At the end of two months I gave notice to my committee that I should give up my situation as lecturer. I had come to the conclusion, that to war with Christianity was not the way to promote the virtue and happiness of mankind, and I told my congregation so. I added, that if we were even sure that the sentiments entertained by Christians were erroneous, it would be well to refrain from assailing them, till we had something better to put in their place. And I also advised them, now they were about to be left without a lecturer, to go to some place of worship; and if they could not hear exactly what they could like, to make the best of what they did hear, and by all means to live a virtuous, honorable, and useful life. I gave similar advice to congregations in other places, and by many it was well received.
When I gave up my situation in Philadelphia, my intention was to return to England. I was anxious to free myself, as far as possible, from men of extreme views, whether in religion or politics, and to place myself in a position in which I should be perfectly free to pursue whatever course a regard to truth and duty might require. I made up my mind, therefore, that on my arrival in England, I would stand alone, apart from all societies and public men, and have a paper of my own, and publish from time to time whatever might commend itself to my judgment as true and good. I knew I had changed during the last two years, though I did not know how much; and I believed I was changing, though I could not tell in what the change which was taking place would end. I had no idea that I could ever become a Christian again, though the tendency of the change which was taking place in me was in that direction.
Having taken leave of my friends, I hastened to Boston, and prepared for my voyage across the deep. I was to sail by the Royal Mail Steamship Canada, on the eleventh of January, 1860. Just as I was stepping on board the packet, I received a letter from my youngest son. Among a number of other kind things, it contained words like the following: "Father, dear, when you get to England, don't dream that by any breath of yours, or by any paper balls that you can fire, you can ever shatter or shake the eternal foundations on which Christianity rests." Words like those from a dear good son could not but have a powerful effect on my mind.
And now I started on my voyage. I had never ventured on the sea before without dread of shipwreck and drowning. This time I had no such fear. On the contrary, as the vessel threaded her way among the rocks and islands of Boston Harbor, I experienced a strange and unaccountable elevation of soul. I had not felt so cheerful, so hopeful, so happy, for many years. And this delightful joyousness of soul continued during the whole of the voyage. Yet I had never gone to sea at so dangerous a season. And I never encountered such fearful and long-continued storms. Before we had fairly lost sight of the last point of land, the winds, which were already raging with unusual violence, began to blow more furiously. They fell on us in the most fearful blasts, and roared around us in a deafening howl. The sea was thrown into the wildest uproar. The vessel was tossed and tumbled about in the most merciless manner. One moment she was plunging head foremost into the deep; the next she was climbing the most stupendous waves. Now her right wheel was vainly laboring deep in the water, while her left was spinning uselessly in the air; then her right wheel was whirling in the air, while her left was splurging in the deep. Sometimes the waves swept over the vessel, while at other times they would strike her so rudely on the side, that she staggered through all her timbers. After the storm had raged for two or three days, there came what are called white squalls. A light grey cloud appears in the distance, and as it approaches you, it sends forth lightnings, accompanied with hurried bursts of thunder. A furious storm of hail or snow immediately follows. The howl of the tempest rises to a yell, and the squall, as it sweeps along in its fury, cuts off the tops of the waves, and scatters them in foam over the surface of the deep like a mantle of snow. The first of those squalls went right through our large square sail, tearing it to shreds. Another sent a wave on board which snapped in pieces stanchions of wrought iron thicker than my arms, and carried away one of our best boats. And this unspeakable uproar of the elements continued for several days. At times I crept on deck for a few moments, and, holding by the rigging, gazed on the wild magnificence of the appalling scene. And all this time my heart, instead of being tortured with its customary fears, was full of a cheerful joyous confidence. It was as if some spirit of heaven had taken possession of my soul to give me sweet presentiments of the approach of better days. And so perhaps it was. I was moving onwards, though I knew it not, to a happier destiny, and the peace and joy I felt were as the dawn or twilight of the coming day of my redemption.
We reached Liverpool at length, and I was soon at Betley, the native place of my wife, which was to be my temporary home. And now, if I had fallen into good hands, or if the better thoughts and tendencies of my soul had been sufficiently strong, I might have entered at once on a happier course. But I encountered an unlooked-for difficulty. As I have said, my intention was, on landing in England, to begin a periodical, and to keep apart from persons of extravagant views. I was not a Christian, nor did I, at the time, suppose I should ever become one; but I was an earnest moralist, and I had become more moderate in my ideas both on religious and political subjects. And I was, to some extent, prepared to receive fresh light. I had got an impression,—I had had it for some time before I left America,—that my mind was not in a thoroughly healthy state,—that it was not exactly itself,—that it was so much biassed in favor of irreligion, that it was incapable of doing justice to arguments for a God and Providence, for a spiritual world and a future life. I partly believed, and now I know, that facts and arguments in favor of the great fundamental doctrines of religion, did not affect and influence me so much as they ought,—that my doubts and disbeliefs were stronger than facts or the nature of things warranted. I suspected, what now I regard as past doubt, that erroneous principles, and a defective method of reasoning, and long practice in searching out flaws in arguments, and detecting and exposing errors and pious frauds, had disposed me too strongly to distrust and disbelief,—that I was in fact a slave to bad habits of thought and reasoning, as really as the inveterate drunkard is the slave to his irrational appetite for strong drink. What I should believe in case the freedom of my mind and the just and harmonious action of its powers were fully restored, I could not tell; but I had a strong impression, amounting to something like an assurance, that I should believe more than I did with respect to God and a spiritual world. Had I, on arriving in England, found myself in favorable circumstances, my mind might quickly have recovered its freedom, and returned, in part at least, to the faith of its earlier days. But this was not my lot. I was beset with new temptations, and was doomed to further disappointments.
