In speaking of his advance towards the knowledge of the truth, after his conversion, he says, in a published article:—
"It may be proper for me to state one circumstance which had no small tendency to bring me over to the ground on which I have for so many years felt established. It was by reading some deistical writings. By this means I was led to see that it was utterly impossible to maintain Christianity as it had been generally believed in the church. This led me of course to examine the Scriptures, that I might determine the question, whether they did really teach that Jesus Christ died to reconcile an unchangeable God to his own children. You cannot suppose I was long in finding that, so far from teaching such absurdities, the Scriptures teach that 'God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.' The question concerning the Trinity was by the same means as speedily settled."
It is an interesting and curious fact that he should have been aided, as it were, by the darkness of error to find the light of truth. The obvious inconsistency in his former belief, made evident by the deist, did not win him to the faith of the latter, but rather led him to investigate for himself, and to find a religion more congenial with the native promptings of his own heart and the evidences of the Bible. His was an exploring mind; he was not content to receive this faith, or that position, because others believed it, or because it had remained so long the unchallenged and unquestioned creed of the church. He must look into the matter and understand for himself, and make all parts of a doctrine to harmonize with each other, before he could reconcile it with his own reason and convictions.
This was a trait of character not alone observable in him as it related to the subject of religion; he applied the same rule to the affairs of every-day life, to political economy and business arrangements. He was always open to conviction, to reason and evidence, but could never embrace blindly any proposition whatever. Because the political party which the nearest assimilated to his views of the proper mode of government adopted this or that policy, he did not by any means consider it his duty to coincide with them, against his sober conviction, and he never did so; on the contrary, as often criticising the measures of one political party as another, and frequently finding much excellence, and principles worthy of commendation in the national policy of both. For this reason he could not be a politician, had he experienced an inclination that way. He was too honest.
CHAPTER VII.
REMOVES TO PORTSMOUTH, N. H.
After the expiration of a period of six years from the time of his first settlement in Barnard, Vt., and during which season he enjoyed an uninterrupted flow of kindness and good fellowship with the societies of his charge, he accepted the invitation of the society of Portsmouth, N. H., to become their pastor, and to devote his whole time to the good of the cause in that place. He had formed within the circle of his professional labors in Vermont a host of kind and warm-hearted friends, and it was a considerable period after the proposition had been made to him, before he could make up his mind to accept it. He did so, at last, however, influenced by several reasons.
First, the large field over which he was obliged to travel, while settled in Barnard, involved not only much physical labor and expense, but also the loss of a large amount of time, that might be devoted to more profitable pursuit. Then the pecuniary emolument offered him at Portsmouth was considerably larger than he had yet received, and his now growing family rendered such a fact to be a necessary consideration. And yet, let it not be supposed that there was any mercenary trait in his character; such was as foreign to his nature as was deceit, or guile of any sort, as the progress of this biography will show. He realized, also, that, while such a change would diminish his physical labors, it would doubtless enlarge the sphere of his usefulness, bringing him in contact with larger audiences and more miscellaneous assemblages than usually gathered to listen to his public communications in a less thickly settled district.