Chapter 7 FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS AND THEIR RESULTS.

As my readers will have seen before this, the changes in my views were rather numerous, if not always of great importance. And the cases I have given are but samples of many other changes. The fact is, I pared away from my creed everything that was not plainly Scriptural. I threw aside all human theories, all mere guesses about religious matters. I also dismissed all forced or fanciful interpretations of Scripture passages.

I endeavored to free Christian doctrines from all corruptions, perversions, or exaggerations, retaining only the pure and simple teachings of Christ and the sacred writings. I accepted only those interpretations of Scripture, which were in accordance with the object and drift of the writer, with common sense, and with the general tenor of the sacred volume. I paid special regard to the plainest and most practical portions of Scripture. I paid no regard to doctrines grounded on solitary passages, or on texts of doubtful meaning, while numerous texts, with their meaning on their very faces, taught opposite doctrines. I would accept nothing that seemed irrational from any quarter, unless required to do so by the plain unquestionable oracles of God. I could see no propriety in Christians encumbering their minds and clogging religion with notions bearing plain and palpable marks of inconsistency or absurdity. And if a doctrine presented itself in different religious writers in a variety of forms, I always took the form which seemed most in harmony with reason and the plainest teachings of Scripture. Some writers seemed to take pleasure in presenting such doctrines as the Trinity, the Atonement, Salvation by Faith, Eternal Punishment, &c., in the most incredible and repulsive forms, straining and wresting the Scriptures to justify their mischievous extravagances. Other writers would say no more on those subjects than the Scriptures said, and would put what the Scriptures said in such a light as to render it "worthy of all acceptation." As a matter of course, the latter kind of writers became my favorites. Indeed the Scriptures seemed always to favor what appeared most rational in the various creeds. The Scriptures and common sense seemed always in remarkable harmony. The doctrines which clashed with reason seemed also to clash with Scripture: and I felt that in rejecting such doctrines I was promoting the honor of God and of Christ, and rendering a service to the Church and Christianity.

I was sometimes rather tried by the unwarranted and inconsiderate statements of my brother ministers. Take an instance. A preacher one night, in a sermon to which I was listening, said, "How great is the love of God to fallen man! Angels sinned, and were doomed at once to everlasting damnation. No Saviour interposed to bring them back to holiness and heaven. No ambassador was sent with offers of pardon to beseech them to be reconciled to God. Man sins, and the Deity Himself becomes incarnate. All the machinery of nature and all the resources of Heaven are employed to save him from destruction. One sin shuts up in everlasting despair millions of spiritual beings, while a thousand transgressions are forgiven to man."

Now this doctrine, instead of reflecting peculiar glory on God, seemed to me to savor of blasphemy. It is no honor to be partial or capricious; it is a reproach. A father that should be tenderly indulgent to one of his children, and rigidly severe to the rest, would be regarded with indignation. The doctrine of Divine partiality shocks both our reason and our moral feelings. And it is not scriptural. The Bible says nothing about God dooming the rebellious angels to perdition for one sin, without any attempt to bring them back to obedience; but it does say that God is good to all, and that His tender mercies are over all His works. I accordingly rejected the doctrine. There was quite a multitude of doctrines which entered into the sermons of many of my brother ministers, which never found their way into mine. And there were doctrines which entered into my discourses, which never found their way into theirs. And the doctrines which we held and preached in common, we often presented in very different forms, and put into very different words. They could say a multitude of things which I could not say; things which I could find no kind of warrant for saying. When we met together after hearing each other preach, we had at times long talks about our different views and ways of preaching. I was free in expressing my thoughts and feelings, especially in the earlier years of my ministry, and our conversations were often very animated.

