asked her; for I used to propose to her

puzzling questions sometimes. Her argument was,--'Bad men _could_ not

write such a book, and good men _would_ not. It must therefore, have

been written by God.' Another argument that I remember to have heard in

those days was,--'No man would write the Bible who did not know it to be

true; because it tells liars that their portion will be in the lake of

fire and brimstone.' There was also an impression among such people as

my parents, that the Bible was so good a book, and that it wrought with

such a blessed power upon their souls, that it was impossible it should

be written by any one but God. The last had probably the greatest effect

upon their minds. Then they found in the Bible so many things in harmony

with their best affections, their moral instincts, and their religious

feelings, that they felt as if they had proof of its heavenly origin in

their own souls. I came, at one period of my life, to look on these

arguments with contempt. And it is certain, that to give them much force

with men of logical habits, they would require qualification, and

considerable illustration. But they are none of them so foolish as I

once supposed. As for the last two, they are, when presented in a proper

way, unanswerable.

There was another argument that was sometimes used, namely,--that though

the different portions of the Bible were written by persons of widely

distant ages, of different occupations and ranks, and of very different

degrees of culture, they all aim at one end, all bear one way, and all

tend to make men good and happy to the last degree. This is a great

fact, and when properly considered, may well be accepted as a proof that

the Bible, as a whole, is from God.

What effect these arguments had on my mind in my early days, I do not

exactly remember, but the probability is, that they helped to strengthen

my instinctive and hereditary faith in the divine origin of the Bible.

This my instinctive and hereditary faith was a great and beneficent

power, and would have proved an inestimable blessing, if it had been

preserved unshaken through life. And I am sorry it was not. I have no

sympathy with those who speak of doubt as a blessing, and who recommend

people to demolish their first belief, that they may raise a better

structure in its place. We do not destroy our first and lower life, to

prepare the way for a higher spiritual life. Nor do we kill the body to

secure the development of the soul. Nor do we extinguish our natural

home affections, in order to kindle the fires of friendship, patriotism,

and philanthropy. The higher life grows out of the lower. The lower

nourishes and sustains the higher. At first we are little more than

vegetables: then we become animals: then men; and last of all, sages,

saints, and angels. But the vegetable nature lives through all, and is

the basis and strength of the animal; and the animal nature lives, and

is the basis and strength of the human; and the human lives, and is the

basis and strength of the spiritual and divine. And the higher forms of

life are all the more perfect, for the vigor and fulness of those by

which they are preceded.

And so with faith. Instinctive faith is the proper basis for the faith

that comes from testimony. And the faith which rests on testimony is the

proper basis for that which comes from reason, investigation,

experience, and knowledge. And in no case ought the first to be

demolished to make way for the second, or the second discarded to make

way for the third. To kill a tree in order to graft on it new scions,

would be madness; and to kill, or discard, or in any way to slight or

injure our first instinctive child-like faith, to graft on our souls a

higher one, would be equal madness.

Our instincts are infallible. The faith to which they constrain us is

always substantially right and true, and no testimony, no reasonings, no

philosophy, ought to be allowed to set it aside. Testimony, and science,

and experience, may be allowed to develop it, enlighten it, and modify

it, but not to displace or destroy it. It is a divine inspiration, and

is essential to the life and vigor of the soul, to the beauty and

perfection of the character, and to the fulness and enjoyment of life.

If you lose it, you will have to find it again, or be wretched. If you

kill it, you will have to bring it to life again, or perish. It is a

necessary support of all other faith, and a needful part of all

religion, of all virtue, and of all philosophy. Skeptics may call it

prejudice; but it is a kind of prejudice which, as Burke very truly

says, is wiser than all our reasonings.

I did not fall out with my instinctive belief, though I did not know its

value; but I was so formed, that I longed for proofs or corroborating of

its truth. I wanted to be able to do something more, when questioned by

doubters or unbelievers as to the grounds of my faith, than to say, 'I

_feel_ that it is true;' or to refer to the testimony of my parents and

teachers; and I did not rest till I could do so.

I had a dear, good friend, Mr. Hill, a schoolmaster, a local preacher,

and a scholar, who, believing that I had talents to fit me for a

travelling preacher, and desiring to prepare me for that high office,

kindly undertook to aid me in my studies. After he had taught me

something of English grammar, he began to teach me Latin. When he had

got me through the elementary books, and exercised me well in one of the

Roman historians, he lent me a copy of Grotius, on the truth of the

Christian religion, and recommended me to translate it into English, and

then to translate it back again into Latin. 'It contains the best

arguments,' said he, 'in favor of Christianity, and it is written in

pure and elegant Latin; and by the course I recommend, you will both

improve yourself greatly in Latin, and obtain a large amount of useful

religious knowledge.'

I did as I was bid, and the result was truly delightful. I found in the

book proofs both of the existence of God, and of the truth of

Christianity, which seemed to me most decisive. When I had got through

the book, I felt as if I could convince the whole infidel world. By

translating the work first into English and then back into Latin, and

repeating my translations to my teacher without manuscript, I got the

whole book, with all its train of reasoning, so fixed in mind, that I

was able to produce the arguments whenever I found it necessary. I

could, in fact, repeat almost the whole work from beginning to end.

I can hardly describe the pleasure I felt when I found that my faith had

a solid foundation to rest upon,--that after having believed

instinctively, and on the testimony of my parents and teachers, I could

both justify my faith to my own mind, and give sound reasons for it to

any who might question me on the subject.

I afterwards got Watson's Theological Institutes, which amplified some

of the arguments of Grotius, and added fresh ones. Here too I found

large quotations from Howe's LIVING TEMPLE, an argument for the

existence of God drawn from the wonderful structure of the human body,

and considerable portions of Paley's work on NATURAL THEOLOGY.

About the same time I read the Lectures of Doddridge, which gave me a

more comprehensive view than either Grotius or Watson, both of the

evidences of the existence of God, and those of the truth of

Christianity. I afterwards met with Dwight's Theology, in which I found

a number of things which interested me, though some of his reasonings

seemed mere metaphysical fallacies.

I next read Adam Clarke's Commentary, where I found, besides his

arguments for the existence of God, abundance of quotations from Paley,

Lardner, Michaelis, and others, on the credibility of the New Testament

history, and the truth of Christianity. His _a priori_ argument for the

existence of God seemed only a play on words. His other arguments were

much the same as Watson's.

About this time I read Mosheim's History of the Church. This did me

harm. It is a bad book. It is, in truth, no real history of the Church

at all, but a miserable chronicle of the heresies, inconsistencies and

crimes of the worldly and priestly party in the Church, who perverted

the religion of Christ to worldly, selfish purposes. The whole tendency

of the book is to put the sweet image of Christ and the glories of His

religion, out of sight, and to present to you in their place, a

distressing picture of human weakness and human wickedness. It is a

great pity that this wretched pretence to a church history was not long

ago displaced by a work calculated to do some justice, and to render

some service, to the cause of Christ.

I afterwards read works in favor of Christianity and against infidelity,

by Robert Hall, Olinthus Gregory, Dr. Chalmers, Le Clerc, Hartwell

Horne, S. Thompson, Bishop Watson, Bishop Pearson, Bishop Porteus. I

also read Leland's View of Deistical Writers, Leslie's Short and Easy

Method with Deists, Faber's Difficulties of Infidelity, Fuller's Gospel

its Own Witness, Butler's Analogy, Baxter's Unreasonableness of

Infidelity, and his Evidences of Christianity, Simpson's Plea for

Religion and the Sacred Writings, Ryan on the Beneficial Effects of

Christianity, Cave on the Early Christians, the Debate between R. Owen

and A. Campbell, Scotch Lectures, G. Campbell on Miracles, Ray's Wisdom

of God in Creation, Constable's History of Converts from Infidelity,

Newton on the Prophecies, Locke on the Reasonableness of Christianity,

Nelson on the Cause and Cure of Infidelity, Priestley's Institutes of

Natural and Revealed Religion, Jews' Letters to Voltaire, and works by

Beattie, Soame Jenyns, West, Lyttleton, Ogilvie, Addison, Gilbert

Wakefield and others. I also read sermons on different branches of the

evidences, by Tillotson, Barrow, and others. One of the last and one of

the best works I read on the Evidences of Christianity, were some

sermons by Dr. Channing. These sermons presented the historical argument

in a simpler and more impressive form than any work I had ever read.

This reading of works on the evidences did not prove an unmixed

blessing. I am not certain that it did not prove a serious injury.

