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To INFIDELITY AND BACK.

To Christ by Way of Rationalism, Unitarianism and Infidelity.

I inherited on the one hand a strong religious nature, and on the other a tendency to be independent in thought and to question everything before adopting it as a part of my belief. Ever since I can remember I was a praying boy, and early in life there came to me the desire to devote myself to the ministry of the gospel.

Among my earliest religious impressions were those received by having the story of the Patriarchs and Jesus read to me in German by a saintly old Mennonite for whom I worked on the farm for a year. Among the first things that aroused my reason in religion was the declaration of my Sunday-school teacher that before we are born we are predestined by God either to go to heaven or to hell, and that anything we might do would not alter our eternal destiny. This declaration came like a thunderbolt into my religious life, and stirred up a violent agitation from which it took me ten years to fully deliver myself. I was now about fourteen years old, and already had a desire to measure everything in the crucible of logic or cause and effect, and to accept nothing which did not come within the range of my reason. Looking at things from the standpoint of cause and effect, I was naturally caught in the meshes of fatalism, and this aggravated the religious agitation above referred to.

At this time in my life there arose many religious questions, and the answers I received from religious teachers tended to drive me away from the church rather than to it. I feel to-day that if my case had been clearly understood and the nature and the limits of the finite mind had been patiently pointed out to me, in its relation to faith and revelation, I could have been saved years of agony on the sea of rationalism. But my questions were not answered and my honest doubts were rebuked, so that I was naturally driven out of sympathy with the church and Bible, since I judged that my doubts could not be satisfied because religion itself is unreasonable.

Through the kindness of Christian people the way opened to prepare myself for the ministry. But by this time many religious doubts and perplexities were in the way, and I decided that I would a thousand times rather be an honest doubter out of the church and ministry than a hypocrite in it. Thus my fond hope of entering the ministry had to be given up, and instead I determined to use the teaching profession as a stepping-stone to law, and law as a means of serving humanity.

I was very fond of study, and read scores of books on all kinds of subjects. Emerson was my favorite, and I procured and read his complete works. Gibbon and Macaulay were eagerly read as revealing some of the religious life of the world. Ingersoll, with many others, got his turn. But the book that produced the greatest effect on my life at this time was Fleetwood's "Life of Christ," with a short history of the different religious bodies of the world attached. Through my reading and observations I became greatly perplexed over the religious divisions of the world. I discovered that thousands of people had died as martyrs for all kinds of religions and sects, and that each claimed to have the truth and to teach the right way to heaven. I concluded that since they teach such contradictory doctrines they cannot possibly all be right, although they might all be wrong. I formed a desire to make a thorough study of all the different religious bodies of the world, to find out where the truth is, if there is any in religion. My first information along this line was obtained in the above-named history of the religious bodies of the world. Being of a rationalistic turn of mind, I was naturally very favorably impressed with Unitarianism and its teaching. I sent for a number of their works and read them with great interest. I learned many things that have been a benediction to my life ever since, but you will see later on how far it satisfied my rationalistic proclivities. I learned to my delight that I could enter a Unitarian theological school to prepare for the ministry without first joining a church or signing a creed. For a person in my state of mind nothing better could have presented itself. I determined to go there and make a thorough study of the Bible and all the different religious bodies, and to fearlessly follow the truth wherever it might lead me.

The time came and I entered the school. And a fine school it was from an intellectual standpoint and for the purpose of investigation. I have been a student at six educational institutions since I left the high school, but this was far ahead of the others for the development of the logical and philosophical faculties. Here there was absolutely no restraint to thought; and all kinds of systems and ideas were represented, from philosophical anarchy to socialism and from mysticism to materialism. The moral and spiritual earnestness I expected to find among the Unitarians I did not find, especially among the younger and more radical ones. Its effect, on the whole, was to relax rather than intensify the moral fiber. Their ideals seemed so grand and noble that I thought those possessed with them could scarcely find time to eat and sleep in their zeal to put them into practise; but I discovered that they not only had plenty of time to eat and sleep, but also for dancing, card-playing, theater-going, etc. Many of the young men studying for the ministry often spent a large part of the night in card-playing, and the Sunday-school room served also as a dancing-floor. Unitarians pride themselves upon the high standard of morality among their people and upon the few prisoners you find among their members, but this is due to the character of the people they reach rather than to the restraining influence of their teaching

My reading had given me a wrong impression as to the teaching of Unitarianism. Like many others, I was fascinated and enticed by the writings of conservative Unitarians, whose contention is largely against the bad theology of human creeds; but the present-day teaching of the vanguard of Unitarianism is an entirely different thing. It rejects all the miraculous in the Bible, and, in many cases, even denies the existence of a personal God. All the students were required to conduct chapel prayers in turn. Those who did not believe in a personal God explained that they were pronouncing an apostrophe to the great impersonal and unknowable force working in the universe. I had read Channing, Clark, Hale, Emerson, and other conservative Unitarians, and found much food for my soul, but I discovered that these were considered old "fogies" and back numbers by most of the students in attendance.

