but I was unwilling to enter into a discussion of the subject at the time; so it was deferred. This circumstance, however, I always regretted. I ought to have stated my belief, in plain terms; and then, if I did not wish to discuss the subject, I could have said so. I had not at this time—if indeed I ever have learned much of gospel simplicity. I ought to have been the more particular to avoid the least appearance of "dodging" the question, from the fact, that many who entertain erroneous sentiments are much addicted to this unreasonable practice; which is one of many reasons why they continue to hold, with so much pertinacity, their errors. Truth never needs to shun fair and open, and manly discussion.

About this time, I fell in with a biographical sketch of Dr. Godman, of Philadelphia. This gentleman had, in early life, entertained the sentiments of the French school-or in other words, skepticism. A few years before his death he became a humble and an apparently devoted Christian.

There was something in his history so much like my own, that it affected me. Besides this, the sentiments he expressed in relation to death, were so rational and philosophical, and at the same time so Christian, that they made a deep and abiding impression on my mind.

My former friends, "liberal" as they were, began to give me up as lost. They wondered, indeed, how the apostacy could happen ; but concluded, perhaps that I was influenced by some improper considerations. Some of them thought I was afraid of jeopardizing my popularity by remaining on liberal ground; and had turned back to serve a purpose.

They were, however, mistaken. All my hopes in a pecuniary point of view, were on the other side of the question. And had I been seeking for distinction,—nothing would have better suited me than to become a pioneer in the cause of "free inquiry." That cause, I then believed to be in a way to become more popular, for a short time, than it had hitherto been. How far my belief was well grounded, the world will soon see; if they have not seen already.

The reason is, that we have not yet learned to oppose its progress in a proper manner. We have zeal congh on the subject, but it is misdirected; or spends itself in words. The way to put down real heresy, is to put up the truth;-the way to put up the truth is to educate the rising generation on religious-I do not say sectarianbut religious principles. They are to be trained, not to be half Christians, but whole ones; not to

rest satisfied with the mere accumulation of property by thousands, and the spending of it by tens; but we are to go to the whole extent of self-denial and sacrifice-if indeed there is any self-denial about it and not only earn our thousands, but spend our thousands. Religion, (such is the arrangement of God) never progressed, in the individual or in the community, any faster than sacrifice was made, either of appetite, pleasure, reputation, property, health, time, talent, or life.

On the whole, however, two points were established; first, that the Bible was the truth of God; and secondly, that Jesus Christ was equal to, and one with the Father. Not but that I had momentary doubts come over my mind, even on these points; yet such was the nature and character of the evidence, that I found myself compelled to assent to it, or give up every claim to consistency and even to honesty. But in every other respect, strange as it may seem, I was really as much a skeptic as In thinking or conversing upon Revelation or the doctrine of the Trinity, I was evangelical in sentiment; but I no sooner stepped aside to consider any other subject in religion or morals, than my mode of thinking and reasoning was wholly changed-and I did not fail to take the usual ground of modern infidels. So thoroughly

ever.

were all my habits of thinking, and feeling, and reasoning, and acting, formed in the school of skepticism.

I was willing to believe what the Bible should be found to teach, and to receive its doctrines as coming from God. When Christ announced a truth, I was willing to regard it as the voice of the Father. The only question now was, "what does Jesus say?" or, "what does the Bible teach?"

But in ascertaining what was taught, there was still too much of going to the Bible with preestablished theories and prejudices. It had been a favorite maxim with that me, 66 no person in the world has ever yet read the Bible." By this was meant that no person had come to it without prepossessions and prejudices; and that these must of necessity have produced distorted views of truth. So that no one had ever yet found the pure truths actually contained in it. Now it was that I felt the force of this maxim as applied to myself. I was perpetually falling into the error of trying the Bible doctrines by my own opinions. I believed, for example, that there was nothing in human nature, if the proper measures were taken, to prevent a child's being made to do right. But to this end I thought authority must be kept entirely out of sight; and that the great art of governing

consisted in knowing how to arrange things and circumstances in such a manner that the child would choose to do precisely what we wished to have him do. I regarded every thing like a command, as having a tendency to diminish the child's respect for himself, and of course to injure him.

I thought that much, if not all that perversity which we find in the juvenile nature, though developed ever so early, arose from the fact that we took children to be perverse; thus forming a perverse second nature for them, and then charging it back upon our first parents or elsewhere. Hence in endeavoring to ascertain the Scriptural declarations concerning this subject, I was perpetually liable to wrong conclusions; because (though at the time insensible of it) I first set up my own opinion as a standard, and then endeavored to make the Scriptures conform to that opinion.

I found the more difficulty in regard to the doctrine of human depravity from the fact of having filled my head with Dr. Channing's notions about the dignity of human nature. For although the Orthodox community should be found to have often erred by looking too much on the dark side of things, yet I am fully confident they are in an error far more dangerous who dwell always on the bright side.