1. In the first place, the works I read weakened, in time, and then

destroyed, my instinctive and hereditary faith, and gave me nothing so

satisfactory in its place. They filled my mind with thoughts of things

outside me, and even outside Christianity itself, which did not take a

firm and lasting hold of my affections. They seemed to take me from

solid ground and living realities, into regions of cold, thin air, and

bewildering mists and clouds.

2. In the second place, the writers disagreed among themselves. They

differed as to the value of different kinds of evidence. Some were all

for external evidences, and some were all for internal evidences. Some

said there was no such thing as internal evidence. 'The very idea of

such a thing,' said they, 'supposes that man is able to judge what

doctrines are true, or rational, or worthy of God; and what precepts,

laws, institutions, and examples are right and good; and man has no such

power. Reason has no right to judge revelation. All that reason has a

right to do is to judge as to the matter of fact whether the Bible and

Christianity be really a revelation from God or not, and, if it be, what

is its purport. As to the reasonableness of the doctrines, and the

goodness of the precepts, reason has no right or power to judge at all.'

Others contended that miracles could never prove the truth or divinity

of any system of doctrines or morals that did not commend itself to the

judgments and consciences of enlightened, candid, and virtuous men.

These two parties, between them, condemned both kinds of evidence.

3. Then thirdly; some used unsound arguments. They used arguments

founded on mistakes with regard to matters of fact. Grotius, for

instance, based two of his arguments for the existence of God on

misconceptions of this kind. 'That there is a God,' said Grotius, 'is

evident from the fact, that water, which naturally runs downward to the

level of the sea, is made to run upwards through subterranean channels,

from the sea to the tops of the mountains, and thus supply springs and

streams to water the earth, and supply the wants of its inhabitants.'

But the waters are _not_ forced upwards from the sea to the mountains in

this way: they are carried to the hills in the form of vapors.

True, the evidence for the existence of God supplied by the conversion

of water into vapor, and by the many beneficent ends answered thereby,

is as real and as convincing a proof of God's existence as any evidence

that could have been furnished by such an arrangement as that imagined

by Grotius. But I did not see this at the time; hence the discovery that

the argument of Grotius was unsound, had an unfavorable effect on my

mind.

'Again,' says Grotius, 'it is plain that the world must have had a

beginning, from the existence of mountains. For if the earth had existed

from eternity, the mountains, which the rains and floods are always

reducing, washing down particles into the valleys and plains, would long

ago have disappeared, and every part of the earth would long before this

have been quite level.' Here was another error. Grotius was not aware,

it would seem, that there are forces continually at work in the interior

of the earth making _new_ mountains,--that some portions of the earth

are continually rising, and others gradually subsiding.

4. Several of the arguments which I met with in Doddridge's great work I

found to be unsound. And there were others which, if I did not discover

to be fallacious, I felt to be unsatisfactory. They were, in truth, as I

afterwards found, mere metaphysical puzzles.

5. Among the most honest and earnest works on the evidences that came in

my way, were those of Richard Baxter. But many of his arguments were

unsatisfactory. Among other things of doubtful value, he gave a number

of ghost stories, and accounts of witches and their doings, and of

persons possessed by evil spirits, and even of men and women who had

sold themselves to the devil, and who had been seized and carried away

by him bodily, in the presence of their neighbors and friends. Then

some of his arguments took for granted points of importance which I was

particularly anxious to have proved. Much of his reasoning seemed

conclusive enough, but when sound and unsound arguments are so blended

in the same book, the unsound ones seem to lessen the credit and the

force of the sound ones.

On the subject of the evidences, Baxter, like Grotius, was behind the

times. His works might be satisfactory enough to people of his own day,

but they were not adapted to the minds of people of the present day.

6. The works of Paley and Butler gave me the greatest satisfaction.

Paley, both in his Natural Theology and in his evidences of

Christianity, seemed to be almost all that I could desire, and I rested

in him for a length of time with great satisfaction. But I read him only

once, and I ought, for a time at least, to have made him my daily study,

and imprinted his work on my mind, as I did the work of Grotius.

7. Many writers on the Bible attempted to settle points which could not

be settled. They tried to make out the authors of all the books in the

Bible, and this was found impossible. Different writers ascribed books

to different authors. The Book of Job was ascribed by one writer to Job

himself, by another to Moses, and by a third to Elihu. The Book of

Ecclesiastes was ascribed by some to Solomon, by others to a writer of a

later age. Writers differed with regard to the authorship of many of the

Psalms and many of the Proverbs. They differed with regard to the author

of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Book of Revelation, and even with

regard to some of the Gospels. They multiplied controversies instead of

ending them, and in some cases made matters seem doubtful that were not

so.

8. The writers on evidences often attempted to prove points which were

not true, and which, if they had been true, would have been no credit to

the Bible or Christianity. Some of them spent more time in laboring to

prove that Christianity taught doctrines which it did not teach, than in

proving that the doctrines which it did teach were 'worthy of all

acceptation.' Some left the impression that Christianity was a mass of

vain, improbable, and incomprehensible doctrines, calculated neither to

satisfy man's intellect nor his conscience, neither to renovate his

heart, nor improve his life, nor increase his happiness. Such writers

served the cause of infidelity rather than the cause of Christ.

9. Some, like Hartwell Horne, gave so many rules for interpreting the

Bible, and required such a multitude of rare qualifications to fit a man

for being a Bible student, that they left the impression on one's mind

that the Book must be utterly unintelligible to people at large. And

they directed the attention of their readers so much to matters of

little or no moment, that they lost sight of the matters which the Bible

was specially intended to teach and impress on men's minds and hearts.

10. Many dwelt so much on things doubtful, that they left the impression

on the minds of their readers, that there was little or nothing but what

_was_ doubtful. They busied themselves so much in answering objections,

that they left the impression that there was little or nothing but what

was open to objections. They had so little to say about what was true,

and good, and glorious beyond all question, that they left people in

doubt whether there was any thing past question or controversy in

Christianity or not.

11. And many treated the subject so coolly or carelessly, that they

abated rather than increased the interest of their readers in religious

matters.

12. And the great mass of writers followed one another so

servilely,--they wrote so much by rote, and so little from experience or

real knowledge, that all seemed cold and formal, uninteresting and

unprofitable. It was a rare thing to come across a writer that touched

the heart, or even satisfied the judgment.

13. And they often labored hard and long to prove points of little or no

importance, while points of greatest moment were left untouched, or

handled so unskillfully as to do harm rather than good.

14. And almost all had unauthorized and unscriptural theories of

Scripture inspiration, which it was impossible for them to prove, and

which they so manifestly failed to prove, that a critical reader could

not but see their failure. They tried to justify expressions and actions

which could not be justified, and to reconcile differences which did

not admit of reconciliation.

15. Even the historical arguments of Paley and Grotius consisted of so

many particulars, and carried one so far back into regions with which

one was so imperfectly acquainted, and into states of society which it

was so difficult for one to realize, that it was impossible they should

have much power over the heart; and the little they had was soon lost,

when their books were laid aside. Even when we remembered the facts, and

could run them over in our minds, we could not feel the force of the

argument based on them, or use it so as to make it felt by others.

The historical argument drawn from miracles never exerted much

satisfying power on my mind for any length of time. I could remember

that it _had_ satisfied me once, but that was not to feel its satisfying

power then. And you could not go back to your books continually, and

pore over the arguments forever. So that long before I became a doubter,

I felt that the historical argument could never be useful to people

generally, either in producing faith where it was not, or in

perpetuating it where it was. I was sure that if mankind at large were

to be brought to receive and cherish Christianity, it must be by proofs

of a simpler and more popular kind, which people could feel, and carry

along with them in their hearts as well as in their heads. And now I see

most clearly that I was right. Miracles had a use, and I may show what

it was by and by; but it was not the use to which they have been so

often and so vainly applied.

16. The writers on prophecy were as unsatisfactory as those on miracles.

They often handled the prophecies unfairly if not deceitfully. They

treated as absolute prophecies, prophecies which were expressly

conditional. And they lost sight of the fact, so plainly stated in

Jeremiah xviii, that all prophetic promises and threatenings are

conditional. Then they took one bit of a prophecy and left another: kept

out of sight predictions which had not been fulfilled, and dwelt

exclusively on phrases which had been fulfilled.

