Chapter XVII (2)

And now I started on my voyage. I had never ventured on the sea before without dread of shipwreck and drowning. This time I had no such fear. On the contrary, as the vessel threaded her way among the rocks and islands of Boston Harbor, I experienced a strange and unaccountable elevation of soul. I had not felt so cheerful, so hopeful, so happy, for many years. And this delightful joyousness of soul continued during the whole of the voyage. Yet I had never gone to sea at so dangerous a season. And I never encountered such fearful and long-continued storms. Before we had fairly lost sight of the last point of land, the winds, which were already raging with unusual violence, began to blow more furiously. They fell on us in the most fearful blasts, and roared around us in a deafening howl. The sea was thrown into the wildest uproar. The vessel was tossed and tumbled about in the most merciless manner. One moment she was plunging head foremost into the deep; the next she was climbing the most stupendous waves. Now her right wheel was vainly laboring deep in the water, while her left was spinning uselessly in the air; then her right wheel was whirling in the air, while her left was splurging in the deep. Sometimes the waves swept over the vessel, while at other times they would strike her so rudely on the side, that she staggered through all her timbers. After the storm had raged for two or three days, there came what are called white squalls. A light grey cloud appears in the distance, and as it approaches you, it sends forth lightnings, accompanied with hurried bursts of thunder. A furious storm of hail or snow immediately follows. The howl of the tempest rises to a yell, and the squall, as it sweeps along in its fury, cuts off the tops of the waves, and scatters them in foam over the surface of the deep like a mantle of snow. The first of those squalls went right through our large square sail, tearing it to shreds. Another sent a wave on board which snapped in pieces stanchions of wrought iron thicker than my arms, and carried away one of our best boats. And this unspeakable uproar of the elements continued for several days. At times I crept on deck for a few moments, and, holding by the rigging, gazed on the wild magnificence of the appalling scene. And all this time my heart, instead of being tortured with its customary fears, was full of a cheerful joyous confidence. It was as if some spirit of heaven had taken possession of my soul to give me sweet presentiments of the approach of better days. And so perhaps it was. I was moving onwards, though I knew it not, to a happier destiny, and the peace and joy I felt were as the dawn or twilight of the coming day of my redemption.

We reached Liverpool at length, and I was soon at Betley, the native place of my wife, which was to be my temporary home. And now, if I had fallen into good hands, or if the better thoughts and tendencies of my soul had been sufficiently strong, I might have entered at once on a happier course. But I encountered an unlooked-for difficulty. As I have said, my intention was, on landing in England, to begin a periodical, and to keep apart from persons of extravagant views. I was not a Christian, nor did I, at the time, suppose I should ever become one; but I was an earnest moralist, and I had become more moderate in my ideas both on religious and political subjects. And I was, to some extent, prepared to receive fresh light. I had got an impression,--I had had it for some time before I left America,--that my mind was not in a thoroughly healthy state,--that it was not exactly itself,--that it was so much biassed in favor of irreligion, that it was incapable of doing justice to arguments for a God and Providence, for a spiritual world and a future life. I partly believed, and now I know, that facts and arguments in favor of the great fundamental doctrines of religion, did not affect and influence me so much as they ought,--that my doubts and disbeliefs were stronger than facts or the nature of things warranted. I suspected, what now I regard as past doubt, that erroneous principles, and a defective method of reasoning, and long practice in searching out flaws in arguments, and detecting and exposing errors and pious frauds, had disposed me too strongly to distrust and disbelief,--that I was in fact a slave to bad habits of thought and reasoning, as really as the inveterate drunkard is the slave to his irrational appetite for strong drink. What I should believe in case the freedom of my mind and the just and harmonious action of its powers were fully restored, I could not tell; but I had a strong impression, amounting to something like an assurance, that I should believe more than I did with respect to God and a spiritual world. Had I, on arriving in England, found myself in favorable circumstances, my mind might quickly have recovered its freedom, and returned, in part at least, to the faith of its earlier days. But this was not my lot. I was beset with new temptations, and was doomed to further disappointments.

