The morning of our rest has come,The sun is shining clear;I see it on the steeple-top:Put on your shawl, my dear,And let us leave the smoky town,The dense and stagnant lane,And take our children by the handTo see the fields again.I've pined for air the livelong week;For the smell of new-mown hay;For a pleasant, quiet, country walk,On a sunny Sabbath day.Our parish church is cold and damp;I need the air and sun;We'll sit together on the grass,And see the children run.We'll watch them gather butter-cups,Or cowslips in the dell,Or listen to the cheerful soundsOf the far-off village bell;And thank our God with grateful hearts,Though in the fields we pray;And bless the healthful breeze of heaven,On a sunny Sabbath day.I'm weary of the stifling room,Where all the week we're pent;Of the alley fill'd with wretched life,And odors pestilent:And long once more to see the fields,And the grazing sheep and beeves;To hear the lark amid the clouds,And the wind among the leaves;And all the sounds that glad the airOn green hills far away:—The sounds that breathe of Peace and Love,On a sunny Sabbath day.For somehow, though they call it wrong,In church I cannot kneelWith half the natural thankfulnessAnd piety I feelWhen out, on such a day as this,I lie upon the sod,And think that every leaf and flowerIs grateful to its God;That I, who feel the blessing more,Should thank Him more than they,That I can elevate my soulOn a sunny Sabbath day.Put on your shawl, and let us go;For one day let us thinkOf something else than daily care,Or toil, and meat, and drink:For one day let our children sportAnd feel their limbs their own:For one day let us quite forgetThe grief that we have known:—Let us forget that we are poor;And, basking in the ray,Thank God that we can still enjoyA sunny Sabbath day.
The morning of our rest has come,The sun is shining clear;I see it on the steeple-top:Put on your shawl, my dear,And let us leave the smoky town,The dense and stagnant lane,And take our children by the handTo see the fields again.I've pined for air the livelong week;For the smell of new-mown hay;For a pleasant, quiet, country walk,On a sunny Sabbath day.
Our parish church is cold and damp;I need the air and sun;We'll sit together on the grass,And see the children run.We'll watch them gather butter-cups,Or cowslips in the dell,Or listen to the cheerful soundsOf the far-off village bell;And thank our God with grateful hearts,Though in the fields we pray;And bless the healthful breeze of heaven,On a sunny Sabbath day.
I'm weary of the stifling room,Where all the week we're pent;Of the alley fill'd with wretched life,And odors pestilent:And long once more to see the fields,And the grazing sheep and beeves;To hear the lark amid the clouds,And the wind among the leaves;And all the sounds that glad the airOn green hills far away:—The sounds that breathe of Peace and Love,On a sunny Sabbath day.
For somehow, though they call it wrong,In church I cannot kneelWith half the natural thankfulnessAnd piety I feelWhen out, on such a day as this,I lie upon the sod,And think that every leaf and flowerIs grateful to its God;That I, who feel the blessing more,Should thank Him more than they,That I can elevate my soulOn a sunny Sabbath day.
Put on your shawl, and let us go;For one day let us thinkOf something else than daily care,Or toil, and meat, and drink:For one day let our children sportAnd feel their limbs their own:For one day let us quite forgetThe grief that we have known:—Let us forget that we are poor;And, basking in the ray,Thank God that we can still enjoyA sunny Sabbath day.
What can be more natural,—what more plausible,—what more rational,—what more pious? Yet it meansforgetfulness of God, forgetfulness of Christ, forgetfulness of duty, forgetfulness of immortality. It means self, and sin, and ruin. And so it is with a multitude of other sweet poems. One of the sweetest singers that ever received a poetic soul from God, ignores Christ and Christianity. His works are full of truth, but it is truth turned into a lie, and made to do the work of sin and death. It is Satan clad as an angel of light.
Every day a Sabbath, means no day a Sabbath. All places holy, means no place holy. All things worship, means nothing worship. All honest labor religious, means no labor religious. Freedom means license, contempt for virtue, enslavement to vice. Progress means falling back. Elevation means degradation. Liberality means leniency to error and evil, and severity towards truth and goodness. In short, darkness means light, and light means darkness; good means evil, and evil good; bitter means sweet, and sweet bitter. Reform means revolution, and renovation means degradation, and all these charming things mean wretchedness and ruin.
We must not be understood as condemning all the sentiments uttered by the great deceiver. Many of them are true and good. They are Christian. Satan is too wise to preach unmitigated falsehood. He understands too well the art of using truth so as to serve the ends of falsehood. It is enough for him if he can sever men's souls from Christ, and truth from divine authority, and religion from Christianity, the Church, and the Bible. Allow him to do this, and he will discourse and sing to you a world of sweet words and lofty sentiments. Truth is the ladder by which men climb to God, and goodness, and heaven. But Satan has found out that there is a waydownthe ladder as well asup, and that to praise the ladder to the descending crowd is the surest way to draw them ever further downward, till they lose themselves amid the blinding smoke of the abyss beneath. We love, we cherish every sweet word of truth, but we value nothing apart from God, and Christ, and Religion.
28. It is a bad thing when people are taught things in their youth that are not true. They are sure, when they become students, if they are honest and able, to find out the errors,and to lay them aside. And the mere habit of detecting and laying aside errors, has a tendency to make men skeptical. Now I had been taught a multitude of things in my youth that were not true, both with regard to the doctrines and the evidences of Christianity. These things I detected and set aside in riper years. And I had so many things to set aside, that I came to look with suspicion on almost all my creed. The skeptical tendency got too strong for my habit of belief. I suspected where there was no good ground for suspicion. I rejected truth as well as error. I held in doubt doctrines that I ought to have cherished as my life. Change became too easy; judgment too hasty; and error and unbelief were naturally the result.
It is especially a bad thing when an earnest young student sees signs of carelessness in religious writers; a readiness to repeat what has been said before; to support what is popular, without endeavoring to ascertain whether it be true or not. It is still worse when a student discovers in religious writers signs of dishonesty and fraud. I discovered both. I saw cases in which false doctrines were passed on from generation to generation, and from writer to writer, without the least attempt to ascertain their true character. I saw other cases in which dishonesty was manifest, in which fraud was used, in support of doctrines. Old creeds were allowed to remain unaltered, long after portions of them had been found to be unscriptural; and error was subscribed as a matter of course. The result was, a distrust of everything held by such parties, unless it was supported by the plainest and most decisive proofs.