They dealt deceitfully with history as well as prophecy. They made or

modified facts. They gave fanciful interpretations to prophecies. And

they tried to make prophecy prove what it could not prove, however

unquestionable and miraculous the fulfilment might be. The manner in

which Nelson and Keith dealt with prophecy was often childish, and even

dishonest. A careful examination of their works left a most painful

impression on my mind.

What Albert Barnes says about much of the reasoning of preachers and

divines is applicable to this class of writers more than to some others.

'A great part of the reasoning founded upon prophecies is unsound. Much

of the reasoning employed by the early Christian Fathers, by the

Schoolmen, and by the Reformers had no intrinsic force: it was based on

ignorance and error. Yet theologians are prone to cling to it. They

forget the age in which they live. They linger, they live, among the

shades of the past. Their thoughts, their dialect, their way of

reasoning are all of other days.

'The quality of another kind of reasoning common among divines is, that

it is not understood by the mass of men, and that it does not seem to be

understood by those who use it.'

17. In the following paragraph he speaks important words about theology

as well as about theological reasoning.

'There is much theology,' says he, 'that a good man cannot preach. It

would shock his own feelings; it would contradict his prayers; it would

be fatal to all his efforts to do good; it would drive off the sinner to

a hopeless distance, though he had begun to return to God; it would be

at war with the elementary convictions which men have of what must be

true. Among the doctrines of this theology are those,--that Christ died

for the salvation of only a part of mankind,--that we are to blame for

Adam's sin,--condemned for an act done ages before we were born.

'The theology that should be preached to make the pulpit what it should

be, should be based on obvious and honest principles of Scripture

interpretation. The preacher is the interpreter of a book, and he should

be the voice, the organ, of its true and natural meaning. Nothing should

be misquoted; nothing should be perverted or misapplied. His

interpretation should be seen and felt to be in harmony with the scope,

the drift, the spirit, the aim of the Bible. The success of preaching

has been greatly hindered by false principles of Biblical

interpretation. In interpreting other books men have gone on rational

principles; but in interpreting the Bible they have gone on principles

quite irrational. They have sought for double senses, and mystical

meanings, and used texts as proofs of doctrines, that had no reference

to the doctrines whatever. Metaphors and symbols have had all possible

meanings forced on them. Infidels and men of the world are approached

with arguments that are little less than insults to their

understandings. They are disgusted, instead of being convinced. They are

led to look on the Bible with disdain. They are willing to remain

infidels, rather than become idiots. One is pained and sickened that

such a multitude of impertinent and inapplicable texts should be brought

as proofs of Christian doctrine;--texts applicable to anything else

rather than the points under consideration. Even Dr. Edwards misuses

texts of Scripture thus. The Bible is to be interpreted as other books

are. Men are not to hide themselves in the mist of a hidden meaning, and

shock the common sense of the world. Preachers should go on the

supposition, that in every congregation there are shrewd and sagacious

men, who can appreciate a good argument, and see the weakness of a bad

one; men who can appreciate a good sermon, if there be a good sermon to

be appreciated. For such, he may be assured, is the fact.'

All these unwise things had a tendency to shake my faith in writers on

the evidences, to lessen my interest in the subject, to abate my

confidence in the knowledge and integrity of the authors, and to

diminish my faith in the supernatural origin of the Bible and

Christianity.

18. The evidences that had most weight with me were the internal

evidences. But these were often handled in an unsatisfactory way. The

greater part of Soame Jenyns' little work was good, as far as it went;

but it went only a very short way. It took a step or two, in the most

difficult, doubtful, and uninviting part of the road, but it left the

vast paradise of internal evidences unexplored, and even unapproached.

His work was rather an apology for Christianity, proving that it was not

open to censure, than a demonstration of its incalculable worth and

power.

I did not myself see clearly at the time, that the adaptation of

Christianity to man's wants, to man's nature, and its tendency to

promote man's temporal as well as his spiritual welfare, was really a

proof of its divine origin. I saw that it was a valid answer to the

infidel objection that it was useless or mischievous; but not that it

was a decisive proof of its divinity. Hence though I employed it as a

refutation of infidel charges against Christianity, I never pressed it

further.

And though I got at length much larger views of the excellency of

Christianity than those presented by Soame Jenyns, I saw not half, I saw

not a tenth of its worth and glory. I saw not a tenth even of what I see

now. I now see there are no limits to the excellency of Christianity, or

to the power of the argument supplied by its glorious character, in

proof of its divinity.

And the worth and excellency of Christianity you can carry continually

in your mind. They present themselves whenever you open the Gospels, or

look at Jesus. They move you whenever you think of the happy effect

Christianity has had on your own hearts and lives. They come to your

minds whenever you look on the prevailing vices and miseries of society,

which result from a want of Christianity. They touch your heart, as well

as convince your judgment. But I neither saw them in their true light

nor in their full extent before I fell into doubt; so that they were

unable to make up for the deficiency in the external evidences, and to

check my growing tendency to unbelief.

19. There were other influences that helped me down to unbelief.

Negative criticism, pulling things to pieces with a view to find faults,

to which our modern philosophers give the fine name of _Analysis_, tends

to cause doubt about every thing. It eats out of one the very soul of

truth, of love, and of faith. It tends naturally to kill all our good

instincts and natural affections, and to render not only religion, but

philosophy, virtue and happiness impossible. The Cartesian system of

reasoning, which begins by calling in question every thing, and which

refuses to believe anything without formal proof, is essentially

vicious. The man who adopts it and carries it out thoroughly, must

necessarily become an infidel, not only in religion, but in morals and

philosophy. And he must become intolerably miserable, and destroy

himself, unless, like John S. Mill, he can find out some method of

deceiving himself.

And this is the system of reasoning now in vogue. This vicious system I

adopted, and it hastened my fall into unbelief as a matter of course.

Not one of all the most important things on earth admits of proof in

this formal way. You cannot prove your own existence in this way. You

cannot prove the existence of the universe. You cannot prove the

existence of God. You cannot prove that there are such things as vice

and virtue, good and evil. You cannot prove that men ought to marry,

rear families, form governments, live in society, tell the truth, be

honest, restrain their appetites and passions, or abstain from treachery

and murder. All reasonings in favor of religion, virtue, society,

philosophy, must rest on assumptions,--must take a number of things for

granted,--must take for granted the truth and goodness of those

instincts, sentiments, and natural affections which constrain us to be

religious, social, and moral, independent of argument. All reasoning, to

be of any use, must begin, not with doubt, but belief. The reasoning

that begins with doubting every thing, and accepting nothing till it is

proved by formal argument, will end in doubt of every thing that ought

to be believed. It will end, not only in Atheism, but in boundless

immorality, and in utter wretchedness and ruin. The man who would not be

undone by his logic, must pity Descartes instead of admiring him, and

instead of following him go just the contrary way. Descartes made a fool

of himself, or his method of reasoning made a fool of him, the very

first time he used it. His very first argument was a fallacy and a

folly. He pretended, first, to doubt, and then to prove, his own

existence. His argument was, 'I think; therefore I _exist_:' as if he

could be more sure that he _thought_, than he was that he existed. He

took his existence for granted when he said 'I think.'

20. Other things helped on the horrible change that was taking place in

my soul. I got a taste for reading a different kind of works from those

which I had been accustomed to read. I turned away from works on

religion and duty, and began to read the works of the critical,

destructive party. I turned away even from the best practical writers of

the orthodox school, such as Baxter, Tillotson and Barrow, and read

Theodore Parker, Martineau, W. F. Newman, W. J. Fox, and Froude. I also

read Carlyle, Emerson, and W. Mackay, the metaphysical bore, and C.

Mackay, the charming, fascinating, but not Christian poet. Theodore

Parker became my favorite among the prose writers. His beautiful style

and practical lessons had already reconciled me to his harsh expressions

about the Bible, and to his contemptuous treatment of miracles; and now

I had degenerated so far that I liked him for those very faults.

I read the writings of the American Abolitionists, all of which tended

to draw me from the Church and the Bible, and to bring me more fully

under skeptical influences. I began to look more freely and frequently

into works of science, and most of those waged covert war with

supernaturalism, and sought to bring down the Bible and Christianity to

the level of ordinary human thought. All ideas of authority in books and

religious systems, in ecclesiastical and social institutions, gradually

faded away. All ideas of superhuman authority, or divine obligation, in

marriage, in home, and in family life vanished. All things lost their

sacredness, and came down to the vulgar level of mere human opinion, or

of personal interest, convenience, or pleasure.

