  CHAPTER I.Introduction.—My early life.—Enter the Church.—The Ministry.—Happy days.—Sad change.—How happened it? 17 CHAPTER II.Causes of unbelief.—Vice.—Other causes.—Constitutional tendencies to doubt.—Disappointed expectations about Christianity.—Mysteries of Providence.—Misrepresentations of Christ and Christianity in human creeds.—Church divisions.—Ignorant advocates of Christianity.—Wrong principles of reasoning.—False science, 19 CHAPTER III.Another cause of unbelief.—Bad feeling between ministers or among church members.—Alienates them from each other.—Then separates them from the Church.—Then from Christ.—How it works.—My case, 26 CHAPTER IV.Origin of the unhappy feeling between me and some of my brother ministers.—Tendencies of my mind.—Rationalizing tendency.—Its effects.—Reading.—Investigations.—Discoveries, 30 CHAPTER V.Modification of my early creed.—Unscriptural doctrines relinquished.—Scriptural ones adopted.—Some doctrines modified.—Theological fictions dropped.—Eager for the pure, simple truth as taught by Jesus.—Doctrine of types given up.—Other notions relinquished.—Alarm of some of my brethren at these changes, 44 CHAPTER VI.How preachers and theologians indulge their fancies on religion.—John Wesley.—His resolution to be a man of one book.—What came of his resolution.—His sermon on God's approbation of His works,—unscriptural and unphilosophical throughout.—Illustrations and proofs.—And Wesley was one of the best and wisest, one of the most honest and single-minded of our theologians.—What then may we expect of others?—Evils of theological trifling.—Mischievous effects of mixing human fictions with Divine revelations, 55 CHAPTER VII.Further theological investigations.—Unwarranted statements by preachers.—John Foster's Essay on Some of the Causes by which Evangelical Religion is Rendered Distasteful to Persons of Cultivated Minds.—Introduction of similar views to the notice of my ministerial brethren.—The reception they met with.—No Church has got all the truth.—Most Churches, perhaps all, have got portions of it, which others have not.—My attempts to gather up the fragments from all.—Freedom from bigotry.—Love to all Christians.—Judging trees by their fruit.—Reading the books of various denominations, like foreign travel, liberalizes the mind.—I found truth and goodness in all CHAPTER VIII.My style of preaching.—Decidedly practical.—Using Christianity as a means for making bad people into good ones, and good ones always better.—Reasons for this method.—A family trait.—Hereditary.—Great need of practical preaching.—Folly of other kinds of Preaching.—Littleness of great Preachers.—Worthlessness of great sermons.—The Truly Great are the Greatly Good and Greatly Useful.—My Models.—The Bible.—Jesus.—My Favorite Preachers.—Billy Dawson, David Stoner, James Parsons.—My Favorite Books.—The Bible—Nature.—Simple Common Sense, instructive, earnest, moving books.—How my preaching was received by the people.—Its effects on churches and congregations.—Uneasiness of my colleagues.—Fresh mutterings; tale bearings; controversies; and more bad feeling, 82 CHAPTER IX.Extracts from my Diary.—A strange preacher.—Horrible sermons.—Lights of the world that give no light.—Theological mist and smoke.—Narrow-mindedness.—Intolerance.—T. Allin,—Great preaching great folly.—A. Scott,—A good preacher.—Sanctification.—Keep to Scripture.—R. Watson: theological madness.—Big Books on the way of salvation; puzzling folks.—Antinomian utterances about Christ's work and man's salvation.—Preachers taking the devil's side; and doing his work.—Scarcity of common sense in priesthoods, and of uncommon sense.—The great abundance of nonsense and bad sense.—Common religious expressions that are false.—Favorite Hymns that are not Scriptural—Baxter's good sense, 98 CHAPTER X.Reforming tendencies.—Corruptions in the Church.—Bad trades.—Faults in the ministry.—Toleration of vice.—Drinking habits.—Intemperance.—The Connexion.—Faulty rules.—Bad customs.—Defective institutions.—All encouraged to suggest reforms and punished for doing so.—Original principles of the Connexion set aside, and persecution substituted for freedom.—My simplicity.—My reward.—The Ministry.—Drunkenness.—Teetotalism.—Advocacy of Temperance.—Outcry of preachers.—My Evangelical Reformer.—Articles on the prevailing vices of the Church; On Toleration and Human Creeds;—On Channing's Works; On Anti-Christian trading, &c., get me into trouble.—Conference interference.—Conference trials.—The state of things critical.—No remedy.—Matters get worse and worse.—Exciting events: too many to be named here.—Envy, jealousy, rage, strife, confusion, and many evil works.—Conspiracies: Fierce conflicts.—Expulsion, 117 CHAPTER XI.Explanations about the different Methodist Bodies.—Grounds of my reformatory proceedings.—About immoralities.—Christianity not to blame for the faults of professors and preachers.—My own defects, 153 CHAPTER XII.Story of my life continued.—Results of my expulsion.—Fierce fighting.—Desperation of my persecutors.—Great excitement on my part.—Rank crop of slanders.—Monstrous ones.—And silly ones.—Bad deeds as well as wicked words.—Hard work.—Exhaustion.—Powerlessness.—Three days' rest.—Long sleep.—Wonderful,—delightful,—result.—Public debates.—Remarkable occurrences; CHAPTER XIII.Approach to Unitarianism.—Kindness of Unitarians.—Preaching and lecturing in their pulpits.—Ten nights' public discussion with Rev. W. Cooke.—Subjects.—Results.—Publications.—Now periodicals.—Unitarian invitation to London.—Public reception.—Liberal contributions to Steam Press Fund.—Press presentation.—Dr. Bateman; Dr.-Sir-John Bowring.—Pleasurable change from intolerance and persecution to friendship and favor.—Discoveries.—Unitarianism has many phases.—Channingism.—Anti-supernaturalism.—Deism.—Atheism.—Gradually slid down to the lower, 191 CHAPTER XIV.The Bible.—My earliest views of its origin and authority.—Changed as I grew up.—Further changes.—Important facts about the Bible.—False theories of its Divine inspiration.—The true—the Bible's own,—doctrine on the subject.—Needful to keep inside of this.—No defence outside either for the Bible or for Bible men.—Explanations: illustrations: testimonies of celebrated writers.—The PERFECTION of the Bible—in what does it consist.—Foolish and impossible notions of perfection.—No absolute perfection in any thing.—No need for it.—Foolish talk about infallibility.—Other important testimonies, 202 CHAPTER XV.Enters politics.—Advocates extreme political views.—Republicanism.—Foretells the French Revolution of 1848.—Great political excitement in England.—Government alarmed.—Get arrested.—Lodged in prison.—Trial.—Triumph over Government.—Great rejoicings.—Elected member of Parliament for Bolton, and Town Councillor for Leeds.—Exhaustion from excess of labor.—Health fails.—Terrible Pains.—Voyage to America and back.—Removes to America.—Objects in doing so.—Settles on a farm.—Gets into fresh excitement.—The Abolitionists.—Women's Rights.—All kinds of wild revolutionary theories.—Go farther into unbelief instead of getting back to Christ.—A mad world, with strange unwritten histories, and awful, nameless mysteries, 241 CHAPTER XVI.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 |
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