To assist me in gaining a knowledge of the true meaning, and of the right use of words, and to correct and simplify my style as much as possible, I read whatever came in my way on grammar and philology, on rhetoric and logic. I also collected a number of the best English dictionaries, including a beautiful copy of Johnson's great work in two thick quarto volumes. I read and studied the works of nearly all our great poets, from Spenser and Shakespeare, down to Cowper and Burns. I read two or three later ones. I had already committed to memory the whole, or nearly the whole, of the moral songs of Dr. Watts; and many of them keep their places in my memory to the present day. And though it may seem incredible to some, I actually committed to memory every hymn in the Wesleyan Hymn Book. I never knew them all off at one time, but I got them all off in succession. And I never forgot the better, truer, simpler, sweeter ones. I can repeat hundreds of them still, with the exception of here and there a stanza or two. And I committed to memory all the better portion of the new hymns introduced into the hymn book by the Methodist New Connection. And I committed to memory choice pieces of poetry without number. I read Shakespeare till I could quote many of his best passages, including nearly all his soliloquies, and a number of long conversations, as readily as I could quote the sacred writings.
I read all Bunyan's works. I could tell the story of his Pilgrim from beginning to end. I read Robinson Crusoe, and some of the other works of Defoe. I read Addison and Johnson, Goldsmith and Swift. To get at the origin and at the primitive meaning of words, I studied French and German, as well as Latin and Greek. When I met with passages in English authors that expressed great truths in a style that was not to my taste, I used to translate them into my own style, just as I did fine passages from Latin, Greek, or French authors. I also translated poetical passages into prose. I tried sometimes to translate things into the language of children, and in some cases I succeeded. I did my best to keep in mind how I felt, and what I could understand, when I was a child and a boy, and endeavored to keep my style as near as I could to the level of my boyish understanding. My first superintendent did not approve of my plan. "The proper way," said he, "is, not to go down to the people; but to compel the people to come up to you." He was fond of a swelling, high-sounding, long-winded style. How far he succeeded in bringing people up to himself, I cannot say, but I recollect once hearing a pupil of his talk a whole hour without uttering either a thought or a feeling that was worth a straw. An old woman, with whom he had once lived, and with whom he was a great favorite, said to me after the service, 'Well, how did you like our young man?' 'He talked away,' said I. 'I think he did,' she answered, 'he grows better and better. I couldn't understand him.' His teacher, my superintendent, published a volume of sermons; but I never met with anybody that had read them. I read one or two of them myself, and was astonished;—perhaps not so much astonished as something else,—to find, that at the end of one of his tall-worded, long-winded, round-about sentences, he contradicted what he had said at the beginning.
CHAPTER V.
CHANGES IN THE AUTHOR'S VIEWS.
My studies led me to make considerable changes both in my views and way of speaking.
1. With regard to my views. I found that some of the doctrines which I had been taught as Christian doctrines, were not so much as hinted at by Christ and His Apostles,—that some doctrines which Christ and His Apostles taught with great plainness, I never had been taught at all; and that some of the doctrines of Christ and His Apostles which I had been taught, I had been taught in very different forms from those in which they were presented in the New Testament.
I found that some doctrines which I had been taught as doctrines of the greatest importance, were never so much as alluded to in the whole Bible, while in numbers of places quite contrary doctrines were taught. While unscriptural doctrines were inculcated as fundamental doctrines of the Gospel, some of the fundamental doctrines themselves were not only neglected, but denounced as grievous heresies.
Many passages of Scripture which were perfectly plain when left to speak out their own meaning, had been used so badly by theologians, that they had become unintelligible to ordinary Christians. While professing to give the passages needful explanations, they had heaped upon them impenetrable obscurations. Words that, as they came from Jesus, were spirit and life, had been so grievously perverted, that they had become meaningless or mischievous.