21. There was a change in my companions. Those who had high and holy

thoughts of all things, and whose meat and drink it was to do good,

withdrew from me; and men and women came around me who cared only for

earth and self; whose talk was of gain, and fashion, and

self-indulgence; and whose desire it was to silence conscience, and to

stifle thoughts of duty.

22. I ceased to pray. I had already given up family prayer. I now gave

up private prayer. I gave up prayer altogether. I had impulses to

prayer, but I resisted them. Prayer was irrational, according to the new

philosophy, and must be discarded.

23. And praise and thanksgiving went next. What reason could there be

for telling an all-wise God what you thought of Him, or how you felt

towards Him? And besides, it now began to appear that God had not been

so very bountiful as to deserve either high commendation, or

enthusiastic thanksgiving.

24. I had fresh work. Politics first got into partnership with my

religion, and then turned religion out of the concern. And politics,

severed from religion, soon become selfish, and even devilish. So long

as Christian philanthropy occupied my thoughts and feelings, it helped

religiousness; but when it gave way to polities, my religiousness

declined, languished, and died.

25. I began to indulge in amusements. Chess, drafts, cards, concerts,

theatres, and feasting asked for a portion of my time and money, and I

gave it to them. I began to think of pleasure more than of usefulness;

to live for myself rather than for others; and the higher virtues and

religion went down together.

26. My position improved. I passed from poverty to comparative wealth.

This helped my degeneracy. I had more abundant means of self-indulgence,

and I began, though slowly, timidly, and with misgivings, and

self-reproaches, and occasional fits of remorse, to use them for

selfish, worldly purposes. God had given me more, so I gave Him less.

Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked. Jesus knew what He was saying when He

warned people against the danger, the deceitfulness, of riches.

27. I was often uneasy during the decline of religion in my soul, but

philosophy had its anodynes, its soothing syrups, its dreamy, delusive,

spiritual drugs. It could flatter, it could cheat, in the most approved

fashion. It could bewitch, intoxicate, and take captive the whole

soul,--judgment, conscience, fancy, everything.

Satan can put on the appearance of an 'angel of light.' He can talk

religion. He can talk philanthropy. He can preach the most beautiful

doctrines. He can use the most charming words. At the very moment that

he is destroying religion and virtue, he can speak of them in the

highest terms, and even sing of them in the sweetest strains. He can

talk of liberty in the most swelling, high-sounding, and fascinating

style, while all the time he is making men the most degraded and

miserable slaves. He can lead people, singing and dancing, laughing and

shouting, through a philosopher's paradise, to a purgatory of guilt and

horror. And all the time he will preach to them the finest doctrines;

the most exalted sentiments. 'Religion!--everything is religion, that

is in accordance with the laws of our own nature, that is suitable to

our position and relations, that helps our brothers or our families. And

all truth is religious truth. All science is divine revelation. All laws

are God's laws, except the arbitrary laws of men. All work is divine

work, if it be according to nature. All useful work is religion.

Farming, trade, government, are all religion. So are waking and

sleeping. They are all divine ordinances; they are all divine service.

All good work is worship. Singing foolish hymns, reading foolish

lessons, preaching foolish sermons, offering foolish prayers, in

unhealthy churches, half stifled with foul air, are not religion.

Religion is the free and natural utterance of great, true thoughts, of

good and generous feelings, of nature's own rich sentiments and

inspirations. The flowery fields, the shadowy woods, the lofty mountains

are nobler places of worship than the dark and damp cathedral; and the

fresh air of heaven is a diviner inspiration than carbonic acid gas. And

the sun is a diviner light than waxen tapers, explosive lamps, or

oxygen-consuming gas. And the gorgeous sun-tinted clouds are grander and

more beautiful than painted windows! God's temple is all space; His

altar; earth, air, skies! His ministers are sun, moon, stars; birds,

beasts, and flowers. Nature is God's revelation; the true Bible; written

in an universal language; speaking to all eyes; needing no translation;

in danger of no interpolation, alteration, or mutilation. Man is the

true Shekinah,--the veritable image, the real glory, the true revelation

and manifestation of God. Man is the saviour of man: the teacher, the

guide, the comforter of man. Every one, male or female, is a servant, a

minister of God. All are priests. All are kings. The truth makes us

free: free from all authorities, but the authority of God,--God in the

soul. Christ is our brother, not our master. He is a helper, not a

ruler. And all are helpers of each other. All are saviours. All are

Christs. Inspiration is not a matter of time, or place, or person. It is

eternal and universal. It is in all, and it endures forever. Every good

book is a Bible. Every good hymn or song is a holy psalm. Purity of body

is holiness, as well as purity of mind. Every day is a sabbath, a holy

day. Every place is holy ground. The Church of God is the human race.

All are God's disciples, under training by nature's operations, and by

the events of daily life. The earth is God's great school-house; mankind

are one great school; God is our chief Master; the universe is our

lesson book, and all we are ushers and under teachers. All things are

our helpers, not masters;--our servants, not lords. They are made for

us, not we for them; and must be used so as to make them answer their

ends. The Sabbath was made for man; not man for the Sabbath. Bibles are

for men, not men for Bibles. Governments, churches, authorities, laws,

institutions, customs, events, suns, moons, stars, systems, atoms,

elements, all are made for man, and to man's interest and pleasure they

must be subordinated. All must be changed to meet man's changing wants.

Nothing is entitled to be permanent, but that which answers beneficently

to something permanent in man. Man is lord of the universe. Man is lord

of himself. Man is his own rightful governor. Man is his own law. His

nature is his law. Each individual man is his own law. Individualities

are divine, and must be respected; respected by laws and governments.

Law must yield to individuality; not individuality to law. Individuality

is sacred. The individuality of the individual is his life, and must be

fostered. It is a new manifestation of God. As to means of grace,--all

expressions and interchanges of kind feeling are means of grace. Shaking

hands is a means of grace. Free, friendly talk, a concert or a song, a

social ride, a family feast, a social gathering, a pleasant chat, a game

at whist, all are means of grace. All are holy to holy souls. All are

pure to pure minds. Eating, drinking, sleeping are all divine

ordinances. Religion, in its higher and more enlightened form, raises

our views of all things; makes all things beautiful; all things

glorious. It does not bring down the high and holy; but lifts up all

things to a divine level. It desecrates no temple; but consecrates the

universe. It breaks no Sabbath; but makes every day a Sabbath, and all

time one lengthened holy day. It degrades no priest; but makes all men

priests. It does not bring down the high, but raises the low. It denies

not heaven; but brings down heaven to earth. Everywhere is heaven.

God's kingdom is an universal kingdom. His presence, His throne, His

glory, are everywhere, and heaven is all around us and within us. The

universe is heaven.' Thus spake the devil.

And now came in his progressive poets to give those broad, those high,

those rational, those philosophical principles, this theology and

religion of advanced humanity, this Church and worship of the future,

the fascination of their ecstatic genius, and all the charms of numbers,

rhyme, and melody. 'My religion is love,' sings one, 'the richest and

fairest.' 'Abou Ben Adhem,' sings another. 'He loves not God; but loves

God's creature man. Give him a place,--the highest place,--in heaven.'

Another sings, 'The poor man's Sunday walk.' The advanced religionist,

addressing his wife, exclaims,

The morning of our rest has come,

The sun is shining clear;

I see it on the steeple-top:

Put on your shawl, my dear,

And let us leave the smoky town,

The dense and stagnant lane,

And take our children by the hand

To see the fields again.

I've pined for air the livelong week;

For the smell of new-mown hay;

For a pleasant, quiet, country walk,

On a sunny Sabbath day.

Our parish church is cold and damp;

I need the air and sun;

We'll sit together on the grass,

And see the children run.

We'll watch them gather butter-cups,

Or cowslips in the dell,

Or listen to the cheerful sounds

Of the far-off village bell;

And thank our God with grateful hearts,

Though in the fields we pray;

And bless the healthful breeze of heaven,

On a sunny Sabbath day.

I'm weary of the stifling room,

Where all the week we're pent;

Of the alley fill'd with wretched life,

And odors pestilent:

And long once more to see the fields,

And the grazing sheep and beeves;

To hear the lark amid the clouds,

And the wind among the leaves;

And all the sounds that glad the air

On green hills far away:--

The sounds that breathe of Peace and Love,

On a sunny Sabbath day.