In some circuits, I induced my colleagues to join me in establishing weekly meetings for mutual improvement in religious knowledge. At each meeting an essay was read, on some subject agreed upon at a former meeting, and after the essay had been read we discussed the merits both of the sentiments it embodied, and of the style in which it was written. When it was my turn to prepare an essay, I generally introduced one or more of the points on which I and my colleagues differed, for the purpose of having them discussed. I stated my views with the utmost freedom, and gave every encouragement to my colleagues to state theirs with equal freedom in return. When my colleagues read their productions, I pointed out what I thought erroneous or defective with great plainness and fidelity. I was anxious both to learn and to teach, and it was my delight, as it was my duty and business, to endeavor to do both. I was not, however, so anxious to change the views of my friends as I was to excite in them a thirst for knowledge. And indeed I did not consider it of so much importance that a man should accept a certain number of truths, or particular doctrines, as that he should have a sincere desire, and make suitable endeavors to understand all truth. It was idleness, indifference, a state of mental stagnation, a readiness carelessly to accept whatever might come in the way without once trying to test it by Scripture or reason, that I particularly disliked; and to cure or abate this evil, I exerted myself to the utmost.

When I was stationed in Newcastle in 1831, I met with Foster's Essays, which I read with a great deal of eagerness and pleasure. One of these Essays is "On some of the Causes by which Evangelical Religion has been Rendered Unacceptable to Persons of Cultivated Taste?" Among his remarks on this subject, he has some to the following effect:-

1. Christianity is the religion of many weak, uncultivated and little-minded people, and they, by their unwise ways of talking about it, and by their various defects of character, make religion look weak, and poor, and unreasonable. And many receive their impression or ideas of the character of Christianity more from the exhibitions given of it by the religious people with whom they come in contact, than from the exhibition given of it in the life and teachings of its great Author, or from the characters and writings of His Apostles. An intelligent and cultivated man, for instance, falls into the company of Christians who know little either of the teachings of Christ, or of the wonderful facts which go to prove their truth and their infinite excellency-Christians who never trouble themselves about such matters, and who look on it as no good sign when people show a disposition to inquire seriously into such subjects. He hears those Christians talk about religion, but can find nothing in their conversation but strange and, to him, unintelligible expressions. The speakers give proof enough of excited feelings, but show no sign of mental enlightenment. If he asks them for information on the great principles and bearings of Christianity, they tell him they have nothing to do with vain philosophy.

2. The man of taste and culture hears other Christians harping eternally on two or three points, adopted perhaps from some dreamy author, and denouncing all who question the correctness of their version of the Gospel, as heretics or infidels, while all the time their notions have little or no resemblance either to the Gospel or to common sense; but are at best, only perversions or distortions of Christian doctrines, which have no more likeness to the religion of Christ than a few broken bricks have to a beautiful and magnificent palace.

3. In many cases the Christians with whom he meets have not only no general knowledge of religious subjects, but no desire for such knowledge. The Bible is their book, they say, and they want no other. And they make but a pitiful use of that. They do not go to the Bible as to a fountain of infinite knowledge, whose streams of truth blend naturally with all the truths in the universe, but merely to refresh their minds with a few misinterpreted passages, which ignorance and bigotry are accustomed to use to support their misconceptions of Christian doctrine. They use the book not to make them wise, but to keep them ignorant. They dwell for ever on the same irrational fancies, and repeat them for ever in the same outlandish jargon.

4. He meets with other Christians who read a little in other books besides the Bible; but it is just those books that help to keep them from understanding the meaning of the Bible. And the portions of the books which they admire most and quote oftenest, are the silliest and most erroneous portions. They put darkness for light, and light for darkness. The man of culture speaks to them, but they cannot understand him. His thoughts and style are alike out of their line, or beyond their capacity. If at any time they catch a glimpse of his meaning, they are frightened on perceiving that his thoughts are not an exact repetition of their own.

5. Another cause which has tended to render Christianity less acceptable to men of taste and culture, is the peculiar language adopted in the discourses and writings of its Teachers. The style of some religious teachers is low, vulgar. The style of a still greater number is barbarous. Men soon feel the language of the Law to be barbarous. They would feel the language of theology to be as barbarous, if they were not accustomed to hear it or read it so constantly. The way in which the greater number of evangelical divines express themselves is quite different from that in which men generally express themselves. Their whole cast of phraseology is peculiar. You cannot hear five sentences without feeling that you are listening to a dead or foreign language. To put it into good current English you have to translate it, and the task of translation is as hard, and requires as much study and practice, as that of translating Greek or Hebrew. The language of the pulpit and of religious books is a dialect to itself, and cannot be used in common life or common affairs. If you try to apply it to anything but religion, it becomes ridiculous, and a common kind of wit consists in speaking of common things in pulpit phraseology. A foreign heathen might master our language in its common and classical forms, and be able to understand both our ordinary talk and our ablest authors, yet find himself quite at a loss to understand an evangelical preacher or writer.