The Secularists had got out a prospectus of a new paper, and I was urged to become one of the editors; and thinking that it would seem mean and selfish to begin a paper of my own under such circumstances, I reluctantly consented. I however stipulated for full control over one half of the paper, and when I found that articles of a disgraceful and mischievous tendency were published in the other half, I published a special notice in mine, every week, that I was not answerable for those articles.

In August 1860 my wife and children arrived in England. They were sorry to find me in connection with that paper and with the party which it represented; and they set themselves at once to work to bring about a change; and it was not long before they succeeded. A book, written by a leading Secularist, was sent to me for review. When I read it, I found that its object was to undermine marriage and bring it into disrepute, and to induce men and women to abandon honorable wedlock, and to substitute for it unbounded sensual license. It was the filthiest, the most horrible and revolting production I had ever read. This loathsome book had already been advertised in the paper of which I was one of the editors, and in the part of the paper over which I had no control, it had been strongly recommended. I found, too, that it had been very extensively circulated among the readers of the paper, and that the Secularist leaders were adopting measures to promote its still more extensive circulation. I at once exposed the villainous production in my portion of the paper. As far as a respect for decency would permit, I laid its loathsome and horrible abominations before my readers. This led to an instant, a total, and final separation between me and the friends of the licentious book.

I now commenced a Paper of my own, and I said to myself, and I said to my children: "I will now re-read the Bible; I will examine Christianity; I will review the history of the Church; I will examine the character and workings of the various religious organizations of the day; and whatever I find in them that is true or good, I will lay before my readers. I am not a Christian," said I; "and I never expect to be one; but I will do justice to the Christian cause to the best of my ability. I have said and written enough on the skeptical side: I will see what there is to be said on the Christian side."

I had no idea of the greatness of the task I was undertaking. I supposed that ten or a dozen articles would be sufficient to set forth all that was true and good in the Bible. But when I came to examine the Book, with my somewhat altered views, and enlarged experience, and chastened feelings, I found in it treasures of truth and goodness, of beauty and blessedness, of which, even in my better days, I seemed to have had but a very inadequate conception. I was touched with a hundred precepts of mercy and tenderness in the laws of Moses. I was startled and delighted with many Old Testament stories. The character of Job, as portrayed in the twenty-ninth and thirty-first chapters of the book that goes under his name, melted me to tears. I was delighted with the purity and tenderness, the beauty and sublimity of the Psalms. I was amazed at the depth and vastness of the wisdom of the Book of Proverbs. I was pleased with the stern fidelity with which the prophets rebuked the vices and the crimes, the selfishness and cruelty, of the sinners of their days, and the tenderness and devotion with which they pleaded the cause of the poor, the fatherless, and the widow. When I came to the Gospels, and read again the wonderful story of the Man of Nazareth, my whole soul gave way. The beauty, the tenderness, the glory of His character overpowered me. I was ashamed, that I should ever have so fearfully misconceived it, and done it such grievous injustice. The tears rolled from my eyes, moistening the book in which I was reading, and the paper on which I was writing. But I proceeded with my task. I pondered every word He uttered, and was delighted with His glorious revelations of God, and truth, and duty. I gazed on all His wondrous works. I marked, I studied, every trait in his character. I read the sad story of His trials. I traced him through all His sufferings. I saw the indignities and cruelties to which He was subjected, and I saw the meekness, the patience, and the fortitude with which He suffered. I saw Him on the cross. I heard the prayer which He offered in the midst of His agonies in behalf of His murderers, 'Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.' And still I read, and still I gazed, and still I listened. I was entranced. I had thought to stand at a distance; to look at Jesus with the eye of a philosopher and moralist only, and calmly and coolly to take His portrait; but I was overpowered. The strange, the touching sight drew me nearer. The loving one got hold of me. His infinite tenderness, His transcendent goodness, the glory of His whole character, and life, and doctrine took me captive; and I was no way loth to be held by such charms. He had won me entirely. I loved Him with all my heart and soul. I was His,--His disciple, His servant, entirely, and forever. And I wanted no other treasure but to share His love, and no other employment but to share His work. I was, though but very imperfectly enlightened on many things, and exceedingly weak and imperfect in many respects, most blessedly and indissolubly wedded to Christ and His cause.

