CHAPTER IV.
PERSONAL RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE OF A PHYSICIAN; AND AN APPEAL IN BEHALF OF A NEW DISPENSATION.
We know that in various ages of the world the Lord has revealed a knowledge of Himself to man. In the Ten Commandments we have the laws of spiritual life, in accordance with which we must live if we would enjoy spiritual health, precisely as we must live in accordance with the laws of natural life and health, if we would enjoy natural health.
We are dependent upon revelation for a knowledge of the laws of spiritual health, and of the causes and methods for the cure of spiritual diseases; but the Lord gives us, if we will keep His sayings, the ability, by careful scientific study and investigation, to obtain a knowledge of the physical laws of health, and the causes and methods of curing physical diseases. And it is wonderful how the natural in all respects symbolizes or corresponds to the spiritual.
To the Jewish Church the Lord revealed so much knowledge of Himself, and how they should live if they would be prosperous and happy here and hereafter, as that Church was prepared to receive; and He also promised to manifest Himself in person. All Christians believe that He fulfilled His promise when Jesus Christ appeared on earth; but He did not come in the manner which the Jews at the time of His advent expected. He came, not as a temporal ruler or prince; consequently they took Him for an impostor and crucified Him. To His followers and disciples He promised to come again in the clouds of heaven; but the clouds of heaven may not be the clouds of the material earth, any more than the spiritual kingdom which He came to establish was a natural kingdom; and it is possible that His second coming may not be in the manner anticipated by the Christian Church at the time of His second coming. He intimated as much when He inquired if He should find faith on earth. Should Christians, then, not watch and pray, and heed the signs of the times, lest they follow the example of the Jews, and reject Him at His second coming? Should not clergymen, as well as physicians, be led in freedom according to reason, and not blindly by prominent religious professors, clergymen and writers, and creeds formulated in an age of comparative darkness? Should the traditions and creeds of men be allowed to make of none effect the Word of God? Do we not see all around us signs of a most wonderful change going on in the world? Are these changes which we behold from the Lord, or from man?
I was reared in the Baptist Church. My father was a deacon, and labored faithfully to bring his children into the Church. I was taught that I must be converted, or get religion, before being baptized or joining the Church. What was meant by being converted I never fully comprehended, but I inferred from the instruction I received that it meant a radical change in one's feelings, the result of faith in the Lord's "atoning blood;" and that when this change was effected, I should be able to tell an experience similar to what I had heard others tell before joining the Church, which sometimes seemed quite marvelous. I attended "protracted meetings" and "revival meetings." And, one evening, I remember hoping and almost feeling that I felt a little change, and I even thought of announcing my feelings in the meeting; but caution prevailed, and I concluded to wait until the next day and see if there really was any change in my feelings. When the next day came, I could see no change, and consequently I made no announcement. Thus, I grew up and continued, until I was over thirty years of age, outside of the organized Church. I always respected religion, the Bible, and religious teachers, but I never got converted.
I had many things during childhood and early youth to be thankful for. My father and grandfather before him were accustomed to gather the family, night and morning, and read, or have some member of the family read, a chapter in the Bible, and then prayer was offered. Now, when this is done regularly, and especially if the Bible is read, in course, with here and there a few kindly remarks by the father or mother, no one can tell the good impression which is made on the children; they learn to reverence the Bible, and, what is of exceeding great moment, they hear it read through and through several times before they reach manhood, and they become comparatively familiar with the good and living precepts therein contained. The Sabbath-school, once a week for an hour or two, is all very well; but, in my estimation, it is very little, compared with daily family worship and acknowledging the Lord, and asking a blessing. O, that all Christian men and women could be aroused to the importance of such religious observances?
Some years ago, I went with my wife and a friend for a summer outing to the Catskill Mountains, and spent a few days at the Mountain House. There were a large number of guests there, of the various religious denominations. Those religiously inclined had established the custom of meeting every morning around a table, in a large room, when a chapter from the Bible was read, followed by singing and prayer. There have been few, if any, incidents of my whole life that I have more frequently thought of, or with greater pleasure and delight, than of those large, non-sectarian, and, as it were, family gatherings and simple services.
My mother died, as stated in the first part of this work, when I was ten years old. After remaining a widower for three years, during which period my grandparents, who lived with us, died and my only sister was married, my father married a widow, the mother of several children, a good Christian woman and a member of the Baptist Church.