29. I was now in a state of mind to go down quietly and almost unconsciously into utter unbelief. And Iwentdown. I did notrejectthe doctrine of the divine origin of the Bible and Christianity, but graduallylostit. My faith died a natural death. I was in the world, and became a worldly man. I mixed with unbelievers, and gradually came down to their level. I had supposed that a man could be as religious outside the Church as inside; but I found it otherwise. It was a sad, an awful change I underwent; but I not only did not see it, at the time, in its true light, but was actually unconscious for a long time that it was taking place.
In November 1852, I attended a Bible convention atSalem, Columbiana County, Ohio. It lasted three days. I spoke repeatedly, and at considerable length, at its meetings. My remarks wore directed chiefly, not against the Bible, but against what I regarded as unauthorized theories of Scripture inspiration. I contended that those theories were injurious to the interests of virtue and humanity.
I also spoke about the darkness in which the human authorship of portions of the Bible was wrapt. My remarks were a mixture of truth and error, but in their general tenor they were unjust, and could hardly fail to be injurious.
Henry C. Wright spoke at this convention, contending that man had an infallible rule of life engraven on his own nature, independent of instruction from without. He was often severe and extravagant in his remarks. He was fierce, and said things which he could not make good.
The Rev. Jonas Harzell and others spoke in defence of the Bible.
On the last evening the hall in which the convention was held was densely crowded, and the audience was greatly excited. A Mr. Ambler spoke at great length, and seemed desirous to excite the people to violence against the assailants of the Bible. When he closed, a large portion of the audience seemed bent on mischief. I rose to reply to Mr. Ambler, and soon got the attention of the audience. Their rage quickly subsided, and at the close of my address, the people separated in peace.
In June 1853, I attended another Bible convention at Hartford, Connecticut. I was appointed President. A. J. Davis, the celebrated spiritualist, gave the first address. It was on the propriety of free discussion on religious subjects. Henry C. Wright spoke next, making strong remarks on portions of the Old Testament. I followed, going over much the same ground as at Salem, but speaking with more severity of feeling. My heart was getting harder.
The Rev. George Storrs replied. He set himself especially to answer H. C. Wright, and he spoke with much effect.
In the afternoon of the second day, W. L. Garrison proposed six resolutions, bearing partly on the Bible, andpartly on the church and clergy. They were very strong. There was a considerable amount of truth in them, but their spirit and tendency were bad. Parker Pillsbury followed with a speech, in which he praised natural religion, but condemned the religion of the church.
In the evening Mr. Garrison spoke. He spoke with much power. He dwelt chiefly on what was called the doctrine ofplenary inspiration. His strength was in the extreme views of the orthodox theologians, and in the inconsistencies of the church and the clergy.
Mr. Garrison made a second speech on the fourth evening, still dwelling on the theory ofplenary inspiration. Before he got through his speech the meeting was disturbed by a number of theological students, from a college in the city. They threatened mischief. One displayed a dagger. Confusion followed. Some of the speakers fled, and others were alarmed. I kept my place, but soon found I had the platform to myself. I expected more courage from my skeptical friends. But they understood Judge Lynch better than I did, and their discretion, under the circumstances, might be the better part of valor. My rashness, however, ended in no mishap. And the only bad effect which the violence of our opponents had on me was, to increase my hatred, perhaps, of the church and its theology. It is not wise in professing Christians to resort to carnal weapons in defence of their views.
In December 1853, I gave a course of lectures in Philadelphia. I was brought to the city by the Sunday Institute. The object of the lectures was to show, that the Bible was of human origin, that its teachings were not of divine authority, and that the doctrine of its absolute perfection was injurious in its tendency. The room in which I lectured was crowded, and the audience was much excited. I stated, in opening, that I had nothing to say against anything that was true and good in the Bible,—that virtue was essential to man's happiness, and that I had no sympathy with those who rejected the Bible because it rebuked their vices. I was sincere in these remarks; but my older infidel friends, I found, regarded them as intended to deceive the unwary. Many of them were grossly immoral, and hated the Bible for its hostility to their evil ways.
After each lecture discussion followed. But the ability of my opponents was not equal to their zeal. They were often ignorant of both sides of the question, and injured the cause they sought to aid.
These lectures led to a public discussion between me and Dr. McCalla, a Presbyterian clergyman. It was to continue five nights, but ended on the fourth. We met first in the Chinese Assembly Room; but the place proving too small for the crowds which were anxious to hear the debate, we adjourned to the large hall.
Dr. McCalla was very abusive. He was so intent on calling me bad names, and on saying savage and provoking things, that he forgot his argument. I kept to the subject. I neither abused my opponent, nor spent my time in answering his abuse of me. I reproved him once or twice, telling him how unseemly it was in an old man, professing to be a disciple and a minister of Jesus, to show such a spiteful disposition, and to utter such offensive words; and then went on with my argument. The third night my opponent seemed to be losing his reason. On the fourth night he was literally mad. Loss of sleep, rage, and mortification, seemed to have brought on fever of the brain, and he was really insane. His friends were terribly put about. Many of them were furious, and were plainly bent on violence. A policeman climbed up the back of the platform behind where I was sitting and said in my ear: 'There's mischief brewing: you had better come with me. Step down now while they are looking the other way.' I looked for my overcoat and hat, but they were gone. Some one had carried them off, to prevent me from escaping. A gentleman who had seen a person take them away, and place them in a distant corner of the room, seeing what was coming, went and brought them to me, and I at once slipped over the back of the platform to the floor, and accompanied the policeman. The crowd, intent on getting towards the front of the platform, had left a vacant space near the wall, and I and the policeman got nearly to the door of the hall before we were observed. But just as we were passing out a cry arose, 'He's off! He's off!' and a maddened crowd prepared for pursuit. When we got into the street the policeman saidhurriedly, 'Which is the way to your lodgings?' 'That,' said I, pointing south. 'Then come this way,' said he, 'quick;' and he pulled me north. This probably saved my life. The mob knew which way my lodgings lay, and as soon as they got out of the hall, they hurried south, like a pack of hounds, roaring and furious. I was soon half a mile away in the other direction. 'Where shall I take you?' said the policeman. 'Do you know any one hereabouts?' 'Take me to Mr. Mott's,' said I, 'in Arch Street.' We were there in a few moments, and as the door opened to receive me, the policeman received his gratuity, and hastened away. In fifteen minutes there was a noise in the street. Mr. Mott opened the door and looked out, when a brickbat passed just by his head, and broke itself to pieces on the door-post, leaving its mark on the marble. He had a narrow escape. He closed the door, and after awhile the mob dispersed, and all was quiet. Thus ended the discussion with Dr. McCalla.