Even if our heathen understood religion in its simpler and more natural forms, he would still be unable to understand the common run of religious talkers and writers. If he had religion to learn from such teachers and writers, he would have a double task, first, to get the ideas, and then to learn the uncouth and unnatural language. This peculiar dialect is quite unnecessary. The style of a preacher or a religious writer might be, and, allowing for a few terms, ought to be, the same as that of a man talking about ordinary affairs, and matters of common interest and duty. The want of this is one great cause of the little success, both of our preachers at home, and of our missionaries abroad. They hide beneath an unseemly veil, a beauty that should strike all eyes, and win all hearts. Their style is just the opposite of everything that can instruct, attract, command. And it is vain to expect much improvement in the present generation of religious teachers. They could not get a good style without a long and careful study of good authors, and for this many of them have neither the taste nor the needful industry. They would have to begin life anew, to be converted and become as little children, before they could master the task. They cannot think of religion but in common words. They cannot think there can be divine truth but in the old phrases. To discontinue them, therefore, and use others, would in their view, be to become heretics or infidels. In truth, many of them seem to have no ideas. Their phrases are not vehicles of ideas, but substitutes for them. If they hear the ideas which their phrases did once signify, expressed ever so plainly in other language, they do not recognise them, and instantly suspect the man who utters them of unsoundness in the faith, and apply to him all the abusive terms of ecclesiastical reproach. For such the common pulpit jargon is the convenient refuge of ignorance, idleness and prejudice.

6. Speaking of certain kinds of religious books, Mr. Foster calls them an accumulation of bad writing, under which the evangelical theology has been buried, and which has contributed to bring its principles into disfavor. He adds: A large proportion of religious books may be sentenced as bad on more accounts than their peculiarity of dialect. One has to regret that their authors did not revere the dignity of their religion too much to surround it and choke it with their works. There is quite a multitude of books which form the perfect vulgar of religious authorship,-a vast exhibition of the most inferior materials that can be called thought, in language too grovelling to be called style. In these books you are mortified to see how low religious thought and expression can sink; and you almost wonder how the grand ideas of God and Providence, of redemption and eternity, the noblest ideas known, can shine on a human mind, without imparting some small occasional degree of dignity to its train of thought. You can make allowances for the great defects of private Christians, but when men obtrude their infinite littleness and folly on the public in books, you can hardly help regarding them as inexcusable. True, many of those worthless and mischievous books are evermore disappearing, but others as bad, or but little better, take their places. Look where you will you will meet with them. What estimate can a man have of Christianity who receives his first impressions of it from such books?

7. There are other religious books that are tolerable as to style, but which display no power or prominence of thought, no living vigor of expression; they are flat and dry as a plain of sand. They tease you with the thousandth repetition of common-places, causing a feeling of unspeakable weariness. Though the author is surrounded with rich immeasurable fields of truth and beauty, he treads for ever the same narrow track already trodden into dust.

8. There is a smaller class of religious writers that may be called mock-eloquent writers. They try at a superior style, but forget that true eloquence resides essentially in the thought, the feeling, the character, and that no words can make genuine eloquence out of that which is of no worth or interest. They mistake a gaudy verbosity for eloquence.

9. The moral and theological materials of many religious books are as faulty as their style, and the injury they do the Gospel is incalculable. Here is a systematic writer in whose hands all the riches and magnificence of revelation shrink into a meagre list of doctrinal points, and not a single verse in the Bible is allowed to tell its meaning, or even allowed to have one, till it has been forced under torture to maintain one of his points. You are next confronted with a prater about the invisible world, that makes you shrink away into darkness; and then you are met with a grim zealot for such a revolting theory of the Divine attributes and government, that he seems to delight in representing the Deity as a dreadful king of furies, whose dominion is overshadowed with vengeance, whose music is the cries of victims, and whose glory requires to be illustrated by the ruin of His creation. One cannot help deploring that the great mass of religious books were not consigned to the flames before they were permitted to reach the eyes of the public. Books which exhibit Christianity and its claims with insipid feebleness, or which cramp its majesty into an artificial form at once distorted and mean, must grievously injure its influence. An intelligent Christian cannot look into such works without feeling thankful that they were not the books from which he got his conceptions of the Gospel. Nothing would induce him to put them into the hands of an inquiring youth, and he would be sorry to see them on the table of an infidel, or in the library of his children, or of a student for the ministry.-Foster's Essays.

