Explanation Fifth. Theology and Theologians.
If any think I have been too severe in my remarks on theology and theologians, and on the preachers who mock their hearers with theological vanities, and puzzle them with their senseless theological dialect, let them read the remarks of the Rev. Joseph Parker, D. D., G. Gilfillan, Albert Barnes, John Wesley, Richard Baxter, and others on this subject. Quotations from their writings may be found farther on in the volume. We would give a few of their remarks here, but we must now hasten on with our story.
CHAPTER XII.
THE STORY CONTINUED. WHAT FOLLOWED EXPULSION. DESPERATE WORD FIGHTING. ABUSE.
I was expelled on a Saturday afternoon. I was unable to stay till the closing scene, as I had an engagement to preach anniversary sermons on the Sunday, some thirty miles away. But the news soon reached me, and I received it with strange and indescribable emotions. I felt that something very important had happened,—that I was placed in a new and serious position, and was entering on a new and untried way of life; but I little dreamt what the results would be. I expected an eventful future, but not the kind of future that was really waiting for me. I anticipated trials, and sorrows, and great changes; but how strangely different the realities have proved from what I anticipated in my fevered dreams! But I had strong faith in God, and a firm trust in His all-perfect Providence, and no one saw me tremble or turn pale.
I had not been expelled long when I found myself face to face with a terrible host of trials. Some who had promised to stand by my side took fright, and left me to my fate. Some found their interests were endangered by their attachment to me, and fell away. Some were influenced by the threats of their masters, and some by the tears and entreaties of their kindred, and reluctantly joined the ranks of my enemies. Some thought I should have yielded a point or two, and were vexed at what they called my obstinacy. There were fearful and melancholy changes. People who had always heretofore received me with smiles of welcome, now looked cold and gloomy. Some raged, some wept, and some embraced me with unspeakable tenderness; while some wished me dead, and said it had been better for me if I had never been born.
One man, a person of considerable influence, who had encouraged me in my movements, and joined me in lamenting the shortcomings of the Connexion, and in condemning the conduct of my opponents, no sooner saw that I was doomed, than he sent me a most unfeeling letter. I met the postman and got the letter in the street, and read it as I walked along. It pained me terribly, but it comforted me to think that it had not fallen into the hands of my delicate and sensitive wife. That no other eye might see it, and no other soul be afflicted with the treachery and cruelty of the writer, I tore it in pieces, and threw it into the Tyne, and kept the matter a secret from those whose souls it might have shocked too rudely for endurance.
Another man, who had said to me a short time before my expulsion, that whoever else might close their doors against me, his would always be open, proved as faithless as the basest. I called one day at his shop. As soon as he saw me, he turned away his eyes, and stood motionless and speechless behind the counter, as if agitated with painful and unutterable passion. I saw his family move hurriedly from the room behind the shop to another room, as if afraid lest I should step forward into their presence. The man kept his door open sure enough, his shop door; but his heart was closed, and he never spoke to me more as long as he lived.