For somehow, though they call it wrong,

In church I cannot kneel

With half the natural thankfulness

And piety I feel

When out, on such a day as this,

I lie upon the sod,

And think that every leaf and flower

Is grateful to its God;

That I, who feel the blessing more,

Should thank Him more than they,

That I can elevate my soul

On a sunny Sabbath day.

Put on your shawl, and let us go;

For one day let us think

Of something else than daily care,

Or toil, and meat, and drink:

For one day let our children sport

And feel their limbs their own:

For one day let us quite forget

The grief that we have known:--

Let us forget that we are poor;

And, basking in the ray,

Thank God that we can still enjoy

A sunny Sabbath day.

What can be more natural,--what more plausible,--what more

rational,--what more pious? Yet it means forgetfulness of God,

forgetfulness of Christ, forgetfulness of duty, forgetfulness of

immortality. It means self, and sin, and ruin. And so it is with a

multitude of other sweet poems. One of the sweetest singers that ever

received a poetic soul from God, ignores Christ and Christianity. His

works are full of truth, but it is truth turned into a lie, and made to

do the work of sin and death. It is Satan clad as an angel of light.

Every day a Sabbath, means no day a Sabbath. All places holy, means no

place holy. All things worship, means nothing worship. All honest labor

religious, means no labor religious. Freedom means license, contempt for

virtue, enslavement to vice. Progress means falling back. Elevation

means degradation. Liberality means leniency to error and evil, and

severity towards truth and goodness. In short, darkness means light, and

light means darkness; good means evil, and evil good; bitter means

sweet, and sweet bitter. Reform means revolution, and renovation means

degradation, and all these charming things mean wretchedness and ruin.

We must not be understood as condemning all the sentiments uttered by

the great deceiver. Many of them are true and good. They are Christian.

Satan is too wise to preach unmitigated falsehood. He understands too

well the art of using truth so as to serve the ends of falsehood. It is

enough for him if he can sever men's souls from Christ, and truth from

divine authority, and religion from Christianity, the Church, and the

Bible. Allow him to do this, and he will discourse and sing to you a

world of sweet words and lofty sentiments. Truth is the ladder by which

men climb to God, and goodness, and heaven. But Satan has found out that

there is a way _down_ the ladder as well as _up_, and that to praise the

ladder to the descending crowd is the surest way to draw them ever

further downward, till they lose themselves amid the blinding smoke of

the abyss beneath. We love, we cherish every sweet word of truth, but we

value nothing apart from God, and Christ, and Religion.

28. It is a bad thing when people are taught things in their youth that

are not true. They are sure, when they become students, if they are

honest and able, to find out the errors, and to lay them aside. And the

mere habit of detecting and laying aside errors, has a tendency to make

men skeptical. Now I had been taught a multitude of things in my youth

that were not true, both with regard to the doctrines and the evidences

of Christianity. These things I detected and set aside in riper years.

And I had so many things to set aside, that I came to look with

suspicion on almost all my creed. The skeptical tendency got too strong

for my habit of belief. I suspected where there was no good ground for

suspicion. I rejected truth as well as error. I held in doubt doctrines

that I ought to have cherished as my life. Change became too easy;

judgment too hasty; and error and unbelief were naturally the result.

It is especially a bad thing when an earnest young student sees signs of

carelessness in religious writers; a readiness to repeat what has been

said before; to support what is popular, without endeavoring to

ascertain whether it be true or not. It is still worse when a student

discovers in religious writers signs of dishonesty and fraud. I

discovered both. I saw cases in which false doctrines were passed on

from generation to generation, and from writer to writer, without the

least attempt to ascertain their true character. I saw other cases in

which dishonesty was manifest, in which fraud was used, in support of

doctrines. Old creeds were allowed to remain unaltered, long after

portions of them had been found to be unscriptural; and error was

subscribed as a matter of course. The result was, a distrust of

everything held by such parties, unless it was supported by the plainest

and most decisive proofs.

29. I was now in a state of mind to go down quietly and almost

unconsciously into utter unbelief. And I _went_ down. I did not _reject_

the doctrine of the divine origin of the Bible and Christianity, but

gradually _lost_ it. My faith died a natural death. I was in the world,

and became a worldly man. I mixed with unbelievers, and gradually came

down to their level. I had supposed that a man could be as religious

outside the Church as inside; but I found it otherwise. It was a sad, an

awful change I underwent; but I not only did not see it, at the time, in

its true light, but was actually unconscious for a long time that it was

taking place.

In November 1852, I attended a Bible convention at Salem, Columbiana

County, Ohio. It lasted three days. I spoke repeatedly, and at

considerable length, at its meetings. My remarks wore directed chiefly,

not against the Bible, but against what I regarded as unauthorized

theories of Scripture inspiration. I contended that those theories were

injurious to the interests of virtue and humanity.

I also spoke about the darkness in which the human authorship of

portions of the Bible was wrapt. My remarks were a mixture of truth and

error, but in their general tenor they were unjust, and could hardly

fail to be injurious.

Henry C. Wright spoke at this convention, contending that man had an

infallible rule of life engraven on his own nature, independent of

instruction from without. He was often severe and extravagant in his

remarks. He was fierce, and said things which he could not make good.

The Rev. Jonas Harzell and others spoke in defence of the Bible.

On the last evening the hall in which the convention was held was

densely crowded, and the audience was greatly excited. A Mr. Ambler

spoke at great length, and seemed desirous to excite the people to

violence against the assailants of the Bible. When he closed, a large

portion of the audience seemed bent on mischief. I rose to reply to Mr.

Ambler, and soon got the attention of the audience. Their rage quickly

subsided, and at the close of my address, the people separated in peace.

In June 1853, I attended another Bible convention at Hartford,

Connecticut. I was appointed President. A. J. Davis, the celebrated

spiritualist, gave the first address. It was on the propriety of free

discussion on religious subjects. Henry C. Wright spoke next, making

strong remarks on portions of the Old Testament. I followed, going over

much the same ground as at Salem, but speaking with more severity of

feeling. My heart was getting harder.

The Rev. George Storrs replied. He set himself especially to answer H.

C. Wright, and he spoke with much effect.

In the afternoon of the second day, W. L. Garrison proposed six

resolutions, bearing partly on the Bible, and partly on the church and

clergy. They were very strong. There was a considerable amount of truth

in them, but their spirit and tendency were bad. Parker Pillsbury

followed with a speech, in which he praised natural religion, but

condemned the religion of the church.

In the evening Mr. Garrison spoke. He spoke with much power. He dwelt

chiefly on what was called the doctrine of _plenary inspiration_. His

strength was in the extreme views of the orthodox theologians, and in

the inconsistencies of the church and the clergy.

Mr. Garrison made a second speech on the fourth evening, still dwelling

on the theory of _plenary inspiration_. Before he got through his speech

the meeting was disturbed by a number of theological students, from a

college in the city. They threatened mischief. One displayed a dagger.

Confusion followed. Some of the speakers fled, and others were alarmed.

I kept my place, but soon found I had the platform to myself. I expected

more courage from my skeptical friends. But they understood Judge Lynch

better than I did, and their discretion, under the circumstances, might

be the better part of valor. My rashness, however, ended in no mishap.

And the only bad effect which the violence of our opponents had on me

was, to increase my hatred, perhaps, of the church and its theology. It

is not wise in professing Christians to resort to carnal weapons in

defence of their views.

In December 1853, I gave a course of lectures in Philadelphia. I was

brought to the city by the Sunday Institute. The object of the lectures

was to show, that the Bible was of human origin, that its teachings were

not of divine authority, and that the doctrine of its absolute

perfection was injurious in its tendency. The room in which I lectured

was crowded, and the audience was much excited. I stated, in opening,

that I had nothing to say against anything that was true and good in the

Bible,--that virtue was essential to man's happiness, and that I had no

sympathy with those who rejected the Bible because it rebuked their

vices. I was sincere in these remarks; but my older infidel friends, I

found, regarded them as intended to deceive the unwary. Many of them

were grossly immoral, and hated the Bible for its hostility to their

evil ways.

After each lecture discussion followed. But the ability of my opponents

was not equal to their zeal. They were often ignorant of both sides of

the question, and injured the cause they sought to aid.

These lectures led to a public discussion between me and Dr. McCalla, a

Presbyterian clergyman. It was to continue five nights, but ended on the

fourth. We met first in the Chinese Assembly Room; but the place proving

too small for the crowds which were anxious to hear the debate, we

adjourned to the large hall.

Dr. McCalla was very abusive. He was so intent on calling me bad names,

and on saying savage and provoking things, that he forgot his argument.