I drew the portrait of the Saviour to the best of my ability, and sent the articles to the press. It fell to the lot of my children, in correcting the press, to read those articles. And when they read them, they too wept, and one said to another, "Father is coming right; he will be himself again by and by." And they were right in thinking so. I had come in contact with the Great Healer. I had got a sight of One on whom it is impossible to look steadfastly and long without experiencing a thorough transformation of soul. And so it was with me. From my first look I became less and less of a skeptic, and more and more of a believer in Christianity, till my transformation was complete.

The more I read the Bible with my altered feelings and change of purpose, the more was I impressed with its transcendent worth, and the more was I influenced by its renovating power. I saw that whatever might be said with regard to particular portions of the Book, it was, as a whole, the grandest revelation of truth and duty that the mind of man could conceive. I could no longer find in my heart to talk or write about what appeared to be its imperfections. There were passages that seemed dark or doubtful: there were some that seemed erroneous or contradictory; but they amounted to nothing. They did not affect the scope, the drift, the aim, the tendency of the Book as a whole. They might not be consistent with certain erroneous theories of inspiration, or with certain unguarded statements of extravagant theologians; but they were consistent with the belief that the book, as a whole, was worthy of the Great Good being from whom it was said to have come, and adapted to the illumination and salvation of the race to which it had been given. Christianity began to present itself to my mind as the truest philosophy; as the perfection of all wisdom and goodness. While it met man's spiritual wants, and cheered him with the promise of eternal bliss, it was manifestly its tendency to promote his highest interests even in the present world. As the clouds that had darkened my mind passed away, it become plain as the light, that if mankind could be brought to receive its teachings, and to live in accordance with its principles, the world would become a paradise.

2. I reviewed Church History. While under the influence of anti-Christian views and feelings, I had read the history of the Church and Christianity with a view to justify my unbelief, rather than with a desire to know the simple truth. I had looked more for facts which could be used to damage the Church, than for fair full views of things. My mind had dwelt particularly on the Church's quarrels, its divisions, its intolerance, and its wars;--on the favor which the clergy had sometimes shown to slavery and to despotism;--on their asceticisms, fanaticisms, and follies; and on cases of fraud, and selfishness, and impurity. I had read as an advocate retained to plead the cause of unbelief, rather than as a candid judge, or an unbiassed student, anxious to know and teach the whole truth. I was not conscious of my unfairness at the time, but I now began to see that I had been influenced by my irreligious passions and prejudices. I saw, on looking over my Guizot for instance, that I had marked the passages which contained matters not creditable to the clergy, and passed unnoticed those portions of the work which set forth the services which the Church and Christianity had rendered to civilization. I also remembered how eagerly I had swallowed the unfair representations and fallacious reasonings of Buckle with regard to Christianity and skepticism, and how impatiently I had hurried over what reviewers friendly to Christianity said on the other side of the subject. The balance of my mind was at length restored. I now saw that Christianity had proved itself the friend of peace and freedom, of learning and science, of trade and agriculture, of temperance and purity, of justice and charity, of domestic comfort and national prosperity. The history of Christianity was the history of our superior laws, of our improved manners, of our beneficent institutions, of our schools of learning, of our boundless wealth, of our constitutional governments, of our unequalled literature, of our world-wide influence, of our domestic happiness, and of all that goes to make up our highest forms of civilization. Imperfectly as it had been understood, and defectively as it had been reduced to practice, Christianity had placed the nations of Europe at the head of the human race. Christian nations were the most enlightened and virtuous, the most prosperous and powerful, the most free and happy of all the nations of the earth. The pious frauds, the intolerance and persecutions, the oppressions and wrongs, the selfishness and sin, which were found in the history of the Church, were not the effects of Christianity, but the effects of passions and principles directly opposed to its spirit and teachings.