One would have thought that after such an experience as this, I should have taken care to keep out of debates on such an exciting subject. But I was daring to madness. I was engaged again in discussion on the same subject, in the same city, in less than a month.
The clergy of Philadelphia, unwilling to leave the cause of the Bible in this plight, demanded that I should discuss the question with Dr. Berg, a minister in whom they had great confidence. I yielded to the demand, and the discussion took place in Concert Hall, in January, 1854.
The hall was crowded every night. One very wet and stormy night, the number present was only 2000, but every other night it was from 2250 to 2400. A Philadelphia newspaper of that period says, "We cannot forbear to notice the contrast in the manner and bearing of the two disputants. Mr. Barker uniformly bore himself as a gentleman, courteously and respectfully towards his opponent, and with the dignity becoming his position, and the solemnity and importance of the question. We regret we cannot say the same of Dr. Berg, who at times seemed to forget the obligations of the gentleman, in his zeal as a controversialist. He is an able and skilful debater, though less logical than Mr. Barker; but he wasted his time andstrength too often on personalities and irrelevant matters. His personal inuendoes and offensive epithets, his coarse witticisms and arrogant bearing, may have suited the vulgar and intolerant among his party, but they won him no respect from the calm and thinking portion of the audience; while we know that they grieved and offended some intelligent and candid men who thoroughly agreed with his views. It is time that Christians and clergymen had learned that men whom they regard as heretics and infidels have not forfeited all claims to the respect and courtesies of social life by their errors of opinion, and that insolence and arrogance, contemptuous sneers and impeachment of motives and character towards such men, are not effective means of grace for their enlightenment and conversion.
"There was a large number of men among the audience who lost their self-control in their dislike of Mr. Barker's views, and he was often interrupted, and sometimes checked in his argument, by hisses, groans, sneers, vulgar cries, and clamors, though through all these annoyances and repeated provocations, he maintained his wonted composure of manner and his clearness of thought. On the other hand, Dr. Berg was heard with general quiet by his opponents, and greeted with clamorous applause by his friends."
I am afraid the above remarks were true. Still, Dr. Berg was almost a gentleman compared with Dr. McCalla, and he was vastly more of a scholar and debater, far as he was from being a model disputant.
Dr. Berg had the right side; he stood for the defence of all that was good, and true, and great, and glorious; but the way in which he went about his work was by no means the best one. He took a wrong position,—a position which it was impossible for him to maintain. His doctrine was that the Bible was absolutely perfect,—that the inspiration of the Book was such as not only to make it a fit and proper instrument for the religious instruction, and the moral and spiritual renovation, of mankind, but such as to preserve it from all the innocent, harmless, and unimportant weaknesses, imperfections, and errors of regenerate and sanctified humanity. He even contended for a kind or a degree of perfection which many of the mosthighly esteemed professors and theologians of orthodox churches had relinquished. He held to views about the creation and the universality of the deluge, which orthodox Christian Geologists like Professor Hitchcock of America, as well as Dr. Pye Smith of England, had given up as untenable. He contended for a perfection which, in fact, is physically impossible, and which, in truth, was inconsistent with his own acknowledgments in other parts of the discussion. I have no wish to disparage my opponent; I had rather do the contrary; but he did not properly and adequately understand the great question which he undertook to discuss. Hence he got involved in inextricable difficulties, and, in spite of all he could do, his attempted defence of the Bible was, to a great extent, a failure.
He said a many good things about the Bible. He proved a many things in its favor. He made the impression, at times, that there was something in its teachings of a most powerful and blessed tendency; that it was a book of infinite value,—that it was a wonderful teacher and a mighty comforter,—that it had done a vast amount of good, and was calculated to do a vast amount more,—that it was a friend and patron of all things good and glorious,—that it was the nurse of individual and national virtue, and the source of personal, domestic, and national happiness. He said many good things about the excellency of Christ's precepts, and the beauty and glory of His example. A hundred good things he said, both in favor of the Bible, and in opposition to infidelity. But the one great point which he had pledged himself to prove he didnotprove. It could not be proved. It was not true. So that though he won a substantial victory; he sustained a logical defeat. And if he had been twenty times more learned, and twenty times more able than he was, he would have been defeated. If a man attempts the impossible, failure is inevitable; and if he has a skilful, wary, and able opponent, his failure will be seen and felt, even by his most ardent friends, and greatest admirers. And so it was in the case of Dr. Berg.
But the error was not his alone; it was the error of his friends; the error of his patrons; the error of his times. What learning, and talent, and zeal, and skill in debate,considerably above the average of his profession, could do, he did; and that was a good deal: and his failure was chargeable not on himself, so much as on the faulty theology of the school in which he had been trained, and to which he still belonged.
So far as the general merits of the Bible were concerned, I was in the wrong. But the fact was not made so plain, so palpable to the audience, as it should have been, and as it might have been, if I had had a wiser, a warier, and an abler opponent, and one who had no false theory of Bible inspiration or abstract perfection to defend. A man thoroughly furnished for the work, and free from foolish and unauthorized theories, would have been able to give proof of the substantial truth and divinity of the Scriptures, and of their transcendent moral and spiritual excellence, absolutely overwhelming; and I do most heartily wish I had had the happiness to encounter such an advocate in my discussions. It might have proved an infinite advantage to me, and an incalculable blessing to my friends. As it was, the debate only tended to strengthen me in my unbelief, and to increase my confidence in future controversies with the clergy.