These sentiments answered so astonishingly to my own thoughts, that I read them with the greatest delight. I laid them, in substance, before my brethren. I explained them. I illustrated them by quotations from books and sermons. I gave them instances of the various faults pointed out by Foster, taken from their favorite authors, and in some cases from the discourses of living preachers. I wrote several essays on the causes of the slow progress made by Christianity, in which I embodied and illustrated many of Foster's views. I wrote essays on "Preaching Christ," in which I embodied and illustrated Wesley's views on the subject, including his condemnation of what, in his days, was falsely called "Gospel Preaching." I wrote quite a large volume on these subjects, and read the contents, so far as opportunity offered, to my colleagues at our weekly meetings. I was badly requited for my pains. In some cases my colleagues listened to me and stared at me with amazement. They thought I "brought strange things to their ears." One, who is now dead, said I should be really an excellent fellow, he believed, if I could only get the cobwebs swept out of my upper stories. Everything beyond his own poor standing common-places was cobwebs to him, poor fellow. The remarks on this subject in the LIFE of the preacher referred to, show that my ideas and plans at that time are not yet understood by all his brethren.

Travel, they say, frees men from their prejudices. The more they see of the wonders of other countries, and of the manners of other nations, the more moderate becomes their estimate of the marvels, and of some of the views and customs of their native land. And it is certain that the more a man travels through good books by men of different Churches from his own, the less important will some of the peculiarities of his own denomination appear. As ignorance of the world is favorable to blind patriotism and home idolatry, so ignorance of Churches, and systems, and literatures different from our own, is favorable to bigotry and sectarianism. And as free and extended intercourse with foreign nations tends to enlarge and liberalize the mind; so the more extensive a Christian's acquaintance is with different branches of the Church, and with their customs, and writings, and manners, the more likely will his sectarian bigotry and intolerance be to give place to liberal views and to Christian moderation and charity.

But just in proportion as he becomes the subject of this blessed transformation, will he be regarded with suspicion and dread by those who still remain the slaves of ignorance and bigotry.

It was so in my case. I travelled through extensive regions of religious literature different from that of my own Church, and I did so with an earnest desire to learn what was true and good in all. The consequence was the loss of many prejudices, and the modification of many more. I lost my prejudices against all kinds of Christians. I could believe in the salvation both of Quakers and Catholics, and of all between, if they were well disposed, God-fearing, good-living men. I could believe in the salvation of all, not excepting Jews, Turks, and Pagans, who lived according to the light they had, and honestly and faithfully sought for further light. I believed that in every nation he that feared God and worked righteousness was accepted of Him. I believed that honest, faithful souls among the pagans of old would be found at last among the saved. I regarded the moral and spiritual light of the ancient pagans as light from heaven, as divine revelation. I looked on all mankind as equally objects of God's care and love, as His children, under His tuition, though placed for a time in different schools, with different teachers, and with different lesson-books. I came to believe that God was as good as a good man, as good as the kindest and best of fathers, and even better, and I felt assured that He would not permit any well-disposed soul on earth to perish. I believed that some who were first in privileges, would be among the last in blessedness; and that some that were last in privileges would be among the first in blessedness.

Yet I believed in missions. I believed that it was the duty of all to share their blessings with others; to give to others the light that God had bestowed on them,-that though pagans might be saved without Christian light, if they lived according to the light they had, Christians could not be saved if they did not, as they had opportunity, impart their superior light to the pagans.

I respected the good moral principles, and the portions of religious truth that I found in the ancient Greek and Roman authors, just as I lamented and condemned the moral and religious errors that I found in Christian books.