I have always been thankful that I had a step-mother. No own mother could have been more kind, or have exercised a stronger influence for good over a son than she strove to exercise over me. She entered our home when I was thirteen years of age, when I needed a mother's influence and care perhaps as much as at any period of my life after I had ceased to draw my nourishment from my mother's breasts. Tears come into my eyes as I recall the pleasant, useful, and happy evenings and Sunday afternoons which I spent with her, when we happened to be alone in the house, reading and conversing about the interesting stories in the Bible and other religious books and papers that she thought would interest me. She may have had faults, yet I was about to say I do not remember one; but, unfortunately, she had one—she was a smoker of tobacco. Years before she had been troubled with "water brash," and a physician who, without much question, was himself a smoker, advised her to smoke; so she commenced smoking. He did not tell her to stop smoking as soon as she felt relief, as any intelligent physician should have done, if he was so unwise as to make such a prescription; but it is a question whether she ever experienced any permanent relief; for she was a bright, intelligent woman, and would have been likely to stop smoking of her own accord if she had been cured. In my estimation the physician who made the prescription was much more to be blamed than she was for the habit which followed. But seventy years ago very little was known as to the fearful slavery and diseases and mortality which result from the use of tobacco, compared with what is known to-day. The sin of ignorance cannot be pleaded in extenuation of such habits to-day, as it could then.
As to intoxicating drinks, I remember hearing my grandfather, when he was over eighty years old, after taking a drink of cider-brandy, exclaim: "A good gift of God, if taken with faith and prayer."
Fortunately, or providentially, I would say, the temperance reformation commenced soon after, and my father and other prominent members and the clergymen of the Baptist and Congregational churches in our town took an active part in the new movement. My father signed the pledge not to drink intoxicating drinks, and I followed his example; and I thank the Lord that I did so, for it gave me the strength and courage to say, "No, I thank you, I never drink," when invited and tempted to drink intoxicating drinks. No intoxicating drinks have been publicly sold in that town (Ashfield, Mass.) for many years. During a recent visit there I found that, within the past three years, there have been 61 deaths in the town, of whom 15 only were under 50 years of age, whereas 20 were over 80 years, of whom 4 were over 90 years of age. What do you think of that, Christian brother?
I remember very well the first ideas I had of God when a boy, which I derived from the preaching and praying of ministers. It was that God and our Lord Jesus Christ were two distinct Beings. We had for a time a venerable gray-headed old man who preached one Sabbath, and a young man who preached the next. I thought the old man represented God the Father and the young man represented Jesus Christ.
When I arrived at manhood and came in contact with men of different religious views, and read some of their writings, the doctrine of the Trinity became more and more a mystery to me. At one time I was slightly inclined to Unitarianism, but I could not reconcile their doctrines with the Bible. Yet the Trinitarians seemed to teach distinctly that there are either two Gods, possessing different attributes, or that Jesus Christ was not God. It does not make any difference what we say with our lips; the question is, What do we "think in our hearts"? When I heard a bishop of one of the prevailing denominations stand up in his pulpit, as I have, and represent Jesus Christ as standing with one hand upon the throne of Jehovah, and the other hand resting upon the sinner's head, pleading with the Father to forgive him for his (Christ's) sake, was there not in the mind of that bishop a distinct idea of two Beings, possessing different feelings and passions? Now, were both of them Gods, or was one of them not God? And when I heard prayers so frequently terminated by the phrase, "Forgive us for Christ's sake," the question naturally arose, to whom were such prayers addressed? If there are any intelligent rational ideas connected with the phrase in the mind of the one using it, has not his prayer unquestionably been addressed to some God outside of the Lord Jesus Christ? Who is that God? Can Christian men safely reject the express teaching of our Lord Himself when on earth, when He declared: "I and my Father are One;" "Whose hath seen me, hath seen the Father"? and the apostle's teaching, that "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself"? Is there any other way to the Father at this day except through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ—God manifest in the flesh? Is He not the "Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last"? Why, then, pray to an unknown God? In the Old Testament, we are told that "I, Jehovah, am your Savior, and beside me there is no Savior," and in the New Testament we are told that in Jesus Christ dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He is "Immanuel—God with us." Let us, then, worship Him—One God in One Divine Person.
The doctrine of election and predestination early troubled me. I could not reconcile it with the loving kindness which the Sacred Scriptures proclaim as characteristic of our Heavenly Father.
