Story of my descent from the faith of my childhood, to doubt and unbelief.—Bad theological teaching in my early days.—Dreadful results.—Perplexity.—Madness.—Survive all, and get over it.—The first arguments I heard for the Bible.—True basis of religious belief.—Reading on the evidences.—Effects.—Unsound arguments.—Their effect.—Internal evidences best.—Negative criticism, long continued, ruinous both to faith and virtue.—Moving ever downwards.—The devil as a theologian, a poet and a philosopher.—Bible Conventions.—W. L. Garrison, A. J. Davis.—Public discussions in Philadelphia with Dr. McCalla.—The Doctor's disgraceful failure.—Great,—mad,—excitement.—Narrow escape from murder.—Eight nights' debate with Dr. Berg.—The good cause suffered through bad management.—The Doctor took an untenable position.—Undertook to prove too much and failed.—Substantially right, but logically wrong.—Other debates in Ohio, Indiana, England and Scotland.—Mean and mischievous opponents.—Honorable and useful ones.—Bad advocates of a good cause, its worst enemies, [269]
[CHAPTER XVII.]
Continuation of my Story.—Lectures on the Bible in Ohio.—Trouble.—Riot.—Rotten eggs.—Midnight mischief.—Had to move.—Settlement among Liberals, Comeouters.—Too fond of liberty.—Would have my share as well as their own.—Fresh trouble.—Another forced move.—Settlement in the wilds of Nebraska, among Indians, wolves, and rattlesnakes.—Experience there.—A change for the better.—How brought about.—Quiet of mind.—Reflection.—Horrors of Atheism.—Destroys the value of life.—Deceives you; mocks you; makes you intolerably miserable.—Suggests suicide.—Prosperity not good for much without religion: adversity, sickness, pain, loss, bereavement intolerable.—Strange adventures in the wilderness; terrible dangers; wonderful deliverances.—Solemn thoughts and feelings in the boundless desert.—Solitude and silence preach.—Religious feelings revive.—Recourse to old religious books.—Demoralizing tendency of unbelief.—Lecture in Philadelphia.—Cases of infidel depravity.—You can't make people good, nor even decent, without religion.—Infidelity means utter debasement.—A good, a loving, and a faithful wife, who never ceases to pray.—Return to England.—Experience there.—Unbounded licentiousness of Secularism.—Total separation from the infidel party.—My new Periodical.—Resolution to re-read the Bible, to do justice to Christianity, &c.—A sight of Jesus.—Happy results.—Change both of head and heart.—Happy transformation of character.—A new life.—New work.—New lot.—From darkness to light,—From death to life,—from purgatory to paradise,—from hell to heaven, [310]
[CHAPTER XVIII.]
Parties whose Christian sympathy, and wise words, and generous deeds, helped me back to Christ, [345]
[CHAPTER XIX.]
The steps by which I gradually returned to Christ.—Lectures and sermons on the road.—Answers to objections against the Bible and Christianity.—Spiritualism.—Strange phenomena.—Answers to objections advanced by myself in the Berg debate.—The position to be taken by advocates of the Bible and Christianity.—Additional remarks on Divine inspiration.—What it implies, and what it does not imply.—Overdoing is undoing.—Genesis and Geology.—The Bible and Science.—Public discussions,—explanation.—At Home in the Church.—Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.—Joy unspeakable, [355]
[CHAPTER XX.]
Lessons I have learned.—1. Men slow to learn wisdom by the experience of others.—2. Danger of bad feeling.—3. Of a controversial spirit.—4. Old ministers should deal tenderly with their younger brethren.—5. Young thinkers should be prayerful, humble, watchful; yet faithful to conscience and to truth, trusting in God.—6. With Christian faith goes Christian virtue.—The tendency of unbelief is ever downwards.—7. Unbelievers are not irreclaimable.—We should not pass them by unpitied or unhelped.—8. Converts from infidelity must look for trials.—They must not expect too much from churches and ministers. Paul's case.—9. They must risk all for Christ, and bear their losses and troubles patiently.—10. They should join the Church, right away.—Not look for a perfect Church.—Keep inside.—Bear unpleasantnesses meekly.—Stones made smooth and round in the stream, by the rubbing they get from other stones.—Reformers should move gently, and have long patience.—The more haste the worst speed.—Killing rats.—12. Unbelief, when not a sin, is a terrible calamity: a world of calamities in one, [406]