"I seized on truth where'er 'twas found,

On Christian or on Heathen ground,"

and made it part of my creed: and I warred with error though entrenched in the strong-holds of the Church. I respected what was true and good in all denominations of Christians; and even in all denominations that called themselves Christians, whether they came near enough to Christ to entitle them to that name or not. If I saw anything good in the creeds or the characters of other denominations I accepted it, and tried to embody it in my own creed and character.

And I did, as I thought, see good in every one that I did not see in others. I could see things in some Protestants, which I thought Catholics would do well to imitate; and I could see things among Catholics, which I thought Protestants would do well to imitate. I could see things in Quakerism, which it would have been to the honor and advantage of other Christians to imitate; and I could see good things in other Churches which Quakers would have done well to copy. I could see even among Unitarians of the older and better class, an attention to matters practical, a naturalness of style, and a freedom from certain anti-christian expressions and notions, which it would have been well for orthodox Churches to have made their own; and I could see where Unitarians had both gone too far through their dislike of orthodox error, and fallen short of truth and duty through dread of orthodox weaknesses or imperfections. And I had an idea, that it would be well in all Churches, instead of avoiding, or scolding, or abusing one another, to study each other lovingly, with a view to find how much of truth and goodness they could find in each other, that they could not find in themselves, and how much of error and imperfection they could find in themselves, that they did not find in others. I saw that no Church had got all the truth, or all the goodness, and that no Church was free from anti-christian errors and defects. I saw that to make a perfect Christian creed, we should have to take something out of every creed, and leave other things in every creed behind; and that to secure a perfect exhibition of Christian virtue, and a perfect system of Christian operations, we should have to borrow from each other habits, customs, rules and machinery in the same way, and leave parts of our own to fall into disuse.

And I was willing to act on this principle. I saw that Christ and Christianity were more and better than all the Churches and all the creeds on earth put together, and that all the Churches had errors and faults or failings which Christ and Christianity had not; and I had an idea that one of the grandest sights conceivable would be to set all the disciples of Christ to work striving to get rid of everything anti-christian, and to come as near to Christ, and to each other, as possible, both in truth and virtue.

But to proceed with my story.

I frequently spoke on religious subjects with my colleagues when we met, along with the leading laymen, at the houses of our friends. Some new book, some particular sermon, or some article in the magazine, or perhaps the fulness of one's own mind with the subjects of one's studies, would turn the conversation on the state of the Church and the ministry, and the need of improvement in the theological systems and dialects of the day, and the manner of handling religious subjects generally, both in the pulpit and through the press. Whatever the subject under consideration might be, I expressed myself with the utmost freedom. I stated my beliefs and disbeliefs, my doubts and my convictions, without the least reserve. And I as readily gave my reasons for my views. I was generally prepared with the passages of Scripture bearing on the subjects introduced, and gave them, with my impressions of their meaning. And I did my best to draw my colleagues and friends into a thorough investigation of every point, in hopes that we might all come as near as possible in our views to a full conformity to the teachings of Christ. The results of these conversations, and of my other labors, were in some cases, very satisfactory. Some were led to exercise their minds on religious subjects who had never troubled themselves about such matters before. Some that had been accustomed to think and read a little were led to think and read more, and to better purpose. Some that had been helplessly and miserably perplexed had their minds put right, and were delivered from their distresses. Some had their minds directed more seriously to the practical requirements of Christianity, and labored more, and made more sacrifices, for the prosperity of the Church and the salvation of their fellow-men. In considerable numbers the standard of Christian knowledge and piety was raised, and the general tone of the churches improved.

