“One important fact began to make itself plain, and that was that the
modern young man is more or less discouraged by the growing belief that
all things are falling into the hands of great corporations and trusts,
and that the individual no longer has much chance. My father had been
more or less of a fatalist in his view of life, and often quoted
Emerson to me, to the effect that the dice of life are loaded, and fall
according to a plan. My mother leaned to the doctrine of Calvin,—to
predestination. I inherited a streak of the same feeling, and the
conditions I observed made me feel that there was probably something
in the theory. I had to battle this down and convince myself that we
are what we choose to make ourselves. Then I had to set to work to
counteract the discouraging view taken by the young people about me.”
“You were a Methodist, then?”
“Yes, I was admitted to preach in that body, but it was not long before
I had an attack of transcendentalism, and fell out with the Methodist
elder of my district. The elder was wholly justified. He was a dry old
gentleman, with a fund of common sense. After one of my flights, in
which I advocated perfection far above the range of humankind, he came
to me and said: ‘My dear young man, don’t you know that people have to
live on this planet?’ The rebuke struck me as earthly then, but it has
grown in humor and common sense since.
“I left voluntarily. I knew I was not satisfactory, and so I went away.
I married when I was twenty. I preached in several places, and obtained
a charge at Columbus, Ohio.”