How I answered my own arguments, and got over my own objections, when on my way back to Christianity, I may state hereafter. All I need say here is, that I took aqualifiedview of the divine authority of the Bible, and of the doctrine of its divine inspiration,—a view in accordance with facts, and with the teachings of Scripture itself on the subject. This view did not require me to demand in a book of divine origin the kind of abstract or absolute perfection which Dr. Berg required, and which he so rashly undertook to prove. On the contrary, it taught me to look for a thousand innocent and unimportant errors and imperfections in the Bible. A thousand things which would, if proved, have been regarded by Dr. Berg as valid objections to the doctrine of its superhuman authority and divine authority, were no objections at all to me. I could acknowledge the truth of them all, and yet believe in the substantial truth and divinity of the Book as a whole. The dust and mud of our streets and roads, and the decaying timbers and rotting grasses of our forests and farmsdo not make me question the divine origin and the substantial perfection of the world: nor do the errors and imperfections of ancient transcribers or modern translators, or the want of absolute scientific, historical, chronological, literary, theological or moral perfection even in the original authors of the Bible, make me doubt its divine origin and inspiration, or its practical and substantial perfection. You may show me ten thousand things in the earth which, to multitudes, would seem inconsistent with the doctrine that it is the work of an all-perfect Creator; but they would not be inconsistent with that doctrine inmyview. They would probably seem, to my mind, proofs of its truth. Things which, to men who had not properly studied them, appeared serious defects, or results of Adam's sin, would be seen by me to be important excellencies; masterpieces of infinite wisdom and goodness. Many of the things I said about the Bible in my debate with Dr. Berg were true; but they amounted to nothing. Dr. Berg thought they were serious charges, and that if they were not refuted, they would destroy the credit and power of the Book. He was mistaken. And he never did refute them. If I were in the place of Dr. Berg, and an opponent were to bring forward those things in proof that the Bible was not of God, I should say, Your statements may be true, or they may be false, and I do not care much which they are; but they are good for nothing as disproofs of the divine origin and practical perfection of the Bible. The Bible is all it professes to be, and it is more and better than its greatest admirers suppose it to be, notwithstanding its numberless traces of innocent human imperfections. The sun has spots, but they neither disprove its value nor its divine origin. The probability is, that the spots in the sun have their use, and would be seen, if properly understood, to be proofs of the wisdom and goodness of the Creator. And it is certainly plain to me, that what you regard us defects in the Bible, are proofs both of its divine origin, and of its real perfection.
I said some things about the Bible in my debate with Dr. Berg, which, if they had been true, would have proved that the Bible wasnotof divine origin. But they were not true. All these things should have been refuted by Dr.Berg with great promptness, and refuted so thoroughly and plainly, that every one should have been made to see and feel that they were refuted. But they were not. Some of them were left unnoticed. Others were handled unskilfully. The time and strength that should have been given to them were wasted on trifles, or unwisely spent in offensive personalities, unseasonable witticisms, or attempts at fine speaking.
The objections of this class, which my opponent failed to answer, or answered unsatisfactorily, we may notice further on.
In January, 1855, while over on business, I had a public debate at Halifax, England, with Brewin Grant, a congregational minister. This, so far as its impression on my own mind was concerned, was the most unfortunate discussion I ever had. My opponent was the meanest and most unprincipled or ill-principled man I ever met. In a pamphlet which he had published, giving instructions to those who were called to defend the Bible and Christianity against unbelievers, he had laid it down as a rule, that their first object should be to destroy the influence of their opponents, and that in order to do this, they should do their utmost to damage their reputation, and make them odious. He acted on this principle, in his debate with me, with the greatest fidelity. He raked together, and gave forth in his speeches, all the foolish and wicked stories which my old persecutors had fabricated and spread abroad respecting me, except those about my having committed suicide, and being smothered to death, and some others which were so notoriously false that they could no longer be used to my disadvantage. Those stories he improved by making them worse. He made a number of new ones also.
I had published a book, giving the story of my life up to the time of my expulsion from the Methodist New Connexion. This work, like my other works, was written in the clearest and simplest style, so that no man with ordinary abilities could fail to understand it, and no man without powers of perversion bordering on the miraculous, could give to any part of it an objectionable meaning. This book he took, and read, and misread, and interpreted, and misinterpreted, so as to make the impression on persons unacquainted withit, that I had written and published the most foolish, ridiculous, and in some cases, really discreditable things of myself, and even false and unwarrantable statements about others.
Before the discussion came on he gave a lecture on this book. I went to hear it. He spoke about an hour, and every quotation from the work, and every reference he made to it, was false. There was not a word of truth in the whole lecture. There was not a sentence which was not as opposite to truth and as full of falsehood as he could make it. And the ingenuity he displayed in his task was marvellous. It was really devilish. He enlarged my conception of the evil powers of wicked men, in the line of turning good into evil, and truth into lies, beyond all that I could otherwise have imagined. He did a hundred things, the least of which my poor limited capacity would have deemed impossible.
He pursued the same course in the debate. He went as far beyond poor McCalla, as McCalla had gone beyond ordinary sinners. If I had undertaken to correct his misrepresentations, and expose his fictions, I should not have had one moment to give to the subject we were met to discuss. So I did as I did with McCalla, I rebuked the man with becoming severity; I contradicted his statements in the plainest and strongest way I could; I also offered to arrange for a discussion of personal matters, if he wished it, after we had gone through our discussion of principles, and engaged to prove every discreditable story he told of me to be false, and then went on with the discussion. He accepted my challenge to discuss personalities, but neither kept his engagement, nor abated his efforts at misrepresentation during the remainder of the debate.
He was not content with sober, sad, deliberate falsehood; he resorted to ridicule. He pulled comical and ugly faces; put out his tongue; put his thumb to his nose; threw orange peel at me; and said and did other things which it is not lawful for me to utter.
He had thought, I suppose, to disgust me; to tire me out; to make me withdraw from the debate, and give him the opportunity of saying he had put me to flight. He was mistaken. I kept my ground. And I kept my temper.And I kept my gravity. I rebuked him at times with becoming sternness, and then went on with my task. It is probable that I spoke more strongly against the Bible, and that I said harder things against the church and the ministry, than I should have done, if he had conducted himself with any regard to truth and decency; but I did not raise my voice above its usual pitch, nor did I show any unusual signs of indignation, disgust, or irritation. My feelings became more intense, my language more cutting, and my style and logic more pointed and forcible; but my manner was calm, and my behaviour guarded.