The doctrine of justification by faith alone, "without the deeds of the law," as the old hymn read, was not a doctrine which appealed to my reason, but it was a very consoling doctrine. Every young man who has been carefully reared by religious parents, and under the influences of a church, expects to be converted and get religion some time before he dies, and to join a church. But if he enjoys good health and the prospect of living for many years, especially if he is taught that, by merely believing or having faith at any time in the "atoning blood of Christ," he can escape the consequences of his evil deeds, there is great danger of procrastination.
A clergyman once said to me: "If a man repents and gets converted one hour before his death, the worse he has been or lived, the happier he will be." It seems to me better to be guided by the Word of the Lord, and to believe that the evil doer shall not go unpunished. The Lord came into the world to save men from sin and from the penalty only so far as they co-operate with Him. Sin is the cause, the penalty is the effect; and effect follows cause as a normal and necessary consequence.
The young, as well as the old, should be taught the great truth, that every thought we harbor, and every word we speak, and every act we do, aid in building up our spiritual organism, and will tell on our eternal destiny, just as the natural food and drink we use, and the exercise we take, will tell on the future health of our material bodies, for good or evil; and there is no avoiding it. If a man or woman, young or old, would be right in the future, he must do right in the present. No one should forget that, even if we reach heaven, the mansion which we will occupy there will depend on our lives here—every one will unite with those like Himself. No one can tell the immense harm which has been done to our race, by teaching that either by faith alone, or through the influence or efforts of the clergy, men can be saved from the penalties or consequences which are sure to follow an evil life. The "willing and obedient" shall eat the good of the land. Our blessed Lord tells us: "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love" (John xv: 10). Thus beautiful, symmetrical, spiritual organisms are built up, not by "sowing wild oats" during youth, and disobeying the divine commandments during the subsequent period of life. It is well for all, young or old, to remember the Word: "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." (Gal. vi: 7.) At this day we need practical doctrines, which shall unite religion and life, or faith and charity, and such alone will command the respect of non-churchgoers.
While a young man my attention was early called to the doctrines of the Universalists, but their doctrines did not seem to me to accord with the Sacred Scriptures; nor did I think that all men could be equally happy hereafter, when there is such a vast difference in their conduct and lives here. Genuine happiness is the result of right willing and doing; in other words, of keeping the commandments. I have no doubt but the Lord desires that all men should thus live and be happy; but we know that all men are not willing. Having created them free agents, God does not compel them here to love the Lord and their neighbor, which loves manifestly constitute heaven; what reason, then, have we to think He will compel them to do it hereafter? If a man deliberately leads an evil life here, growing ever stronger and more confirmed in that life, until he has made evil his good and rejoices in it, what reason have we to suppose or assume that he will change when he enters the next life? I am willing to leave him in the hands of the Lord—he has passed from my sight. I well remember the remarks of my grandmother when she was eighty-six years of age, a few days after the death of her husband, my grandfather. She said: "I do not fear to die, for I feel that God will do me no injustice." Within a few days she departed in peace.
The Millerite excitement commenced when I was a young man. When I was about twenty years old I was traveling in central Massachusetts. One night there was a meeting of Millerites in the neighborhood where I was stopping, and I attended the meeting. The speaker was very zealous and earnest in his remarks. There was a comet with quite a long tail then visible, and he seemed to think that that comet, with its tail, might sweep across the track of our earth and work its destruction, which he anticipated. I remember very well my reflections on leaving that meeting. A few days before I had stood upon the side of a hill near the track, and had seen for the first time a railroad train on its way from Boston to Worcester. I said to myself: "Now we have railroads, steamboats, friction matches, temperance societies, Sunday-schools, the Bible translated into various languages, which but a few years ago were unknown. This great continent, from being a wilderness, inhabited by a comparatively few wild Indians, has been discovered and is being developed and cultivated by civilized and Christian people, and gradually being made capable of containing and sustaining hundreds of millions of inhabitants." With all these facts before me, I said to myself, "It looks a great deal more as though the world is just beginning to live; in fact, that a new era is dawning, than it does that the world is going to be destroyed." From that night the Millerite doctrine never troubled me any more, for I felt that I beheld, in all the wonderful inventions being made and changes going on in the world, the dawning light of a better day for the inhabitants of our earth.