But I must tell you of my evolution along the line of rationalism. My rationalistic proclivities were given a free rein. And as a child, when left to run away, will soon stop and return to its mother, so this freedom was the natural cure for my intellectual delusion. To the statement of the creeds, "The Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God; and yet there are not three Gods, but one God," my rationalism replied, that is logically inconceivable, therefore I became a Unitarian. No sooner was I happy in this faith than a Universalist addressed me and said, "If you want to be rational, you must give up your belief in eternal punishment, for God could not give eternal punishment for a finite sin." As a rationalist, what could I do but yield, and so I became a universalist Unitarian. I felt I had at last found the truth, but my peace was short; for a student accused me of being irrational, "because," said he, "an omnipotent, loving God would give an infinitely large amount of good and an infinitely small amount of evil; but an infinitely small amount of evil is not perceptible, evil is perceptible, therefore there is no such God." This was an awful pill and gave a terrible shock to my religious sensibilities, but as rationalism was my guide, I had to follow on or stand accused as a superstitious coward.

Again rationalism declared, through my teachers, that all the supernatural must be eliminated from the Bible as mythical and unreliable, and so I was robbed of my Christ, my God and my Bible. Misguided by rationalism, I thought it my conscientious duty to accept, step by step, the dictates of destructive criticism until the Bible was only inspired to me in religion as Kant in philosophy, Milton in poetry, and Beethoven in music. But when I came to the end of the matter I discovered that my conscience, which had urged me along, was gone also. For I was gravely taught that conscience is merely a creature of experience and education, and that it is right to lie or do anything else so long as you do it out of love. Doubtless you have all heard of the farmer and his wife at the World's Fair who went to see the "Exit." There was nothing in it, and of course they had to pay to get in again. This was my bitter experience with rationalism. I thought I was following a great light, but I discovered there was nothing in it, that I was following an ignis fatuus. Rationalism has indeed proven the "Exit" to multitudes, from the peace, joy and moral security that accompany faith in evangelical Christianity into the desert of doubt, darkness and despair.

But not even here did I find a staying-place. For rationalism, in its bold confidence, led me on and on until it brought me to materialism and absurdity. In going too far, it revealed its true nature and character, and thus led me to see its fallacy and enabled me to get free from its bondage. From atheism it led me to fatalism, and declared that there is no free will and consequently people are not to blame for their sins and shortcomings. If we "shall reap as we sow," it declared that we cannot give anything to anybody and therefore philanthropy is a delusion.

But I taught rationalism in guile one day by which it thoroughly exhibited the absurdity of its teaching. Its continual song was, "You dare not believe what you cannot conceive to be true." So it declared one day, in its bold folly, that an object cannot move in the space in which it is, nor in the space in which it is not; therefore you cannot conceive of an object moving; therefore you cannot move to walk, eat or live. So the conclusion to which my rationalistic guide finally led me was that I must sit down and die or be irrational. Well, this was too much for me. I refused to die, and concluded that rationalism is not a safe guide, and commenced to investigate as to where the difficulty lay.

But before I tell you how I discovered the false tricks of rationalism, let me say that all these things into which rationalism led me were against my strong religious nature, and gave me continual and excruciating pain. I never for a day ceased to pray to God for help; for while my intellect was held in doubt through the bondage of rationalism, my heart held on to God, and thus I was in a mighty conflict. In my despair I cried unto God, and when he had accomplished his purpose concerning me, he set me free. Blessed be his name! Surely "he bringeth the blind by a way that they knew not, and leads them into paths that they have not known. He makes darkness light before them, and crooked things straight, and does not utterly forsake the honest in heart."