I kept to the subject. I neither abused my opponent, nor spent my time

in answering his abuse of me. I reproved him once or twice, telling him

how unseemly it was in an old man, professing to be a disciple and a

minister of Jesus, to show such a spiteful disposition, and to utter

such offensive words; and then went on with my argument. The third night

my opponent seemed to be losing his reason. On the fourth night he was

literally mad. Loss of sleep, rage, and mortification, seemed to have

brought on fever of the brain, and he was really insane. His friends

were terribly put about. Many of them were furious, and were plainly

bent on violence. A policeman climbed up the back of the platform behind

where I was sitting and said in my ear: 'There's mischief brewing: you

had better come with me. Step down now while they are looking the other

way.' I looked for my overcoat and hat, but they were gone. Some one had

carried them off, to prevent me from escaping. A gentleman who had seen

a person take them away, and place them in a distant corner of the room,

seeing what was coming, went and brought them to me, and I at once

slipped over the back of the platform to the floor, and accompanied the

policeman. The crowd, intent on getting towards the front of the

platform, had left a vacant space near the wall, and I and the policeman

got nearly to the door of the hall before we were observed. But just as

we were passing out a cry arose, 'He's off! He's off!' and a maddened

crowd prepared for pursuit. When we got into the street the policeman

said hurriedly, 'Which is the way to your lodgings?' 'That,' said I,

pointing south. 'Then come this way,' said he, 'quick;' and he pulled me

north. This probably saved my life. The mob knew which way my lodgings

lay, and as soon as they got out of the hall, they hurried south, like a

pack of hounds, roaring and furious. I was soon half a mile away in the

other direction. 'Where shall I take you?' said the policeman. 'Do you

know any one hereabouts?' 'Take me to Mr. Mott's,' said I, 'in Arch

Street.' We were there in a few moments, and as the door opened to

receive me, the policeman received his gratuity, and hastened away. In

fifteen minutes there was a noise in the street. Mr. Mott opened the

door and looked out, when a brickbat passed just by his head, and broke

itself to pieces on the door-post, leaving its mark on the marble. He

had a narrow escape. He closed the door, and after awhile the mob

dispersed, and all was quiet. Thus ended the discussion with Dr.

McCalla.

One would have thought that after such an experience as this, I should

have taken care to keep out of debates on such an exciting subject. But

I was daring to madness. I was engaged again in discussion on the same

subject, in the same city, in less than a month.

The clergy of Philadelphia, unwilling to leave the cause of the Bible in

this plight, demanded that I should discuss the question with Dr. Berg,

a minister in whom they had great confidence. I yielded to the demand,

and the discussion took place in Concert Hall, in January, 1854.

The hall was crowded every night. One very wet and stormy night, the

number present was only 2000, but every other night it was from 2250 to

2400. A Philadelphia newspaper of that period says, "We cannot forbear

to notice the contrast in the manner and bearing of the two disputants.

Mr. Barker uniformly bore himself as a gentleman, courteously and

respectfully towards his opponent, and with the dignity becoming his

position, and the solemnity and importance of the question. We regret we

cannot say the same of Dr. Berg, who at times seemed to forget the

obligations of the gentleman, in his zeal as a controversialist. He is

an able and skilful debater, though less logical than Mr. Barker; but he

wasted his time and strength too often on personalities and irrelevant

matters. His personal inuendoes and offensive epithets, his coarse

witticisms and arrogant bearing, may have suited the vulgar and

intolerant among his party, but they won him no respect from the calm

and thinking portion of the audience; while we know that they grieved

and offended some intelligent and candid men who thoroughly agreed with

his views. It is time that Christians and clergymen had learned that men

whom they regard as heretics and infidels have not forfeited all claims

to the respect and courtesies of social life by their errors of opinion,

and that insolence and arrogance, contemptuous sneers and impeachment of

motives and character towards such men, are not effective means of grace

for their enlightenment and conversion.

"There was a large number of men among the audience who lost their

self-control in their dislike of Mr. Barker's views, and he was often

interrupted, and sometimes checked in his argument, by hisses, groans,

sneers, vulgar cries, and clamors, though through all these annoyances

and repeated provocations, he maintained his wonted composure of manner

and his clearness of thought. On the other hand, Dr. Berg was heard with

general quiet by his opponents, and greeted with clamorous applause by

his friends."

I am afraid the above remarks were true. Still, Dr. Berg was almost a

gentleman compared with Dr. McCalla, and he was vastly more of a scholar

and debater, far as he was from being a model disputant.

Dr. Berg had the right side; he stood for the defence of all that was

good, and true, and great, and glorious; but the way in which he went

about his work was by no means the best one. He took a wrong

position,--a position which it was impossible for him to maintain. His

doctrine was that the Bible was absolutely perfect,--that the

inspiration of the Book was such as not only to make it a fit and proper

instrument for the religious instruction, and the moral and spiritual

renovation, of mankind, but such as to preserve it from all the

innocent, harmless, and unimportant weaknesses, imperfections, and

errors of regenerate and sanctified humanity. He even contended for a

kind or a degree of perfection which many of the most highly esteemed

professors and theologians of orthodox churches had relinquished. He

held to views about the creation and the universality of the deluge,

which orthodox Christian Geologists like Professor Hitchcock of America,

as well as Dr. Pye Smith of England, had given up as untenable. He

contended for a perfection which, in fact, is physically impossible, and

which, in truth, was inconsistent with his own acknowledgments in other

parts of the discussion. I have no wish to disparage my opponent; I had

rather do the contrary; but he did not properly and adequately

understand the great question which he undertook to discuss. Hence he

got involved in inextricable difficulties, and, in spite of all he could

do, his attempted defence of the Bible was, to a great extent, a

failure.

He said a many good things about the Bible. He proved a many things in

its favor. He made the impression, at times, that there was something in

its teachings of a most powerful and blessed tendency; that it was a

book of infinite value,--that it was a wonderful teacher and a mighty

comforter,--that it had done a vast amount of good, and was calculated

to do a vast amount more,--that it was a friend and patron of all things

good and glorious,--that it was the nurse of individual and national

virtue, and the source of personal, domestic, and national happiness. He

said many good things about the excellency of Christ's precepts, and the

beauty and glory of His example. A hundred good things he said, both in

favor of the Bible, and in opposition to infidelity. But the one great

point which he had pledged himself to prove he did _not_ prove. It could

not be proved. It was not true. So that though he won a substantial

victory; he sustained a logical defeat. And if he had been twenty times

more learned, and twenty times more able than he was, he would have been

defeated. If a man attempts the impossible, failure is inevitable; and

if he has a skilful, wary, and able opponent, his failure will be seen

and felt, even by his most ardent friends, and greatest admirers. And so

it was in the case of Dr. Berg.

But the error was not his alone; it was the error of his friends; the

error of his patrons; the error of his times. What learning, and talent,

and zeal, and skill in debate, considerably above the average of his

profession, could do, he did; and that was a good deal: and his failure

was chargeable not on himself, so much as on the faulty theology of the

school in which he had been trained, and to which he still belonged.

So far as the general merits of the Bible were concerned, I was in the

wrong. But the fact was not made so plain, so palpable to the audience,

as it should have been, and as it might have been, if I had had a wiser,

a warier, and an abler opponent, and one who had no false theory of

Bible inspiration or abstract perfection to defend. A man thoroughly

furnished for the work, and free from foolish and unauthorized theories,

would have been able to give proof of the substantial truth and divinity

of the Scriptures, and of their transcendent moral and spiritual

excellence, absolutely overwhelming; and I do most heartily wish I had

had the happiness to encounter such an advocate in my discussions. It

might have proved an infinite advantage to me, and an incalculable

blessing to my friends. As it was, the debate only tended to strengthen

me in my unbelief, and to increase my confidence in future controversies

with the clergy.

How I answered my own arguments, and got over my own objections, when on

my way back to Christianity, I may state hereafter. All I need say here

is, that I took a _qualified_ view of the divine authority of the Bible,

and of the doctrine of its divine inspiration,--a view in accordance

with facts, and with the teachings of Scripture itself on the subject.

