And the moment he had written it, he stretched out his hand, smiling, and shook hands with me again. Whether it really was so or not, I will not say, but his smile seemed the smile of my mother, and the expression of his face was the old expression of my mother's face; and when he shook hands with me, he drew his hand away in the manner in which my mother had always drawn away her hand. The tears started into my eyes, and my flesh seemed to creep on my bones. I felt stranger than ever. I opened the paper, and it was my mother's name: ELIZABETH BARKER. I asked a number of questions as before, and received appropriate answers.
But I had seen enough. I felt no desire to multiply experiments. So I came away—sober, sad, and thoughtful.
I had a particular friend in Philadelphia, an old unbeliever, called Thomas Illman. He was born at Thetford, England, and educated, I was told, for the ministry in the Established Church. He was remarkably well informed. I never met with a skeptic who had read more or knew more on historical or religious subjects, or who was better acquainted with things in general, except Theodore Parker. He was the leader of the Philadelphia Freethinkers, and was many years president of the Sunday Institute of that city. He told me, many months before I paid my visit to Dr. Redman, that he once paid him a visit, and that he had seen what was utterly beyond his comprehension,—what seemed quite at variance with the notion that there was no spiritual world,—and what compelled him to regard with charity and forbearance the views of Christians on that subject. At the time he told me of these things, I had become rather uncharitable towards the Spiritualists, and very distrustful of their statements, and the consequence was, that his account of what he had witnessed, and of the effect it had had on his mind, made but little impression on me. But when I saw things resembling what my friend had seen, his statements came back to my mind with great power, and helped to increase my astonishment. But my friend was now dead, and I had no longer an opportunity of conversing with him about what we had seen. This Mr. Illman was the gentleman mentioned on a former page, whom I attended on his bed of death.
The result of my visit to Dr. Redman was, that I never afterwards felt the same impatience with Spiritualists, or the same inclination to pronounce them all foolish or dishonest, that I had felt before. It was plain, that whether their theory of a spirit world was true or not, they were excusable in thinking it true. It looked like truth. I did not myself conclude from what I had seen, that it was true, but I was satisfied that there was more in this wonderful universe than could be accounted for on the coarse materialistic principles of Atheism. My skepticism was not destroyed, but it was shaken and confounded. And now, when I look back on these things, it seems strange that it was not entirely swept away. But believing and disbelieving are habits, and they are subject to the same laws as other habits. You may exercise yourself in doubting till you become the slave of doubt. And this was what I had done. I had exercised myself in doubting, till my tendencies to doubt had become irresistible. My faith, both in God and man, seemed entirely gone. I had not, so far as I can see, so much as "a grain of mustard seed" left. So far as religious matters were concerned, I was insane. It makes me sad to think what a horrible extravagance of doubt had taken possession of my mind. A thousand thanks to God for my deliverance from that dreadful thraldom.
15. I have been asked how I meet my own old objections to the Divine authority of the Bible. I answer, some of them originated in misinterpretations of Scripture. Others originated in mistakes with regard to the character of Christ. Some things which I regarded as defects in Christ were, in truth, excellencies. Some were based on mistakes with regard to the truth of certain doctrines, and the value of certain precepts. I looked on certain doctrines as false, which I now am satisfied are true; and I regarded certain precepts as bad, which I am now persuaded are good. Some things which I said about the Bible were true, but they proved nothing against its substantial perfection and divinity. Much of what I said in my speech at Salem, Ohio, about the imperfection of all translations of the Scriptures, the various readings of Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, the defects of Greek and Hebrew compilations, and the loss of the original manuscripts, was true; but it amounted to nothing. It disproved the unguarded statements of certain rash divines; but it proved nothing against the divine inspiration or substantial perfection of the Bible as taught in the Bible itself, and as held by divines of the more enlightened and sober class. That which is untrue in what I wrote about the Scriptures is no longer an obstacle to my faith, now that I see it to be untrue. And those remarks which are true in my writings on the Bible give me no trouble, because my faith in Bible inspiration is of such a form, that they do not affect it. They might shake the faith of a man who believes in a kind of inspiration of the Bible which is unscriptural, and in a kind of perfection of the Book which is impossible; but they do not affect the faith of a man who keeps his belief in Bible inspiration and Bible perfection within the bounds of Scripture and reason.
And here I may say a few words about the objections I advanced in my debate with Dr. Berg.
1. The great mass of those objections prove nothing against the Bible itself, as the great and divinely appointed means of man's religious instruction and improvement. They simply show that the theory held by Dr. Berg about the inspiration and absolute perfection of the book was erroneous. If Dr. Berg had modified his notions, and brought them within Scriptural bounds, this class of objections would all have fallen to the ground.
2. But some of my statements were untrue and unjust. For instance, in one case I said, 'The man who forms his ideas of God from the Bible can hardly fail to have blasphemous ideas of Him.' Now, from the account of the Creation in Genesis, to the last chapter in Revelation, the one grand idea presented of God is that He is good, and that His delight is to do good,—that He is good to all, and that His tender mercies are over all His works. Whatever may be said of a few passages of dark or doubtful meaning, the whole drift of the Bible is in accordance with that wonderful, that unparalleled oracle of the Apostle, 'GOD IS LOVE.'
3. Another statement that I made was, that the man who studies God in Nature, without the Bible, is infinitely likelier to get worthier views of God, than he who gets his ideas of God from the Bible without regard to Nature. Now the truth is, no man can get his ideas of God from the Bible without regard to Nature; for the Bible constantly refers to Nature as a revelation of God, and represents Nature as exhibiting the grandest displays of God's boundless and eternal goodness. The Bible and Nature are in harmony on the character of God. The only difference is, that the revelations of God's love in the Bible, and especially in Christ, are more striking, more overpowering and transforming than those of Nature. And lastly, the notions of God entertained by those who have the light of Nature alone, are not to be compared with the views entertained by those who form their views of God from the Bible alone, or from the Bible and Nature conjoined.
4. One of my strongest objections was based on the 109th Psalm. This Psalm contains strong expressions of revenge and hatred towards the enemy of the Psalmist. The answer to this objection is,