Most people have come to their religious and political position by heredity and are held there by inertia. If you can set a person free from this hereditary inertia, you can convert him to almost anything at will; for it is but few who are sufficiently informed on any subject to defend it against an expert, and none are thus qualified on all subjects. So when I entered this school, free from all hereditary ideas, determined to accept every position that I could not refute in argument, you can imagine my experience. At first I was converted from one thing to another by the different students and professors until I was about all the "arians," "isms," and "ists" ever heard of, together with a number of other things for which they have no names as yet.

But how did I discover the fallacy of rationalism? and how was I delivered from its mighty clutches by which it had dragged me from one pitfall to another so ruthlessly? My deliverance came from a source where you would perhaps least expect it. It was through the study of John Stuart Mill's "System of Logic." In it I learned "that inconceivability is not a criterion of impossibility," as rationalism claims. On the other hand, that we know things to be true that are just as inconceivable as that there can be two mountains without a valley between.

Let me introduce a few of these contradictions or inconceivabilities. Before you can reach your mouth with your hand, you must go over half the distance, then half of the rest, then half of the rest, and so on ad infinitum. But you cannot make the infinite number of divisions, and therefore you cannot reach your lips. Again, you cannot conceive of extension of space or time without a limit, nor can you conceive of a limit to space or time. Here conceivability contradicts itself. Furthermore, you cannot conceive of existence without a cause, nor of a cause without existence. To the statement of the believer that, "as the wonderful mechanism of the watch presumes a designer, so the infinitely more wonderful mechanism of the universe presumes God, the infinite designer," Ingersoll replied that this is simply to jump over the difficulty by an infinite assumption. Ingersoll, on the other hand, claimed that the material universe has always existed; apparently unaware that he thus was guilty of the same fallacy of which he accused others, by assuming infinite existence without a cause. The difference is that the believer's assumption gives us a personal God, a kind, loving heavenly Father who provides for the eternal bliss and welfare of his children, while Ingersoll's assumption gives death and darkness and despair.

An object thrown from one point to another is always at some point, therefore it has no time to move from one point to another. And yet we know that it does move, even though we cannot conceive how it can do so. Again, suppose that the hour-hand of your clock is at eleven and the minute-hand at twelve. Now, you cannot conceive how the minute-hand can overtake the hour-hand, although you know by observation that it does overtake it. For by the time the minute-hand gets to eleven, the hour-hand has passed on to twelve, and by the time the minute-hand has reached twelve, the hour-hand has passed beyond it. Every time the minute-hand comes to where the hour-hand now is, the hour-hand has passed beyond. The distance becomes less and less, but theoretically, or in conceivability, the one can never overtake the other.

Through this line of reasoning I learned, clearly and once for all, that inconceivability is not a proof of impossibility; but, on the other hand, that we know many things to be true that are not conceivable to the finite mind, and therefore we must follow truth learned by experience and observation, irrespective of rationalism. In this way the mighty fetters of rationalism that held me in bondage were cut and I was set free to search for the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. I learned the limitations of the finite intellect and the truth of God's word when he says: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." "Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe."

After the empirical school of philosophy had taught me that we must follow inductions based on experience and observation rather than rationalism or conceivability, I began to value Paul's admonition, "Prove all things, hold fast to that which is good." If inductive philosophers have often been opposed to religion and the Bible, it is because they have not carried their inductions far enough to cover the entire world of facts. It is admitted by all historians and observers that prayer and faith and religious convictions have been among the mightiest forces at work in the world, and any system of reasoning that does not take these facts into consideration is neither philosophical nor scientific.

To illustrate what is meant by saying that we must follow experience rather than conceivability, let us suppose that you are suffering from a malignant disease and you hear of a medicine that has cured this disease whenever it has been tried, and you know of nothing else that will cure it. Would it not be foolish for you to refuse to use the medicine because you cannot conceive how it produces the cure? It might be discovered later that it was not the medicine, but your belief in its curative qualities, that produced the result. But this would not affect your common-sense duty in the matter. If certain desirable results follow the doing of a certain thing, we are bound to do that thing until we know how to get the good results without doing it.

This reveals the folly and inhumanity of the conduct of some infidels towards religious people. When I was minister of a church in Ohio, I was visited by a noted infidel. After he went on in a tirade against preachers and Christians, I asked him if he was not an unhappy man. At first he denied it; but I called his attention to some of his utterances, and he soon admitted that he was a very unhappy man. But he said he was unhappy because he knew too much, and claimed that Christians were so happy because they were ignorant and deluded. He claimed to be a great lover of humanity, and although, according to his profession, he had no God or conscience or judgment to require it of him, he spent his time in spreading the knowledge and wisdom which made people unhappy by destroying that which he admitted gave people great joy and peace and happiness. Suppose a man should come to town who is as lean as a skeleton and is slowly dying because he is not getting enough nourishment out of the food he eats, and should begin to lecture well-nourished and healthy people for eating the food they are eating. Would we not put him down as a fool? Well, if he would add the claim that we are well fed because we are ignorant and deluded, while he is suffering and dying because he knows too much on the food question, he would be on a par with many of our infidelic friends.

It is said that Beecher and Ingersoll were both present at a banquet in New York City. Ingersoll brought a railing accusation against Christianity. Everybody expected Beecher to reply, but he held his peace until later in the evening, when it became his turn to speak. When Beecher arose he said: "When I came to this hall to-night I saw an old, crippled woman wending her way across the crowded street on crutches. When she had reached about midway, a burly ruffian came along and knocked the crutches out from under her, and she fell splash into the mud." Turning to Ingersoll, he said, "What do you think of that, Colonel?" "The villain!" replied Ingersoll. Beecher, pointing to Ingersoll, said: "Thou art the man! Suffering, heart-broken, dying humanity is wending its way through this world of sorrow and turmoil on the crutches of Christianity. You, sir, come along and knock them out from under them, but offer nothing in their place." It was a crushing blow to Ingersoll and his gospel of despair.

We do not understand how spirit and matter can be inter-related, and we can not conceive that our willing it can move our arm; but this does not deter us from moving, because we know through experience that we can move. We do not understand the philosophy of digestion, and we cannot conceive how bread and butter can have any relation to thought and life; but we know by experience that they do, and we go on eating and living. We cannot conceive how the same grass produces lamb, pork and beef; but we keep on raising stock just the same, because we are guided by facts learned by experience and observation rather than by conceivability. We do reach our mouth, the minute-hand does overtake the hour-hand, objects do move in space, etc., rationalism and inconceivability to the contrary notwithstanding.

Man is a religious being, and we know by experience that religion gives him joy and brings him good. If we had no revealed religion, science and duty would compel us to develop a religious system out of our religious experiences. This is what has actually been done by the different peoples of the earth who know not the revelation of God in the Bible. The secret of the hold that even a false religion has upon people is the fact that it does them good and gives them happiness by exercising the pious emotions of their being, even though it may bring them harm in other ways. Even a religion based on human experience is better than none; for it is better to feed the religious nature on husks than to starve it out altogether. To this agree the words of Paul when he says that God "made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth… that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him." But while man, unaided by direct revelation, can grope in the dark and feel after God, and can invent systems of religion based on experience that are better than none, any man that accepts facts and testimony will soon discover that God has not thus left us in the dark oil religious matters, but has "appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he has ordained, whereof he has given assurance unto all men, in that he has raised him from the dead."

It is said that a lawyer and a noted preacher, who was a lecturer, happened to meet at a hotel breakfast-table. The lawyer suspected that his companion was a preacher, and, as he was an infidel, he thought he had a good opportunity to give a thrust at the Bible.

"Excuse me," said the lawyer, "I take it from your appearance that you are a preacher."

"Yes, sir," said the preacher.

"Well, now," said the lawyer, "don't you find a great many contradictions and difficulties you cannot understand in the Bible?"

"Yes, sir," replied the preacher.

"How, then," said the lawyer, "can you continue to believe in it?"

"Why," said the preacher, "do you see what I am doing with the bones of this fish? I lay them aside and enjoy the good of the fish. So with the Bible. I lay aside the things I cannot understand, and feast upon the rich spiritual food it contains, willing to wait until all mysteries shall be removed hereafter."

If the finite mind could understand everything contained in the Bible, it would become worthless as a revelation, for the finite mind could produce it. But since it reveals the infinite mind, we must expect it to contain things that the finite mind cannot understand. We can understand the evidence that it is from God and for our good, and it is reasonable that we should accept its great truths by faith, although we may not now be able to see how all the truths it reveals are consistent with each other. "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man."

As has often been said, no one can do better than to live the pure, clean, benevolent life that Jesus inculcated and incarnated. If you imitate him in goodness and good deeds, you are pursuing the best possible course, even if the Bible is not true. If, on the other hand, the Bible is true, and you do not live for Christ, you are doomed for ever and ever.