The Secularists had got out a prospectus of a new paper, and I was urged to become one of the editors; and thinking that it would seem mean and selfish to begin a paper of my own under such circumstances, I reluctantly consented. I however stipulated for full control over one half of the paper, and when I found that articles of a disgraceful and mischievous tendency were published in the other half, I published a special notice in mine, every week, that I was not answerable for those articles.
In August 1860 my wife and children arrived in England. They were sorry to find me in connection with that paper and with the party which it represented; and they set themselves at once to work to bring about a change; and it was not long before they succeeded. A book, written by a leading Secularist, was sent to me for review. When I read it, I found that its object was to undermine marriage and bring it into disrepute, and to induce men and women to abandon honorable wedlock, and to substitute for it unbounded sensual license. It was the filthiest, the most horrible and revolting production I had ever read. This loathsome book had already been advertised in the paper of which I was one of the editors, and in the part of the paper over which I had no control, it had been strongly recommended. I found, too, that it had been very extensively circulated among the readers of the paper, and that the Secularist leaders were adopting measures to promote its still more extensive circulation. I at once exposed the villainous production in my portion of the paper. As far as a respect for decency would permit, I laid its loathsome and horrible abominations before my readers. This led to an instant, a total, and final separation between me and the friends of the licentious book.
I now commenced a Paper of my own, and I said to myself, and I said to my children: "I will now re-read the Bible; I will examine Christianity; I will review the history of the Church; I will examine the character and workings of the various religious organizations of the day; and whatever I find in them that is true or good, I will lay before my readers. I am not a Christian," said I; "and I never expect to be one; but I will do justice to the Christian cause to the best of my ability. I have said and written enough on the skeptical side: I will see what there is to be said on the Christian side."
I had no idea of the greatness of the task I was undertaking. I supposed that ten or a dozen articles would be sufficient to set forth all that was true and good in the Bible. But when I came to examine the Book, with my somewhat altered views, and enlarged experience, and chastened feelings, I found in it treasures of truth and goodness, of beauty and blessedness, of which, even in my better days, I seemed to have had but a very inadequate conception. I was touched with a hundred precepts of mercy and tenderness in the laws of Moses. I was startled and delighted with many Old Testament stories. The character of Job, as portrayed in the twenty-ninth and thirty-first chapters of the book that goes under his name, melted me to tears. I was delighted with the purity and tenderness, the beauty and sublimity of the Psalms. I was amazed at the depth and vastness of the wisdom of the Book of Proverbs. I was pleased with the stern fidelity with which the prophets rebuked the vices and the crimes, the selfishness and cruelty, of the sinners of their days, and the tenderness and devotion with which they pleaded the cause of the poor, the fatherless, and the widow. When I came to the Gospels, and read again the wonderful story of the Man of Nazareth, my whole soul gave way. The beauty, the tenderness, the glory of His character overpowered me. I was ashamed, that I should ever have so fearfully misconceived it, and done it such grievous injustice. The tears rolled from my eyes, moistening the book in which I was reading, and the paper on which I was writing. But I proceeded with my task. I pondered every word He uttered, and was delighted with His glorious revelations of God, and truth, and duty. I gazed on all His wondrous works. I marked, I studied, every trait in his character. I read the sad story of His trials. I traced him through all His sufferings. I saw the indignities and cruelties to which He was subjected, and I saw the meekness, the patience, and the fortitude with which He suffered. I saw Him on the cross. I heard the prayer which He offered in the midst of His agonies in behalf of His murderers, 'Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.' And still I read, and still I gazed, and still I listened. I was entranced. I had thought to stand at a distance; to look at Jesus with the eye of a philosopher and moralist only, and calmly and coolly to take His portrait; but I was overpowered. The strange, the touching sight drew me nearer. The loving one got hold of me. His infinite tenderness, His transcendent goodness, the glory of His whole character, and life, and doctrine took me captive; and I was no way loth to be held by such charms. He had won me entirely. I loved Him with all my heart and soul. I was His,—His disciple, His servant, entirely, and forever. And I wanted no other treasure but to share His love, and no other employment but to share His work. I was, though but very imperfectly enlightened on many things, and exceedingly weak and imperfect in many respects, most blessedly and indissolubly wedded to Christ and His cause.
I drew the portrait of the Saviour to the best of my ability, and sent the articles to the press. It fell to the lot of my children, in correcting the press, to read those articles. And when they read them, they too wept, and one said to another, "Father is coming right; he will be himself again by and by." And they were right in thinking so. I had come in contact with the Great Healer. I had got a sight of One on whom it is impossible to look steadfastly and long without experiencing a thorough transformation of soul. And so it was with me. From my first look I became less and less of a skeptic, and more and more of a believer in Christianity, till my transformation was complete.