And I husbanded my strength. I let him explode, while I let off my steam quietly, and in just measure only, making every particle do its proper work. I wasted neither words, nor strength, nor time. In three or four days my wicked opponent began to get weak and weary. He had tiredhimselfinstead of me. He had disgusted and put to shame many of his friends. He had driven away several of his supporters. He had weakened his party. He had strengthened his opponent. He had lost, he had betrayed, his cause. He dragged on heavily. He was all but helpless. I had every thing my own way. I had an easy fight, and a decisive victory.
I had the last speech; and when the battle was over, I felt free to deal with my unprincipled opponent rather severely, and I said: "My opponent has acted, from beginning to end of this debate, in anything but a noble and manly way. I refer not merely to his personal abuse, his use of foul names, his insolence of manner, his malignity of spirit; but to the way in which he has misconducted the argument. He was pledged to prove the Bible of Divine origin and authority. He was bound to bring out, as early as possible, what he thought his strongest arguments, and afford me an opportunity of meeting them. But he did not do this. To judge from his proceedings, you would conclude that he had no faith in any of the popular arguments, such as those employed by Paley, Horne, &c. He sat watching, like an animal we need not name, for some stray thought to pounce upon. He tried every device to draw me from the question, and showed, not only the greatest reluctance, but a fixed determination, not to comeany nearer to it himself than he could possibly help. He has shown nothing like courage, nothing like confidence in the goodness of his cause, nothing like openness, candor, or generosity; nothing but craft and cunning. He has never fought like a soldier, but dodged like an assassin. Honorable mengive upa cause that can't be honorably maintained. For myself, ye are witnesses, I came out openly, boldly, and at once, and gave my opponent the best opportunity he could have of grappling fairly with my arguments. But he would not meet them. He slunk behind his mud-battery, and instead of firing shot and shell, spurted forth filth. By-and-by he took my old deserted battery, and began to play upon me with my worn-out guns and wooden shot, till his friends compelled him to give up. He complained that I had taken up my position on Mount Horeb, and pattered him with grapeshot from the old Jewish armory, and besought and urged me to plant myself on Mount Tabor, or the Mount of Olives, and try what I could do with Christian ammunition. I did so; but even that did not please him. He stared and squalled, as if it had been raining red-hot shot, as thick as it once poured hailstones and fire in Egypt, killing every beast that was out in the fields. And thus he has gone on. He never seems to have been satisfied, either with his own position or mine. I might have pleased him, no doubt, by giving in before the battle, and surrendering at discretion; but that is not my custom. Well, now the battle draws near its close; and no one, I trust, has lost anything, but what is better lost than found. I am satisfied with my own position, and nearly so with my share of the fight. With a manlier foe, I should have had a pleasanter fight; but soldiers cannot always choose their antagonists, nor can they keep, in all cases, to their own best mode of warfare. The hunter cannot always find the noblest game; and perhaps it is better for his neighbour, if not so pleasant to himself, that he should sometimes be obliged to employ his dogs and rifles in destroying vermin.
"I feel that an apology is due from me to you and the public, for entering the lists with my opponent. It is soon given. When I first offered to meet him in discussion on the Bible, I supposed him to be a well-informed andrespectable man, and the representative of the highest intellectual and moral culture, combined with superior talent and experience as a debater, that the orthodox world could boast. I soon found out my mistake, but I did not feel at liberty to withdraw my challenge. When I learned the infamous character of his personal lectures, I declined all further correspondence with him till he should retract his slanders; but still I did not feel free to say I would not debate with him, if his friends should bring him to reasonable terms. His friends in Halifax succeeded in doing so, and out of regard to the wishes of my friends, I submitted to the temporary degradation of being placed on the same platform with my unprincipled calumniator, and the calumniator of the best, the wisest, and the greatest men of every age and nation. I do not regret having done so.
"He will leave this discussion a sadder and a wiser man. He has found that the power of insolence, and falsehood, and of vulgar, brutal wit, has its bounds; that there are those whom they cannot abash or cow; that themightin moral encounters is with theright.
"I part with my opponent without malice, though without regret. If he has natural characteristics which others have not, and lacks some higher qualities which others have, the fault is not entirely his. He did not make himself. Nor did he nurse, or rear, or train himself. He is the production, and his character may, to a great extent, be the production, of influences over which he had no control. I shall not therefore state all I have felt while listening to the false and fierce personalities with which this discussion has been disgraced. I will rather acknowledge my own errors, and lament that anything he has said or done should have been permitted, in any case, to affect my own style of advocacy, and render me less gentle or guarded in my utterances than I otherwise might have been. I retract every expression of unkindness or resentment. I apologize for everything harsh, offensive, or ungraceful in my manner; and I am sorry I could not declare and advocate my views, without shocking or distressing some of your minds. And now, with best and heartiest wishes for your welfare, and for the welfare of mankind at large, and in the fall and certain hope of thefinal, universal, and eternal triumph of the truth, and in the ultimate regeneration and salvation of our race, I bid you all farewell."
This man purchased the copyright of the debate, and pledged himself to issue a correct edition, in accordance with the notes of the reporter. Instead of doing so, besides making unlimited alterations in his own speeches, he altered every speech of mine. Some things he left out. In one case, to prevent an exposure of one of his more reckless mis-statements, he left out two pages of one of my speeches. By a free and artful use ofitalics, and an abuse of stops, he altered and perverted the meaning of quite a multitude of my statements. And when, after all, he found that the publication damaged him terribly in the estimation of his friends, he suppressed it altogether.
The conduct of this opponent had a bad effect on my mind, and if anything short of sound reason could have kept me in the ranks of infidelity, it would have been the shameless, the outrageous conduct of such pretenders to Christianity as this bad man. But I thank God, such horrible and inexcusable inconsistency was not allowed to decide my fate. Better powers, sweeter and happier influences, were brought into play to counteract its deadly tendency. And even other opponents, of a worthier character and of a higher order, came in my way, who, by their Christian temper, and high culture, and by their regard for my feelings, and their manifest desire for my welfare, obliterated the bad impressions produced by the unscrupulous and malignant conduct of Brewin Grant, and all but won me over to the cause of Christ.