In other cases the results were of a very different character. During the early years of my religious life I supposed that all professing Christians, and especially all ministers of the Gospel, were anxious to be as wise and good as possible, and that they would be delighted, as I was myself, to get any new, or larger, or clearer views of truth and duty. I judged of others by myself, and gave them credit for the same desires and longings that swelled my own soul. I gave them credit too for unlimited capacities to take in and appreciate the truth, and for any amount of ability to use it, when received, in doing good to others. I had seldom any difficulty in understanding them; and it never entered my mind that they would have much difficulty in understanding me. And I never felt myself even tempted, much less disposed, to misrepresent the words or sentiments of my friends, or to take advantage of the freedom with which they spoke, to injure them in the estimation of their friends. I had no intolerance myself, so far as I can recollect, and I had no disposition to cause intolerance in others towards my brethren. How it was with my brethren I will not undertake to say, but, as a person with any knowledge of human nature would have anticipated, I was greatly misunderstood and misrepresented. Some of my colleagues and friends were in a maze with regard to my views and intentions. Shut up within the narrow confines of some old stereotyped form of faith or fancy into which they had been born, or into which they had been brought they knew not how, and afraid to change or modify one iota of their blind belief, investigation, search after truth, enlargement of thought, or change of sentiment, was with them out of the question. The very idea of anything differing from their own traditionary or haphazard belief was, in the estimation of some of them, no less than heresy, treason, or infidelity. Others, who were not so much benighted, were afraid to venture on a free examination of religious matters, or a careful comparison of their views with the teachings of Scripture. Some trusted in their elders, and feared no error so long as they kept in the track of their predecessors. I am not certain that I should go too far if I were to say, that some were under the influence of worldly and selfish motives, and were resolved to take the course which promised to be most conducive to a quiet, easy, self-indulgent life. There were some whose conversations left this impression on my mind. One young minister, when I was pointing out to him some inconsistency between a statement he had made and the teachings of Christ, put an end to the conversation by saying, "I don't want to hear anything about such matters; I know what is expected of a minister of the Methodist New Connexion, and I am resolved to be one; and I shall just hold the doctrines necessary to keep me in the office, and nothing else." And I suppose he did not stand alone.

Some lacked the power to think. They were all but mindless. Whatever they might be able to do in reference to worldly matters, they were unable to think, to compare doctrine with doctrine, or to reason in any respect whatever on religious matters. One young man, a candidate for the ministry, told me that he never had thought matters over in his own mind, but taken what came in his way in books or sermons, never troubling himself, or finding himself able, to do more than to remember and to repeat what he heard or read. He had not the faculty to compare the sayings of men with the sayings of God; or the sayings of one man with the sayings of another. He was a mere dealer in words and phrases, and he aspired to nothing higher than to live by the ignoble occupation. How many of those with whom I came in contact, and in whose society I poured forth so freely the thoughts of my mind, were of the same stamp, I do not know. I never tested any other person so thoroughly as I tested him. There were others, however, that had been fashioned in a similar mould.

Others with whom I conversed had thought, and had embraced certain views believing them to be true; but they had fallen under the influence of teachers and books of a different cast from those by which my own mind had been chiefly influenced. And they had been led to fix their thoughts almost exclusively on one particular class of Scripture passages, and to neglect or overlook other portions of the sacred volume, though much more numerous, and much more clear in their meaning. They had also been led to adopt certain interpretations of the passages on which their attention had been specially fixed, which a consideration of other passages of Scripture had led me to reject. Thus our minds had run into different moulds, and taken different forms. We differed not only on certain points of doctrine, but in our tastes, and in our rules of judging. The consequence was, that we could never talk long on religious subjects without getting into a dispute, or coming to a dead stand. To make matters worse, this class of people had been led to believe that their peculiar notions were the essential doctrines of the Gospel, and that those who did not believe them could not be Christians. When therefore they found that I looked upon their theories as erroneous and unscriptural, they pronounced me at once an erratic and dangerous man. I imagined, at first, that I could bring these people to see things in a different light. I had such faith in the power of plain Scripture passages, and in the force of common sense, and was so ignorant of the power of prejudice, and of peculiarities of mental constitution, that I conversed and reasoned with them with the greatest freedom and the utmost confidence. But I found at length that my expectations were vain. I was conversing once with a colleague who belonged to this class, on man's natural proneness to evil. He was one of the best and most enlightened of that school of theologians, and he regarded me at the time with very kindly feelings. And we were agreed as to the fact of man's natural tendency to evil, but he had been led to rest his belief in the doctrine on somewhat different grounds from those on which my belief rested. And this was enough. He quoted the passage from Isaiah, "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint: from the crown of the head, to the sole of the foot, there is no soundness, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores." "Do you think that the Prophet refers in that passage to man's natural proneness to evil?" said I. "What can he refer to else?" said he. "I have been accustomed to regard the words as a figurative description of the miserable state of the Israelites under the terrible judgments of God," I replied. He instantly became red in the face, and said, "Do you mean to deny the natural depravity of man?" I said, "The question is not about the doctrine, but only about the meaning of that particular passage." But all was in vain. I had roused his suspicions and his anger, and the conversation came at once to an end, and he never afterwards regarded me with the same degree of confidence and friendliness as before.