This view did not require me to demand in a book of divine origin the

kind of abstract or absolute perfection which Dr. Berg required, and

which he so rashly undertook to prove. On the contrary, it taught me to

look for a thousand innocent and unimportant errors and imperfections in

the Bible. A thousand things which would, if proved, have been regarded

by Dr. Berg as valid objections to the doctrine of its superhuman

authority and divine authority, were no objections at all to me. I could

acknowledge the truth of them all, and yet believe in the substantial

truth and divinity of the Book as a whole. The dust and mud of our

streets and roads, and the decaying timbers and rotting grasses of our

forests and farms do not make me question the divine origin and the

substantial perfection of the world: nor do the errors and imperfections

of ancient transcribers or modern translators, or the want of absolute

scientific, historical, chronological, literary, theological or moral

perfection even in the original authors of the Bible, make me doubt its

divine origin and inspiration, or its practical and substantial

perfection. You may show me ten thousand things in the earth which, to

multitudes, would seem inconsistent with the doctrine that it is the

work of an all-perfect Creator; but they would not be inconsistent with

that doctrine in _my_ view. They would probably seem, to my mind, proofs

of its truth. Things which, to men who had not properly studied them,

appeared serious defects, or results of Adam's sin, would be seen by me

to be important excellencies; masterpieces of infinite wisdom and

goodness. Many of the things I said about the Bible in my debate with

Dr. Berg were true; but they amounted to nothing. Dr. Berg thought they

were serious charges, and that if they were not refuted, they would

destroy the credit and power of the Book. He was mistaken. And he never

did refute them. If I were in the place of Dr. Berg, and an opponent

were to bring forward those things in proof that the Bible was not of

God, I should say, Your statements may be true, or they may be false,

and I do not care much which they are; but they are good for nothing as

disproofs of the divine origin and practical perfection of the Bible.

The Bible is all it professes to be, and it is more and better than its

greatest admirers suppose it to be, notwithstanding its numberless

traces of innocent human imperfections. The sun has spots, but they

neither disprove its value nor its divine origin. The probability is,

that the spots in the sun have their use, and would be seen, if properly

understood, to be proofs of the wisdom and goodness of the Creator. And

it is certainly plain to me, that what you regard us defects in the

Bible, are proofs both of its divine origin, and of its real perfection.

I said some things about the Bible in my debate with Dr. Berg, which, if

they had been true, would have proved that the Bible was _not_ of divine

origin. But they were not true. All these things should have been

refuted by Dr. Berg with great promptness, and refuted so thoroughly

and plainly, that every one should have been made to see and feel that

they were refuted. But they were not. Some of them were left unnoticed.

Others were handled unskilfully. The time and strength that should have

been given to them were wasted on trifles, or unwisely spent in

offensive personalities, unseasonable witticisms, or attempts at fine

speaking.

The objections of this class, which my opponent failed to answer, or

answered unsatisfactorily, we may notice further on.

In January, 1855, while over on business, I had a public debate at

Halifax, England, with Brewin Grant, a congregational minister. This, so

far as its impression on my own mind was concerned, was the most

unfortunate discussion I ever had. My opponent was the meanest and most

unprincipled or ill-principled man I ever met. In a pamphlet which he

had published, giving instructions to those who were called to defend

the Bible and Christianity against unbelievers, he had laid it down as a

rule, that their first object should be to destroy the influence of

their opponents, and that in order to do this, they should do their

utmost to damage their reputation, and make them odious. He acted on

this principle, in his debate with me, with the greatest fidelity. He

raked together, and gave forth in his speeches, all the foolish and

wicked stories which my old persecutors had fabricated and spread abroad

respecting me, except those about my having committed suicide, and being

smothered to death, and some others which were so notoriously false that

they could no longer be used to my disadvantage. Those stories he

improved by making them worse. He made a number of new ones also.

I had published a book, giving the story of my life up to the time of my

expulsion from the Methodist New Connexion. This work, like my other

works, was written in the clearest and simplest style, so that no man

with ordinary abilities could fail to understand it, and no man without

powers of perversion bordering on the miraculous, could give to any part

of it an objectionable meaning. This book he took, and read, and

misread, and interpreted, and misinterpreted, so as to make the

impression on persons unacquainted with it, that I had written and

published the most foolish, ridiculous, and in some cases, really

discreditable things of myself, and even false and unwarrantable

statements about others.

Before the discussion came on he gave a lecture on this book. I went to

hear it. He spoke about an hour, and every quotation from the work, and

every reference he made to it, was false. There was not a word of truth

in the whole lecture. There was not a sentence which was not as opposite

to truth and as full of falsehood as he could make it. And the ingenuity

he displayed in his task was marvellous. It was really devilish. He

enlarged my conception of the evil powers of wicked men, in the line of

turning good into evil, and truth into lies, beyond all that I could

otherwise have imagined. He did a hundred things, the least of which my

poor limited capacity would have deemed impossible.

He pursued the same course in the debate. He went as far beyond poor

McCalla, as McCalla had gone beyond ordinary sinners. If I had

undertaken to correct his misrepresentations, and expose his fictions, I

should not have had one moment to give to the subject we were met to

discuss. So I did as I did with McCalla, I rebuked the man with becoming

severity; I contradicted his statements in the plainest and strongest

way I could; I also offered to arrange for a discussion of personal

matters, if he wished it, after we had gone through our discussion of

principles, and engaged to prove every discreditable story he told of me

to be false, and then went on with the discussion. He accepted my

challenge to discuss personalities, but neither kept his engagement, nor

abated his efforts at misrepresentation during the remainder of the

debate.

He was not content with sober, sad, deliberate falsehood; he resorted to

ridicule. He pulled comical and ugly faces; put out his tongue; put his

thumb to his nose; threw orange peel at me; and said and did other

things which it is not lawful for me to utter.

He had thought, I suppose, to disgust me; to tire me out; to make me

withdraw from the debate, and give him the opportunity of saying he had

put me to flight. He was mistaken. I kept my ground. And I kept my

temper. And I kept my gravity. I rebuked him at times with becoming

sternness, and then went on with my task. It is probable that I spoke

more strongly against the Bible, and that I said harder things against

the church and the ministry, than I should have done, if he had

conducted himself with any regard to truth and decency; but I did not

raise my voice above its usual pitch, nor did I show any unusual signs

of indignation, disgust, or irritation. My feelings became more intense,

my language more cutting, and my style and logic more pointed and

forcible; but my manner was calm, and my behaviour guarded.

And I husbanded my strength. I let him explode, while I let off my steam

quietly, and in just measure only, making every particle do its proper

work. I wasted neither words, nor strength, nor time. In three or four

days my wicked opponent began to get weak and weary. He had tired

_himself_ instead of me. He had disgusted and put to shame many of his

friends. He had driven away several of his supporters. He had weakened

his party. He had strengthened his opponent. He had lost, he had

betrayed, his cause. He dragged on heavily. He was all but helpless. I

had every thing my own way. I had an easy fight, and a decisive victory.

I had the last speech; and when the battle was over, I felt free to deal

with my unprincipled opponent rather severely, and I said: "My opponent

has acted, from beginning to end of this debate, in anything but a noble

and manly way. I refer not merely to his personal abuse, his use of foul

names, his insolence of manner, his malignity of spirit; but to the way

in which he has misconducted the argument. He was pledged to prove the

Bible of Divine origin and authority. He was bound to bring out, as

early as possible, what he thought his strongest arguments, and afford

me an opportunity of meeting them. But he did not do this. To judge from

his proceedings, you would conclude that he had no faith in any of the

popular arguments, such as those employed by Paley, Horne, &c. He sat

watching, like an animal we need not name, for some stray thought to

pounce upon. He tried every device to draw me from the question, and

showed, not only the greatest reluctance, but a fixed determination, not

to come any nearer to it himself than he could possibly help. He has

shown nothing like courage, nothing like confidence in the goodness of

his cause, nothing like openness, candor, or generosity; nothing but

craft and cunning. He has never fought like a soldier, but dodged like

an assassin. Honorable men _give up_ a cause that can't be honorably

maintained. For myself, ye are witnesses, I came out openly, boldly, and

at once, and gave my opponent the best opportunity he could have of

grappling fairly with my arguments. But he would not meet them. He slunk

behind his mud-battery, and instead of firing shot and shell, spurted

forth filth. By-and-by he took my old deserted battery, and began to

play upon me with my worn-out guns and wooden shot, till his friends

compelled him to give up. He complained that I had taken up my position

on Mount Horeb, and pattered him with grapeshot from the old Jewish

armory, and besought and urged me to plant myself on Mount Tabor, or the

Mount of Olives, and try what I could do with Christian ammunition. I

did so; but even that did not please him. He stared and squalled, as if

it had been raining red-hot shot, as thick as it once poured hailstones

and fire in Egypt, killing every beast that was out in the fields. And

thus he has gone on. He never seems to have been satisfied, either with

his own position or mine. I might have pleased him, no doubt, by giving

in before the battle, and surrendering at discretion; but that is not my

custom. Well, now the battle draws near its close; and no one, I trust,

has lost anything, but what is better lost than found. I am satisfied

with my own position, and nearly so with my share of the fight. With a

manlier foe, I should have had a pleasanter fight; but soldiers cannot

always choose their antagonists, nor can they keep, in all cases, to

their own best mode of warfare. The hunter cannot always find the

noblest game; and perhaps it is better for his neighbour, if not so

pleasant to himself, that he should sometimes be obliged to employ his

dogs and rifles in destroying vermin.

