The step out of Christianity was infinitely more difficult than the step out of Presbyterianism. Had my followers been trained to think rationally, they would have seen that since I did not resign from the Presbyterian church, for a different form of baptism, or communion, but because of its failure to recognize Reason as the highest authority in religion, I was bound, by the very stress and logic of my premises, to drop Christianity as I had been led to drop Calvinism.
My trustees were quite unconscious of giving me dangerous advice, or of trying to make of me an example of arrested development. They were my friends, and the friends of the cause, but they could not think logically, and that is why they could not appreciate my reply that we are not free to command the truth,—we must obey the truth.
Matters came to a crisis when I delivered a lecture on "Was Jesus God?" I can still see the painful expression on the faces of many of my hearers on that Sunday morning. Did I bring them out of the Presbyterian church to make "infidels" and "blasphemers" of them? A number of my hearers rose and left the hall. The strain upon me was severe. When I sat down I was in a profuse perspiration. When all was over, I must have looked ashen pale. I had hardly any strength left to announce the closing hymn. But my audience suffered perhaps even more than did I. To part with Jesus is not the same thing as parting with Calvin, and that morning I had told them that if Calvin goes, Jesus must go too.
C'est le premier pas qui coûte. "It is the first step that costs." But I found my second step even more costly. Voltaire speaks of the inevitableness of the second step if the first is taken. They told him how St. Denis had picked up his own head after it had been chopped off by the executioner, and walked a hundred steps with it in his hands. He replied, "I can believe in the ninety-nine steps, it is the first step I find difficulty in believing." Granted the first step, the ninety-nine, or nine million steps are very easy. Would it not be wasteful to argue that St. Denis took the first step, but no more? Is it not equally superfluous to accept one miracle in the Bible, and deny the rest? If one miracle, why not a million? But the aim of the training we had received in the church was not to help us to think logically but how not to think logically. The state of the Christian church, divided, sub-divided, and voicing doctrines diametrically opposed the one to the other, while they all claim to be and are, equally scriptural is a proof of this. I do not blame therefore, the members of my society for taking offense or for withdrawing, as many of them did after the "Jesus" lecture, their support from my work. They could not see the incongruity of accepting one part and rejecting another of a "divine" revelation. If the texts upon which Calvin based his theology were doubtful, what assurance could we have of the genuineness of the more liberal texts. The obscurity or ambiguity of Jesus was really the cause of the contradictions and divisions of his followers. The obscurity and contradictory nature of the text accounts for the crowd of religious sects, each claiming to be the only church of Christ, or, at least, more scriptural than its competitors. It was both a moral as well as a mental relief to escape the bewildering confusion of such a situation. And it was after I had commanded the babel of clashing voices to hush that I could hear the still, small voice of Reason.
CHAPTER III. New Temptations
N otwithstanding our many heresies we still believed in Christianity—in its moral excellence, as we expressed it. Jesus was not God; Calvin was all wrong; but still there was that in Christianity which could not be found elsewhere. While I myself did not linger long in this indecisive mood, still it was very trying while it lasted. To soften a little the pain of losing Jesus the God, the temptation to exalt him as a perfect moral teacher beyond all others the world had ever seen very nearly swamped me. But there were also financial considerations which made my position at this stage a very critical one. I was, besides, so much in need of companionship and sympathy that I wonder now why I did not rush into the open arms of the first liberal Christian sect that offered to fellowship with me.
And there were religious fellowships ready to receive us. Let me first speak of the Unitarians, who very kindly offered to help us, both morally and financially. We were not told that we had to join the denomination before we could receive financial assistance. They offered to help us without any conditions. The Unitarians have a fund to help all "liberal" religious movements, and as a "liberal" religious movement, we could, if we wished, draw upon that fund. We did not accept the financial help, but we were happy to receive such moral support as men like James Freeman Clarke, Edward Everett Hale, Minot J. Savage and other equally distinguished preachers of Unitarianism could give us. The venerable Dr. Furness, more than once, occupied my pulpit, as also the Rev. Gordon Ames, whose church also proposed my name for a life membership in the American Unitarian Association. I can never be too grateful to the Unitarians for their hospitality to me in those trying times. Both Dr. Clarke and Dr. Hale had received me in their homes and given me such counsel as a young man at the threshold of a new career stands in need of. It was thus that Unitarianism, with its gracious hospitality, its tolerance and liberality, came very near persuading me that having gone as far as Unitarianism, it was not necessary to go farther. Thus you see, Moses and Calvin came back to me dressed as Unitarians; but, fortunately for me, I recognized the disguise.
If I could "settle down" in Unitarianism, why did I leave the Presbyterian church? The difference between them is after all a difference of quantity. The Presbyterians believe more than the Unitarians, and while the Bible is inspired from cover to cover for the former, the latter believe only in the authority of certain portions of the book. Ernest Renan told the Protestants that they did not have sufficient reason for leaving the Catholic church. "But we could not believe in the mass," replied the Protestants. "If you believe in the virgin birth and the resurrection of the flesh, what but a whim could prevent you from believing also in transubstantiation," argued Renan. We can say the same of Unitarianism. If it can believe in parts of the Bible, as "inspired" or if it can accept, the unity of God, or "the Lordship of Jesus," why not believe a little more? If it drops one dogma on grounds of reason, it must drop all, and if it can accept one dogma, the "Lordship of Jesus," for example, on faith, why not also the Trinity? If God exists, he could be in three or more parts quite as easily as in one.