On another occasion a brother minister quoted, as proof that men in their unregenerate state cannot do anything towards their own salvation, the words of Jeremiah, already once referred to, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" "Do you really think," said I, "that the Prophet is speaking, in those words, of men generally?" "What else is he speaking of?" was the answer. "He seems to me to be speaking of a particular class of men, who have been so long accustomed to do wrong, that they have lost the power to do right-having made themselves the helpless slaves of their evil habits. He is not, I think, speaking of the state into which they were born; but of the state to which they had reduced themselves by long persistence in sin. Hence he says at the conclusion of the passage, 'Then may ye, who are accustomed to do evil, do well.'" "Oh! I suppose you deny the doctrine of natural depravity." "No, I do not," said I. "It is no use saying that," he replied, "when you explain away the passages of Scripture in which the doctrine is taught."

Such encounters between me and my brethren were at one time by no means uncommon. They took place at almost every meeting. The result was often unpleasant. My brethren generally did not like to be disturbed in their notions, or in their way of talking. But few, if any of them, were prepared or disposed to enter on the investigations necessary to enable them to ascertain what was the truth on the points on which we were accustomed to converse. Some had not the power to revise their creeds and their way of talking and preaching, and bring them into harmony with Scripture and common sense. And people of this class were sure to look on all who did not see things in the same light as themselves, as dangerous or damnable heretics. They, of course, concluded that I was not sound in the faith. They felt that I was a troublesome, and feared that I was a lost and ruined man. The remarks which I made to them, they repeated to their friends; and as they seldom succeeded in understanding me properly, their reports were generally incorrect. In some cases my statements were reported with important additions, and in others with serious alterations, and in some cases their meaning was entirely changed. And the change was seldom to my advantage. A difference of expression between me and my brethren was mistaken for a difference of belief; and the disuse of an unscriptural word, was mistaken for a renunciation of a Christian doctrine. A dispute about the "eternal sonship" was mistaken for a dispute about the divinity of Christ, and a difference of opinion about the meaning of a passage of Scripture, came to be reported as the denial of Christ's authority. In one case I gave it as my judgment that there were really righteous people on earth when Christ came into the world, and that it was to such that Christ referred, when He said, He "came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." This was made into an assertion that the coming of Christ was unnecessary. Inability to accept unauthorized definitions and unscriptural theories of Scriptural doctrines, was construed into a denial of those doctrines. My endeavor to strip religious subjects of needless mystery, was represented as an attempt to substitute a vain philosophy for the Gospel of Christ. An expression of dissatisfaction with a grandiloquent but foolish and mischievous sermon on the "Cross of Christ," was set down as a proof that my views on the sacrifice of Christ were not evangelical. My endeavors to show that Christianity was in harmony with reason, were mistaken for an attempt to substitute reason for faith, and became the occasion of a rumor that I was running into Pelagianism or Socinianism. My own conviction was, that I was coming nearer to the simplicity, the purity, and the fulness of the Gospel; and that is my conviction still. And those of my brethren in the ministry who were in advance of the rest in point of intelligence and piety, and who were least infected with foolish fear and jealousy, expressed to me their satisfaction with my views and proceedings. And the people listened to my discourses with the greatest delight. They flocked to hear me in crowds; and the crowds continually increased. And many were benefited under my ministry. Sinners were converted, and believers were comforted, and stimulated to greater efforts in the cause of God.

To those, however, who had come to believe that I was drifting towards heresy, all this was the occasion of greater alarm, and my great success and growing popularity led them to make increasing efforts to lessen my influence, or silence me altogether. Their conduct caused me great uneasiness, and it was this that first awakened in me unhappy feeling towards them.

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