It happened that while I was yet in England, an arrangement was made for a public discussion between me and Colonel Michael Shaw, of Bourtree Park, Ayr. Colonel Shaw was a kind of lay minister, who preached the Gospel gratuitously, and spent his time and property in doing good. He was a Christian and a gentleman out and out; a Christian and a gentleman of the highest order. Five such men might have saved Sodom and Gomorrah, and all the cities of the plain. He was as guileless as a little child, and as honest as the light, and about as pure, and good, and kind as a regenerated human soulcould be. This, at least, was the impression which his looks, and conversation, and behaviour, made on my mind. He not only commanded my respect, but called forth my veneration; and he made me love him, as I never did love more than two or three good men in all my life.
Well, an arrangement was made for a public discussion on the divine authority of the Bible between this good and godly man and me.
The discussion took place in the City Hall, Glasgow. The Colonel was so kind and gentlemanly, that I found my task exceedingly difficult. It was very unpleasant to speak lightly of the faith of so good and true a man; or to say anything calculated to hurt the feelings of one so guileless and so affectionate. And many a time I wished myself employed about some other business, or engaged in a contest with some other man. At the end of the second night's debate we were to rest two days, and the Colonel was so kind as to invite me, and even to press me, to spend those days with him at his residence near Ayr. The Colonel had given his good lady so favorable an account of my behaviour in the debate, that she wrote to me enforcing her good husband's invitation. I went. I could do no other. The Colonel and his venerable father met me at the station with a carriage, and I was soon in the midst of the Colonel's truly Christian and happy family. Neither the Colonel nor any of his household attempted to draw me into controversy. Not a word was spoken that was calculated to make me feel uneasy. There seemed no effort on the part of any one, yet every thing was said and done in such a way as to make me feel myself perfectly at home. Love, true Christian love, under the guidance of the highest culture, was the moving spirit in the Colonel's family circle. A visit to the birthplace of Burns, and to the banks of Bonny Doon, was proposed, and a most delightful stroll we had, made all the more pleasant by the Colonel's remarks on the various objects of interest that came in view, and his apt quotation of passages from the works of the poet, referring to the scenery amidst which we were moving.
On our return home I was made to feel at ease again with regard to every thing but myself. I felt sorry that Ishould be at variance with my kind and accomplished host on a subject of so much interest and importance as religion and the Bible. The thought that on the evening of the coming day I should have to appear on the platform again as his opponent, was really annoying. To talk with such a man privately, in a free and friendly way, seemed proper enough; but to appear in public as his antagonist seemed too bad. When we started from Ayr to Glasgow in the same train, and in the same carriage, I felt as if I would much rather have travelled in some other direction, or on a different errand. But an agreement had been made, and it must be kept; so two more nights were spent in discussion. But itwasdiscussion,—fair and friendly discussion,—and not quarrelling. Neither he nor I gave utterance to an unkind or reproachful word. When the discussion was over, the Colonel shook me by the hand in a most hearty manner in the presence of an excited audience, and presented me with a book as an expression of his respect and good feeling. I made the best returns I could, unwilling to be too much outdone by my gallant and Christian friend. The audience, divided as they were on matters of religion, after gazing some time on the spectacle presented on the platform, as if at loss what to do, or which of the disputants they should applaud, dropped their differences, and all united in applauding both, and the disputants and the audience separated with the heartiest demonstrations of satisfaction and mutual good-will. The events of those days, and the impression I received of my opponent's exalted character, never faded from my memory. And though they had not all the effect they ought to have had, their influence on my mind was truly salutary. I have never thought of Colonel Shaw and his good, kind, Christian family, without affection, gratitude, and delight. He wrote to me repeatedly after my return to America, and his letters, which reached us when we were living among the wilds of Nebraska, were among our pleasantest visitants, and must be reckoned among the means of my recovery from the horrors of unbelief.
I cannot doubt but that my encounter with this blessed man did much towards winning back my soul to God, and Christ, and the Church. This gracious man,—this childof light and love,—is still living, and he continues, when I give him the opportunity, to testify his love for me, and his good wishes for my health and welfare. God bless his soul; and bless his household; and, after having given them a long and happy life on earth, receive them to His kingdom, to share together the riches of His love for ever and ever.
In compliance with the request of some skeptical neighbours, I lectured against the Divine authority of the Bible in my first settlement in Ohio. Mr. Spofforth, a Methodist minister was induced to hold a public discussion with me on the subject, and as he was not well acquainted either with his own side of the question or the other, he was soon embarrassed and confounded, and obliged to retire from the contest. Not content with the retirement of my opponent, I announced another course of lectures on the Bible, resolved not to relinquish my hold of the people's attention, till I had laid before them my thoughts on the exciting subject at greater length. The company listened to me for a time with great patience, but while I was giving my last lecture, some young men set to work outside to pull down the log school-house in which I was speaking, and I and my friends had to make haste out before the lecture was over, to avoid being buried before we were dead.
The young men had provided themselves plentifully with rotten eggs, thinking to pelt me on my way home; but the night was very dark, and the way led through a tall, dense, shadowy forest, and somehow they mistook their own father for me, and gavehimthe eggs. When he got home he was as slimy and odoriferous as a man need to be; while I was perfectly clean and sweet.
But I was not to be permitted to escape in this way. During the night they pulled down the fences of my farm, and gave me other hints, that I must leave, or do worse. So I sold my farm for what I could get, and bought another some seventy miles away, near Salem, Columbiana County, a region occupied chiefly by what, in America, were called "Come-outers"—people who had left the churches and the ministry, and even separated themselves from civil organizations, resolved to be subject to no authority but their own wills or their own whims. Among people so free as those, I thought I should have liberty plenty; but I soon found that they were so fond of freedom, that they wantedmyshare as well as their own, and I got into trouble once more. And then I saw that the greatest brawlers about liberty, when they come to be tried, are often the most arrant despots and tyrants on the face of the earth.
Then the people in the district were notallCome-outers. Some were Christians. And these I provoked by my disregard of the Sabbath, and by my advocacy of views unfriendly to religion and the divine authority of the Bible. I worked in my garden or on my farm on a Sunday, in sight of my neighbors as they went to church. I had previously called a Bible convention in the place, and taken the leading part in its proceedings. I took the skeptical side in a public discussion on Christianity in the town, and gave utterance to sentiments which pained the hearts of the religious portion of my neighbors beyond endurance. The consequence was, I got into trouble again, and had to move once more, or be undone.