3. I looked at the Churches of the day. I found them all at work for the education of the young, and for the instruction and salvation of the world. I saw them building schools and chapels, and supplying them with teachers and preachers. I saw them printing books, and tracts, and Bibles, and spreading them abroad in all directions. I saw them founding libraries and reading-rooms, and young men's Christian associations, and ladies' sewing societies. I saw them sending out missionaries abroad, and carrying on a multitude of beneficent operations at home. I asked for the schools and libraries, the books and periodicals, the halls of science and the missionary operations of the enemies of Christianity; but they were nowhere to be found. They _talked_ about education, but instructed no one. They talked about science, but did nothing for its spread or its advancement. They abused Christians for neglecting men's temporal interests, but did nothing to promote men's earthly happiness themselves. They found fault with Sunday-schools, and talked of the faults of Christians, but never corrected their own. They talked of liberty, and practised tyranny. They complained of intolerance, yet followed such as renounced their society, or questioned their views, with the bitterest reproaches, and the most heartless persecution. They talked of reform, but sowed the seeds of rebellion, anarchy, and unbounded licentiousness.

The Christians had the advantage over their adversaries even in outward appearance. They were cleaner and better clad, and were more orderly in their deportment. There was quite a contrast between the crowds of Christians that passed along the streets to their places of worship, and the knots of Godless, Christless men who strolled along, or sat in their doors, in their dirty clothes, with their unwashed faces, smoking their pipes, or reading their filthy papers. There was a contrast between Christian congregations and infidel meetings. One had the appearance of purity and elevation; while the other had the stamp of pollution and degradation. Irreligion seemed the nurse of coarseness and barbarism. Some of the secularists actually argued against civilization, as Rousseau had done before them. One of them reprinted Burke's ironical work in favor of the savage state, and sent it to me for review, and was greatly offended because I refused to recommend it as a sober, serious, philosophical treatise to my readers.

It was plain that there was something wrong in infidelity; that its tendency was to vice and depravity; while Christianity, whether it was divine in its origin or not, was evidently the friend and benefactor of our race.

In 1862, some friends of mine at Burnley, who had built a public hall there, engaged me as their lecturer. The parties were unbelievers, but they were opposed to the advocates of unbounded license. They were favorable to morality, and wished to have an association that should embody what they thought good in the Church, without being decidedly religious. They wished to have music and singing at the Sunday meetings, and to limit public discussion to the week-night meetings. They also wished to have Sunday-schools, day-schools, reading-rooms, and libraries. We had come to the conclusion that the Christians were right on the whole in their way of conducting their public meetings, and we were resolved to imitate them as far as we honestly could. And here I lived and labored for more than a year. We did not succeed however so well as we had expected. Our singers, and musicians, and Sunday-school teachers had no high and powerful motive to keep them regularly at their posts, so that whenever a strong temptation came to lure them away, they ran from their tasks, and left me and another or two to toil alone. We then formed a Church, and made laws, thinking to keep our associates to their duty in that way. But this made matters worse. Their fancies and pleasures were their laws, and they would obey no other. Most of our teachers left, and I and a friend or two had to teach the school ourselves. My friends established a day-school, and hired a teacher; but he turned out to be an unbounded license man; he brought with him, in fact, an unmarried woman instead of his wife, and they found it necessary to get rid of him as soon as they could.

All the time I was at Burnley my heart first, and then my head, were coming nearer and nearer to Christ and Christianity. I gradually gave up my opposition both to religion and to the churches. The last lecture in which I gave utterance to anything unfavorable to the Bible was one on Noah's flood. I spoke on the subject by request, and against my inclination, and before I had got half through I began to feel unutterably dissatisfied with myself. I was really unhappy. From that time forward I dwelt chiefly on moral subjects, and often took occasion to speak favorably of the Bible and Christianity. I tried to explain what was dark, and to set forth what was manifestly true and good in their teachings.

I lectured on the wisdom of the Book of Proverbs, on the beauty of Christ's character, and on the excellency of many of His doctrines, on the advantages of faith in Christ, and on the follies and vices of infidel secularism, and on quite a number of other Christian subjects.

My younger son came to reside at Burnley while I was there, and we had frequent talks as we walked together along the fields and lanes, and over the neighboring hills; and this also helped to bring me nearer to Christ and His Church. I read the works of Epictetus at this time, and my faith in God and immortality, and my love of virtue too, were strengthened by his reasonings.