"I feel that an apology is due from me to you and the public, for

entering the lists with my opponent. It is soon given. When I first

offered to meet him in discussion on the Bible, I supposed him to be a

well-informed and respectable man, and the representative of the

highest intellectual and moral culture, combined with superior talent

and experience as a debater, that the orthodox world could boast. I soon

found out my mistake, but I did not feel at liberty to withdraw my

challenge. When I learned the infamous character of his personal

lectures, I declined all further correspondence with him till he should

retract his slanders; but still I did not feel free to say I would not

debate with him, if his friends should bring him to reasonable terms.

His friends in Halifax succeeded in doing so, and out of regard to the

wishes of my friends, I submitted to the temporary degradation of being

placed on the same platform with my unprincipled calumniator, and the

calumniator of the best, the wisest, and the greatest men of every age

and nation. I do not regret having done so.

"He will leave this discussion a sadder and a wiser man. He has found

that the power of insolence, and falsehood, and of vulgar, brutal wit,

has its bounds; that there are those whom they cannot abash or cow; that

the _might_ in moral encounters is with the _right_.

"I part with my opponent without malice, though without regret. If he

has natural characteristics which others have not, and lacks some higher

qualities which others have, the fault is not entirely his. He did not

make himself. Nor did he nurse, or rear, or train himself. He is the

production, and his character may, to a great extent, be the production,

of influences over which he had no control. I shall not therefore state

all I have felt while listening to the false and fierce personalities

with which this discussion has been disgraced. I will rather acknowledge

my own errors, and lament that anything he has said or done should have

been permitted, in any case, to affect my own style of advocacy, and

render me less gentle or guarded in my utterances than I otherwise might

have been. I retract every expression of unkindness or resentment. I

apologize for everything harsh, offensive, or ungraceful in my manner;

and I am sorry I could not declare and advocate my views, without

shocking or distressing some of your minds. And now, with best and

heartiest wishes for your welfare, and for the welfare of mankind at

large, and in the fall and certain hope of the final, universal, and

eternal triumph of the truth, and in the ultimate regeneration and

salvation of our race, I bid you all farewell."

This man purchased the copyright of the debate, and pledged himself to

issue a correct edition, in accordance with the notes of the reporter.

Instead of doing so, besides making unlimited alterations in his own

speeches, he altered every speech of mine. Some things he left out. In

one case, to prevent an exposure of one of his more reckless

mis-statements, he left out two pages of one of my speeches. By a free

and artful use of _italics_, and an abuse of stops, he altered and

perverted the meaning of quite a multitude of my statements. And when,

after all, he found that the publication damaged him terribly in the

estimation of his friends, he suppressed it altogether.

The conduct of this opponent had a bad effect on my mind, and if

anything short of sound reason could have kept me in the ranks of

infidelity, it would have been the shameless, the outrageous conduct of

such pretenders to Christianity as this bad man. But I thank God, such

horrible and inexcusable inconsistency was not allowed to decide my

fate. Better powers, sweeter and happier influences, were brought into

play to counteract its deadly tendency. And even other opponents, of a

worthier character and of a higher order, came in my way, who, by their

Christian temper, and high culture, and by their regard for my feelings,

and their manifest desire for my welfare, obliterated the bad

impressions produced by the unscrupulous and malignant conduct of Brewin

Grant, and all but won me over to the cause of Christ.

It happened that while I was yet in England, an arrangement was made for

a public discussion between me and Colonel Michael Shaw, of Bourtree

Park, Ayr. Colonel Shaw was a kind of lay minister, who preached the

Gospel gratuitously, and spent his time and property in doing good. He

was a Christian and a gentleman out and out; a Christian and a gentleman

of the highest order. Five such men might have saved Sodom and Gomorrah,

and all the cities of the plain. He was as guileless as a little child,

and as honest as the light, and about as pure, and good, and kind as a

regenerated human soul could be. This, at least, was the impression

which his looks, and conversation, and behaviour, made on my mind. He

not only commanded my respect, but called forth my veneration; and he

made me love him, as I never did love more than two or three good men in

all my life.

Well, an arrangement was made for a public discussion on the divine

authority of the Bible between this good and godly man and me.

The discussion took place in the City Hall, Glasgow. The Colonel was so

kind and gentlemanly, that I found my task exceedingly difficult. It was

very unpleasant to speak lightly of the faith of so good and true a man;

or to say anything calculated to hurt the feelings of one so guileless

and so affectionate. And many a time I wished myself employed about some

other business, or engaged in a contest with some other man. At the end

of the second night's debate we were to rest two days, and the Colonel

was so kind as to invite me, and even to press me, to spend those days

with him at his residence near Ayr. The Colonel had given his good lady

so favorable an account of my behaviour in the debate, that she wrote to

me enforcing her good husband's invitation. I went. I could do no other.

The Colonel and his venerable father met me at the station with a

carriage, and I was soon in the midst of the Colonel's truly Christian

and happy family. Neither the Colonel nor any of his household attempted

to draw me into controversy. Not a word was spoken that was calculated

to make me feel uneasy. There seemed no effort on the part of any one,

yet every thing was said and done in such a way as to make me feel

myself perfectly at home. Love, true Christian love, under the guidance

of the highest culture, was the moving spirit in the Colonel's family

circle. A visit to the birthplace of Burns, and to the banks of Bonny

Doon, was proposed, and a most delightful stroll we had, made all the

more pleasant by the Colonel's remarks on the various objects of

interest that came in view, and his apt quotation of passages from the

works of the poet, referring to the scenery amidst which we were moving.

On our return home I was made to feel at ease again with regard to every

thing but myself. I felt sorry that I should be at variance with my

kind and accomplished host on a subject of so much interest and

importance as religion and the Bible. The thought that on the evening of

the coming day I should have to appear on the platform again as his

opponent, was really annoying. To talk with such a man privately, in a

free and friendly way, seemed proper enough; but to appear in public as

his antagonist seemed too bad. When we started from Ayr to Glasgow in

the same train, and in the same carriage, I felt as if I would much

rather have travelled in some other direction, or on a different errand.

But an agreement had been made, and it must be kept; so two more nights

were spent in discussion. But it _was_ discussion,--fair and friendly

discussion,--and not quarrelling. Neither he nor I gave utterance to an

unkind or reproachful word. When the discussion was over, the Colonel

shook me by the hand in a most hearty manner in the presence of an

excited audience, and presented me with a book as an expression of his

respect and good feeling. I made the best returns I could, unwilling to

be too much outdone by my gallant and Christian friend. The audience,

divided as they were on matters of religion, after gazing some time on

the spectacle presented on the platform, as if at loss what to do, or

which of the disputants they should applaud, dropped their differences,

and all united in applauding both, and the disputants and the audience

separated with the heartiest demonstrations of satisfaction and mutual

good-will. The events of those days, and the impression I received of my

opponent's exalted character, never faded from my memory. And though

they had not all the effect they ought to have had, their influence on

my mind was truly salutary. I have never thought of Colonel Shaw and his

good, kind, Christian family, without affection, gratitude, and delight.

He wrote to me repeatedly after my return to America, and his letters,

which reached us when we were living among the wilds of Nebraska, were

among our pleasantest visitants, and must be reckoned among the means of

my recovery from the horrors of unbelief.

I cannot doubt but that my encounter with this blessed man did much

towards winning back my soul to God, and Christ, and the Church. This

gracious man,--this child of light and love,--is still living, and he

continues, when I give him the opportunity, to testify his love for me,

and his good wishes for my health and welfare. God bless his soul; and

bless his household; and, after having given them a long and happy life

on earth, receive them to His kingdom, to share together the riches of

His love for ever and ever.