So I moved once more. This time I resolved to make sure of a quiet home, so I went right away beyond the limits of the States, into the unpeopled territory of Nebraska, a country at that period ten or twelve times as large as Pennsylvania or England, and containing less than five thousand white inhabitants—an immense wilderness, occupied chiefly by tribes of red Indians, herds of buffalo and deer, countless multitudes of wolves, with here and there a bear, a panther, or a catamount, and heaps of rattlesnakes. And here I thought I should be safe. And so I was. The Indians gave me no trouble.I always treated them kindly, and they were kind to me in return. As for the wild beasts, God has "put the fear and dread of man upon every beast of the earth;" and as he approaches, they retire. As a rule, the fiercest beasts of the forest will turn aside to make way for man. I have lived in the midst of multitudes of wolves, and taken no harm. I have slept on the open prairie in regions swarming with wolves, and never been disturbed. I have travelled by night in other parts of the country, over the wildest mountains, the homes of panthers, bears, and catamounts, and never been molested. The rattlesnakes were the most dangerous creatures. Yet even from them I took no harm, I have walked among them time after time in slippers or low shoes, yet I never was bitten. I slept once for three nights with a rattlesnake within two or three inches of my breast, yet escaped unhurt. God took care of me, when I neither took due care of myself, nor cared as I ought for Him.
The parties I feared the most were the white people. They had heard of me, and as they passed me in the street, they looked at me askance, regarding me apparently as a mystery or a monster. But I never shocked them by skeptical lectures, or by any other act of hostility to religion, so they bore with me, and came at length to treat me with respect and confidence. My wife and family were regarded with favor from the first. And I shall never forget the kindness of one of our Christian neighbors to my wife, in a time of affliction and sorrow.
And it is from my settlement in this desolate and far-off region, that I date the commencement of a change for the better in the state of my mind. I do not say that my opinions began to change, but the state of myfeelingsgot better, which rendered possible a change for the better in my sentiments.
But I had reached a sad extreme. I had lost all trust in a Fatherly God, and all good hope of a better life. I had come near to the horrors of utter Atheism. And the universe had become an appalling and inexplicable mystery. And the world had come to be a dreary habitation; and life a weary affair; and many a time I wished I had never been born. And there were occasions when the darksuggestion came, "Life is a burden; throw it down." But I said; "Nay; there are my wife and children: I will live for their sakes if for nothing else." And for their sakes I did live, thank God, till I had something else to live for.
If I were asked what first gave a check to my skepticism, and led me to turn my face once more towards Christ and Christianity, I should say, "The answer is supplied by my story." As I have shown, it was the troubled state of my mind,—the tempest of unhappy feeling, and the whirlwind of excitement in which I had lived so long,—that had most to do in carrying me away from Christ; and now my mind was allowed to be at rest. The whirlwind of excitement had spent its fury. The tempest in my soul had subsided, so that the principal hindrance to my return was gone. There were other causes that had contributed to the destruction of my faith in Christ and Christianity, but this was the first and chief one, and the one which gave the principal part of their force to the rest. As I have shown, I had been taught things about the Scriptures that were not correct. I had found a number of the arguments used by divines in support of the divinity of the Scriptures to be unsound. I had detected pious frauds in the writings of some of the advocates of the Bible and Christianity. I had met with untenable views on the inspiration and infallibility of the Scriptures. I had, besides, adopted a defective method of reasoning on religious matters, which exerted an injurious influence on my mind. All these things, and many others which I cannot at present mention, had proved occasions of doubt and unbelief. But the probability is, that none of these things would have destroyed my faith in Christ, if I had been in a proper state of mind. There was nothing in them to justify unbelief to a mind unprejudiced, undistempered, calm. There was attractiveness enough in Christ, if the mists which passion had thrown around Him, to hide His worth and glory from my view, could be cleared away. And there was truth and goodness enough in Christianity, and there were evidences sufficient of its divinity, if one could have the films removed from one's eyes, and be permitted to behold it in its own sweet light. The great difficulty wasin the disordered state of my mind, and the trying nature of my situation. What was wanted, therefore, to make it possible for me to return to my former faith, was not so much an explanation of particular difficulties, as a better, happier, calmer state of mind. Explanations of difficultiesweredesirable, but they were not the first or principal things required. The great, theonething needful, at the outset, was a fitting state of mind,—a mind sufficiently free from irritation, painful excitement, and consequent unhappy bias, to enable me to do justice to the religion of Christ. And the circumstances in which I was placed in Nebraska were calculated to bring me to this desirable state of mind; and many things which befel me there were calculated to stimulate my return to Christ.
1. In the first place, I was in a region favorable to calm and serious thought. True, we were infected for a time with the fever of speculation so prevalent in new countries; and we shared the hardships and toils, the cares and anxieties, of a border life: but there were seasons when serious thought and salutary reflection were inevitable. I was often alone amid the quiet and solemnity of a boundless wilderness. The busy world of men was far away. There was no one near to foster doubt or unbelief, or to reopen or irritate afresh the closing wounds inflicted by bigotry and intolerance in days gone by. And the loneliness of my condition seemed to bring me nearer to God. It allowed the revival of those Godward-tending instincts implanted in man's heart by the hand of the Creator. It favored the resurrection to life of the natural religious affections, and the revival of those holy longings and aspirations after a higher life and a grander destiny than earth can give, which arise so spontaneously in the breasts of men. It allowed the better self to rise and assert its power, while it shamed the evil self into the shade. And often, when away beyond the sight of man or of human habitation, amidst the eternal silence and the boundless solitude, I had strange thoughts and strange feelings; and there were times when, if I had yielded to the impulses from within, I should have cast myself down upon the ground, and adored the Great Mysterious Infinite.