About the same time a person wrote to me to go and lecture at Goole. I went. No subject had been named to me, and I resolved to speak in favor of the leading practical principles of Christianity. When I got to Goole, I found that the man who had invited me had put up a bill, calling on his neighbors and fellow-townsmen to come and hear the triumphant opponent of Christianity demolish their religion. I told him he should not have put forth a bill like that,--that I was not an opponent of Christianity,--that I was not an enemy of the churches,--that I had no desire to demolish religion,--that I wished to bring people to cherish and practise the leading principles of Christianity. This rather puzzled and distressed him; but notwithstanding his disappointment, he would have me lecture. The meeting was out of doors. I soon had a large audience. I quickly undeceived such as had come expecting to hear me vilify the Bible, the churches, or religion. I spoke in the highest terms of Christ and His teachings. I showed that many of them were the perfection of wisdom and goodness. I spoke of the causes of human wretchedness, and showed that obedience to the teachings of Christ and His Apostles would remove them all. Many things that I said, and especially some remarks I made on domestic duties and domestic happiness, went home to the hearts of my hearers. Not a murmur was heard from any quarter. Men nudged each other, and women looked in each others' faces, and all gave signs that they felt the truth of my remarks, and the wisdom of my counsels, and the meeting ended as satisfactorily as could be desired.

It was while I was living at Burnley that I began again to pray. A young atheist died, and I was invited to his funeral, and requested to speak at his grave. When we got to the cemetery the little chapel was occupied by another company, and we had to wait some time for our turn. My mind was in a sad and solemn mood, and I left my party and wandered to the farther end of the cemetery. It was a bright and beautiful day in April. The grass was springing fresh and green, and the hawthorn buds were opening, and everything seemed full of life, and big with promise. The sun was shining in all his glory. The thrushes and the blackbirds were singing in the surrounding groves and thickets, and the larks were pouring forth their melody in the air. Yet all was dark and sorrowful within. I felt the misery of unbelief, yet felt myself unable to free myself from its horrible and tormenting power. I had a growing conviction that I was the slave of a vicious method of reasoning, and of an inveterate habit of unreasonable or excessive doubt, and that I had not the power to do God and Christianity justice. I felt as if I ought to pray, but something whispered, "It is irrational." No matter, I could refrain no longer: and lifting up my tearful eyes to heaven I exclaimed, "God help me." He did help me. He strengthened my struggling soul from that hour, and gave to the good within me a growing power over the evil. I dried my tears and returned to my party. I spoke at the poor young Atheist's grave, and concluded my address with the following prayer, "May trust in God, and the hope of a better life, and the love of truth and virtue, and delight in doing good, remain with all who have them, and come to all who have them not. Amen."

The gentleman with whom I had lived at Burnley had said to me on the morning of that very day, that if I prayed at the funeral he should never think well of me more. He afterwards said, when he heard of the prayer I had offered, he had no objection to a prayer like that. He was not aware of the shorter prayer that I had offered when alone, or he would have spoken probably in another strain. He was dreadfully opposed to religion, and very uneasy when he saw me moving in the direction of Christianity.

Among the friends who left the church on account of my expulsion, was Samuel Methley, of Mirfield, near Huddersfield. He was rather eccentric in some respects; but he was an honest, earnest, kind, and Christian man. He had had little or no school instruction, and he had nothing that could be called learning, or high intellectual culture; but he was a man of great faith, of much love, and much prayer. His affection and reverence for me were almost unbounded, and so long as I continued a believer in Christ, he was ready to go with me any lengths in Evangelical reform. When I ran into politics he was somewhat staggered, but followed me as far as he durst. When I began to be skeptical he stood still, afraid, and very unhappy. On one occasion he ventured to rebuke me; but I knew that the rebuke was the offspring of affection, and I took it quietly. When I went to America he was greatly distressed, and prayed for me most anxiously and earnestly. When he found I had become an unbeliever, he resolved never to go near a meeting of mine again, and prayed to God to help him to keep his resolution. For many years he tried to wean himself from me, to extinguish his passionate regard for me; but whenever he found that I was to lecture in his neighborhood, he lost his self-control, and came, though with reluctance, and many misgivings, to my meetings. He generally rose after my lectures, to protest against my extravagances, and to testify his uncontrollable affection for me, and his anxious desire for my salvation. To do otherwise than take his remarks in good part was impossible. Poor, dear, good man! I little thought at the time how much distress and pain I was causing him. When he found that I was coming back to Christ, he was joyful beyond measure. When he heard me preach on true religion, he was in transports. At a meeting that followed, he spoke with so much feeling and fervor, that I was obliged to try to check him a little, for fear the violence of his excitement should injure his feeble and failing health. My conversion, though but partial then, gave him the utmost delight.

At length his feeble frame gave way, and he sank into his bed to rise no more. He sent me word that he was very desirous to see me, and I visited him without delay. He was very ill. His voice was almost gone, and he spoke with great difficulty. He told me he wished me, when he was gone, to preach his funeral sermon, and write his epitaph, and take charge of a manuscript containing the story of his life. I told him I would do so. He then spoke of his trust in God, his love of Christ, and his hopes of a blessed immortality, while tears of joy stood glistening in his eyes. He then referred to some matters that had tried him sadly, but added: "I have cast my care on God." He tried to speak of his feelings towards me, but said: "Those papers (referring to the story of his life) will tell you all." At last he said: "Pray with me, Joseph." I had not prayed with any one for many years, but I said at once: "I will, Sammy;" and I fell on my knees, and prayed by his side. He then, weak as he was, prayed earnestly for me, and for my wife and family.

He died a few weeks after. I preached his funeral sermon on the following Sunday, in May, 1863, in a field near the house in which he had lived and died, from the text: "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his." There was an immense congregation, consisting of people of all denominations, both infidel and Christian, from every part of the surrounding district. When speaking of his conduct in clinging to the religion of Christ, instead of following me into the regions of doubt and unbelief, I declared my conviction that he had done right. "He had read little," said I, "and I had read much: yet he was the wiser man of the two. His good religious instincts and feelings kept him right, and kept him happy in the warmth and sunlight of the religion of Christ; while my vain reasonings carried me astray into the dark and chilling regions of eternal cold and utter desolation. There is a seeming wisdom that is foolishness; and there is a childlike, artless simplicity of faith, which, while it is regarded as foolishness by many, is in truth the perfection of wisdom. There are things which are hid from the wise and prudent, that are revealed to babes. And Jesus was right, when, addressing the self-conceited skeptical critics of His day, He said: 'Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.' My dear departed friend, when trusting in God as his Father, and in Christ as his Saviour, and living a godly life, was right, while I, in distrusting the promptings of my religious instincts and affections, and committing myself to the reasonings of a cold and heartless logic, was wrong. The new-born babe, that rests untroubled in its mother's arms, and, without misgiving, sucks from her breast the milk so wonderfully provided for it, does the best and wisest thing conceivable. In obeying its instincts, it obeys the great good Author of its being, and lives. If--to suppose what is happily an impossibility--if the child should discard its instincts, and refuse to trust its mother, till it had logical proof of her trustworthiness; and, distrusting its natural cravings, should refuse to take the nutriment provided for it, till it could ascertain by chemical analysis and physiological investigation, that it was just the kind of food which it required, it would die. My departed friend was the happy, confiding child, and saved his soul alive; while I was the analytical and logical doubter, and all but starved my miserable soul to death. Thank God, I have lived to see my error. The loving, trusting Christian is right. The religion of Jesus is substantially true and divine; and, thus far, I declare myself a Christian."

It was a beautiful, summer-like day. The sun shone brightly, and the winds were low, and the vast congregation was orderly and attentive, and many were much affected. The report that I had declared myself a Christian, without any qualification annexed, got into the papers, and ran through the country. To many it gave the greatest satisfaction. Good, kind Christians came round me wherever I went, testifying their delight and gratitude. Some wept for joy. Unbelievers were greatly annoyed at the tidings of my conversion, and some of them came and entreated me to give the report a public contradiction. This I refused to do. True, the papers said somewhat more than I had said; but the statement they gave was true in substance, so I let it pass, and the growing change for the better in my views and feelings soon made it true in form.