NEW INFIDEL PAPER. 333 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 disappoint ments. 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 villanous 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 thirtyfirst 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 over 6 GET A SIGHT OF JESUS. 335 powered 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 REVIEWED CHURCH HISTORY. 337 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 in |