On one occasion I went, in company with my youngestson and a friend, some distance into the interior of the country. At one point we came upon a deserted and decaying Indian village, and then upon an Indian track across the desert. A little further on we struck a Mormon track, along which a company of the Latter-day saints had groped their way towards their promised Paradise in the Salt Lake Valley. As we followed the track we came upon a mound, and then upon another, marking the spots where worn-out travellers had ended their weary pilgrimages, and been consigned, amid the desolate wilds, to their final resting places. Into one of these unprotected graves the wolves had made their way, to feed upon the fallen victim of the new faith. When night came on it found us in these dreary and desolate wilds, and there we had to prepare to pass the night under the open sky, with multitudes of wolves around us. We had hardly spread our blankets when the sky was covered with black and heavy clouds, and lightnings flashed, and thunders roared, and everything betokened a night of storm and rain. We protected ourselves against the threatening elements as well as we could, and prepared ourselves for cold and drenching showers, and for a sleepless and troubled night, when, happily for us, the wind suddenly changed, and dissipated the clouds. The stars came out in all their glory, and the night was calm and bright, and all we had to try our patience was a little frost. And there I slept; and there I often awoke; and in my intervals of wakefulness I gazed on the magnificence of the outspread skies, and mused on the dreariness of the surrounding wilderness, and thought of the stirring scenes through which I had passed in days gone by, and of the strange and death-like silent one in which I then was placed. "And what will the future be?" said I. "And here is my son; in the spring of life; on adventures so strange; in a universe so vast and so mysterious; what will be his destiny? And what will be the destiny of the dear ones we have left behind?" And then I lost myself in a world of strange imaginings. When wearied with my restless musings, I sank to rest again, and passed from waking into sleeping dreams.
Morning broke at length, and we arose, and started on our journey. The deer were skipping gaily over the plains.The wolves were hiding in their holes. We came at length to a stream. It was skirted by a grove, into which we made our way, and there we kindled a fire, and prepared our breakfast. We filled our coffee kettle from the brook. A hazel twig served us for a toasting fork; and we were soon engaged in one of the pleasantest parts of a hungry traveller's work. We relished our bread and ham and coffee amazingly. The wolves might be snuffing the odor of our viands, and coveting our repast; but they remained within their hiding-places, and kept silent; and we finished our meal in peace.
We rested next on the outskirts of a grove on the banks of the Elkhorn river. Here I was left to take care of the stuff, to prepare a bed, and to gather wood for a fire to cook our supper, and to frighten away the wolves, and keep us warm through the night, I gathered a quantity of dry and withered grass, and spread it on the ground, and covered it with a blanket, for a bed. I then looked around for wood. I saw some down in a dark deep gully, and went to fetch it; when I found myself all alone and unarmed in front of a hideous wolf-hole. I retreated with all the haste I could, and was soon on the top of the bank again, panting and trembling, and endeavoring to increase the distance between myself and the horrible den as rapidly as I could. I next looked round for wood on safer ground, and having collected a quantity, I waited with anxiety for the return of my companions. We slept that night in a half-built and deserted log cabin, without doors or windows, put up by some adventurous border-man to secure a claim to a portion of the surrounding land. A considerable part of the cabin was without roof. And there were large spaces between the layers of logs through which the frosty winds had free admission. For a time we deliberated whether we should be colder inside the cabin or outside. At length we decided in favor of the interior. We then took the wagon body off the frame and carried it into the cabin, and raised it on one side to screen us from the wind which came through the cabin walls. Against the wall at our head we fixed up rugs. At our feet, between our bed and the open doorway, we had our blazing fire. And there we slept. We had pricklysensations in our eyes in the morning, but they soon passed away. We took no cold, or none that proved serious at all. And the wolves seemed to keep at a respectable distance.
As soon as we had got through our breakfast, and put our wagon and team in order, we started homewards. At one point, as we passed along, a wolf looked quietly down upon us from the side of a hill just by. A bigger one had passed us as we stood in front of the half-built cabin in which we had passed the night. The region abounded with them, on every side.
While crossing a tract of rich bottom land, where the dry and withered grass of the previous summer lay thick, I struck a light, and for an experiment, set the prairie on fire. The flames blazed forth at once like gunpowder. They spread and roared. The wind rose, and blew the flames in the direction of our wagon. It was all we could do to get to the wagon and jump in and flee. We had no sooner started the horses than we found that the traces of one of them were loose, and we had to jump out again to fasten them; and before we could retake our places the flames were almost at our ears. The horses fled, however, at a good quick pace, and speedily carried us beyond the reach of danger, and we got safe home.
2. There were many things in my new situation and in my strange way of life, besides the silence and the solitude of a boundless desert, that were calculated to awaken within me solemn feeling, and to rouse me to serious thoughtfulness on things pertaining to God and religion. And when once my mind had begun to awake to such matters, it was never permitted to sink again, for any length of time, into its former death-like slumber. And many things befel me that tended to make me feel, and feel most painfully at times, the helplessness and cheerlessness, the gloom and wretchedness, of the man who has lost his trust in God, and his hope of a blessed immortality. There is nothing in utter doubt and unbelief to satisfy a man with a heart. A man with a heart wants a Father in whose bosom he can repose, a Saviour in whose care and sympathy he can trust, and a better world to which he can look forward as his final home and resting-place, and as the eternal home and resting-place of those who are dearto him. And Ihada heart. I was not made for infidelity. I never submitted to it willingly, and I never sat easy under its power. I had affections, cravings, wants, which nothing but religion could satisfy.
3. Then trouble came. Infidelity is a wretched affair even in prosperity; but in adversity it is still worse. And adversity overtook me. In the spring of 1857 we had a reasonable income, from property which we supposed to be of considerable value. A few weeks later a panic came, and our income fell to nothing; our property was valueless; instead of a support it became a burden, and we had to set to work to get a living by our labor, at a time when work was hard to be got, and when wages were down at the lowest point. This was a time of great distress and grievous trial, and I felt the want of consolation most keenly. I could once have said, "Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be on the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls; yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." But now Ihadno God. The universe had no great Fatherly Ruler. The affairs of man were governed by chance, or by a harsh and grinding necessity; and all good ground of hope and cheerful trust had given place to doubt, and gloom, and cruel uncertainty.
4. Trials of other kinds came. Sickness and pain entered our dwelling, and seized upon one of my family. My youngest son was taken ill. He was racked with excruciating pain. It seemed as if the agony would drive him to distraction, or cut short his days. And there I stood, watching his agony, and distracted with his cries, unable to utter a whisper about a gracious Providence, or to offer up a prayer for help or deliverance.
5. Another dear one was afflicted; and again my heart was torn, and again my lips were sealed. I could not even say to the suffering one, "God bless you."
6. I was called to attend the funeral of a child. The parents were in great distress, and I was anxious to speak to them a word of comfort; but doubt and unbelief had left me no such word to speak. I remembered the daywhen I could have said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven."