It was alarming enough to see a man convicted for selling my publications: but something still more alarming happened the following day. A most unprincipled and lying witness was brought forward by the Attorney-General. During the trial of one of the Chartist leaders he swore that he had himself formed one of a band of conspirators in Manchester, who pledged themselves to burn the city, and who had prepared the most destructive combustibles to secure the success of their horrible plot. When asked to name the parties composing the meeting at which he said he had been present, he named me as one. I was horrified. I had never seen the man before in all my life, and the idea that I should be a party to such a plot as he had described, was monstrous; but what was to hinder a prejudiced or a frightened jury from believing his testimony? Fortunately for me, the Judge asked him if he saw in court, and could point out, any of the persons he had named as parties to the conspiracy. I stood within two or three yards of him, and looked him full in the face. It was plain from the way in which his wandering eyes passed by me, that whatever other parties he might know, he did not know me. At length he pointed out a person that he said was present at the secret meeting. 'What is his name?' said the Judge. The fellow gave a name. It was not the right one. He pointed out another. 'What is his name?' said the Judge again. The fellow gave a name. He was wrong again. The court got out of patience with the villain, and the Judge ordered him into custody to await his trial on a charge of perjury. This was an unspeakable relief both to me and to my anxious wife and friends, who had witnessed the dreadful affair with the most intense anxiety and alarm.

Some time after this horrible exhibition of baseness, my solicitor came to me and told me that he had had an interview with the Attorney-General, and that he had authorized him to say, that if I would enter into bonds and give securities to keep the peace, he would not ask me to plead guilty, but set me at liberty without more to do. He even offered, at last, to accept my own recognizances to the small amount of fifty pounds, without any other security. I refused the offer. To give bonds to keep the peace seemed like an acknowledgment that I had attempted or threatened to break it; and I had done no such thing. My solicitor said the offer was a very generous one, and pressed me very earnestly to accept it: my counsel did the same; but without effect. A number of friends came round me and tried to remove my objections to the measure: but all was vain. I was sorry to go against their advice, but my feeling was, that to agree to the compromise proposed would be a sacrifice of principle, and would entail dishonor on me, and be followed by self-reproach and shame. At last, to obtain a little respite, and to get out of the way of my importunate friends for a time, I told my solicitor that I would lay the matter before my wife, and that whatever she might advise, I would do. He agreed to this. He was satisfied that there was not a woman in the country that would not advise her husband to make a concession like that required of me, rather than see him run the risk of two or three years' imprisonment.

My wife was at Southport just then, some eighteen miles away, and it was too late for me to get to her that evening, so I had to spend the night alone in Liverpool. I went to bed, but found it impossible to sleep. My anxious mind kept turning over and over the proposal of the Attorney-General, and trying to find some good reason for accepting it; but all in vain. I had promised to be guided by my wife; but suppose she should counsel me to give the required security, could I do so and be happy? It seemed impossible. It struck twelve,—it struck one—two—three, and I was still unsettled. At last I said, 'I will explain my misgivings to my wife,—I will tell her that I feel as if I should never be happy to consent to the compromise,—that I cannot get rid of the feeling that it would be dishonorable. And I know she will never advise me to do anything that I regard as dishonorable.' As soon as I had fairly decided what to do, I fell asleep.

I was at Southport in the morning by the earliest conveyance, and laid the matter before my wife. 'Do nothing,' said she, 'that you regard as a sacrifice of principle, or an act of dishonor. Whatever you believe to be your duty, do it; I am willing to take the consequences.' I answered, 'I believe it my duty to insist on a trial, or on an honorable discharge,' 'Then insist on it,' said she. That was enough. I returned to Liverpool at once, and told my solicitor the result of my interview with my wife, and he communicated the intelligence to the Attorney-General. The Attorney-General was very much vexed, and, using an expression which we cannot with propriety repeat, declared that he would 'make me squeak.'

The result of my refusal was that the Attorney-General put off my case to the very last. On the eleventh day of the Assizes I was placed in the dock with a number of prisoners who had agreed to plead guilty, and enter into bonds. My name was called at length, and I refused either to plead guilty, or to be bound to keep the peace. 'Can there be any man so foolish as not to accept the mercy of her Majesty?' said the Judge. My answer was, that I had committed no crime, and that it was justice that I wanted, and not mercy. 'I demand a trial,' said I, 'or an honorable discharge. I have been arrested on a charge of sedition and conspiracy, and held up before the world as a criminal, and I claim the right of justifying myself before the public, unless I am honorably discharged.' The Judge said I had no need to concern myself about the public,—that the public did not concern itself about me. I answered that the public did concern itself about me; and that I was right in concerning myself about the public. At this point my Counsel rose, and spoke of my character and position, with a view to justify my demand for a trial, or an honorable discharge. The Attorney-General then applied for a postponement of my trial to the following Assizes, alleging that I was the author of a seditious and blasphemous publication. I said the statement was false, and that the Attorney-General had no right to make such a charge against me, and added that to ask a postponement after I and my witnesses had been waiting there eleven days, was most unreasonable. The Judge then asked on what grounds a postponement was desired. When the Attorney-General stated his grounds, the Judge pronounced them insufficient. The Attorney-General then said he should enter a nolle prosequi. Some of my friends, when they heard this, were greatly alarmed. They supposed it to be a threat of something very terrible, and expected to see me carried away at once to prison. And some of the bystanders began to reproach me, and say I was rightly served for not accepting the generous offer of the Attorney-General. I, of course, knew that the Attorney-General's nolle prosequi meant that he would have nothing more to do with me, and that I was now free. While therefore my friends were fearing and trembling, I stood calm and comfortable. After a few moments the Judge said 'You are at liberty, and may retire.'

When my friends found that I was free, they were wild with delight, and flocked round me, eager to shake me by the hand, and give me their congratulations. They were now satisfied that in rejecting the proposal of the Attorney-General, I had done no more than my duty. One gentleman, who had been bail for me, was extravagant enough to declare that I occupied the proudest position of any man in the country. 'You have withstood the tyranny of the Government,' said he, 'and have triumphed.' I hurried home as fast as I could with my happy wife and my exulting friends. When we got there the cannon were roaring and the bands playing. My workmen and neighbors had heard of my triumph, and were celebrating it in the noisiest way they could. Then followed feasting and public congratulations, both at home and in distant parts of the country, and for a time I was quite a hero.

The interference of the authorities with my liberty, and the needless annoyances to which they had subjected me, had roused my indignation to a high pitch, and after my liberation, I wrote and spoke more violently against the Government than I had done before. At length the great excitement in which I had so long lived, and the excessive labors in which I had been so long engaged, exhausted my strength; my health began to fail; I thought my constitution was giving way, so I resolved on some change of position and occupation.

I had long suffered from dyspepsia. For twenty years I had spent so much nervous energy in mental work, that I had not sufficient left to digest my food. And I had suffered in consequence, not only from violent heart-burn, but from a more distressing pain at the pit of my stomach. I had continually, or almost continually, for months together, a feeling as if a red-hot bullet lay burning in my stomach, or as if some living creature was eating a hole through the bottom of it. I took medicine, but it gave me no relief. The disuse of intoxicating drinks had once cured me for a time,—cured me for some years in fact,—but the torturing, depressing sensation came again at last, and seemed more obstinate than ever.

In 1847, as I was leaving home one day in the train, I was seized with a pain of a much more dreadful description. It seemed as if it would burst my stomach, or tear it in pieces, and destroy my life at once. It continued for nearly an hour. It returned repeatedly, and remained sometimes for several hours. In some cases it tortured me all night. Vomiting took it away, so I frequently took warm water to produce vomiting. I was advised to take more exercise in the open air, so I bought a gun and went out shooting. I purchased a horse and carriage too, and went out riding. These did me good. But I found that when I took certain kinds of food, such as rich cakes, rich pies, or rich puddings, the pain returned. So I began to deny myself of those luxuries. But even spare living seemed to lose its effect after a time, and first the gnawing, and then the stretching, tearing, rending pain returned.

In 1849, I took a voyage to America. Vast numbers of my readers wanted to emigrate to America, and they looked to me for information respecting the country. I had given them the best I could get, but they wanted more and better. They wanted me to visit the country, and give them the result of my observations and inquiries. I did so. To fit myself the better for giving them counsel, I crossed the ocean in a common emigrant sailing vessel, and saw how the poor creatures fared. We were nearly eight weeks on the water. For much of the time the winds were idle. They refused to blow. They might have struck for shorter hours or better pay. When they did blow, they blew with all their might, but almost always in the wrong direction; as if they regarded us as their enemies, and were bent on giving us all the annoyance they could. Many were sick; more were discontented; and all longed wearily for land. These eight weeks were the longest ones I ever lived. They looked like years. At length we got a sight of land, and rejoiced exceedingly. For myself, I had other feelings as well as joy, when I first got sight of the great New World of which I had heard, and read, and thought so much, and so long, and of which I had dreamt so often. For America had lived in my thoughts from my early days; and the first faint glimpse of her wooded shores thrilled my whole soul with unspeakable emotions.

We landed. I examined the emigrant boarding houses. I sought information about work and wages, and about means of transport to the West. I called on Horace Greeley and others, to whom I had letters of recommendation, who helped me to books about the West. I made my way through New York, and across Lake Erie to Cleveland. I had three brothers who were settled in different parts of Ohio, and a number of old friends. I visited them. I explored Ohio. I went into Western Virginia, and examined some lands there that had been advertised for sale in England. I passed on to Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. I spent some days in Chicago. The city was awfully dull. The people were despondent. I almost think I could have bought the whole city for fifty thousand pounds. I had a farm offered me for seven dollars and a half an acre, on which now a great part of the city I suppose is built. I went to Milwaukie. There the people seemed more hopeful; though several were leaving for warmer climes. It was autumn, and I treated myself freely to the peaches and other rich fruits of the country. About the end of October I started for England, in one of the Cunard Steamers, crossing the ocean in nine days, about one-sixth of the time I spent in the voyage out.

I gave to my readers an account of all I had seen, and heard, and read, and thousands of them left the land of their birth in search of homes in the domains of the Great Republic. Some got home-sick, and cursed me. Some got profitable work, or promising farms, and blessed me. And I learned two lessons; first, that a man must not look to men for the reward of his beneficent services, but to God and a good conscience; and, second, that some will be miserable, and that some will be happy, go where they may:—that it is not the land they live in, but the dispositions they cherish, and the life they live, that makes their heaven or hell.

I had already made up my mind to settle in America myself, and early in 1851 I disposed of my business, and prepared to transport myself and my family to Central Ohio. I had suffered so long from pain, and weakness, and depression, and I was so utterly wearied with continual over-work, and so disgusted too with the government and institutions of the country, and with some of its inhabitants, that I felt it an infinite relief to be freed from all further care and concern about business, and in the first rush of my new wild joy, I took my gun and blew off part of the top of the chimney of my printing establishment. No child could be wilder in his delight, when escaping from long confinement in a weary school, and starting for the longed-for society and pleasures of his home.

But preparing for a journey of four thousand miles, with wife and children, was itself work enough for a time. There were a hundred things to be bought, which you would need in your new and far off home. And there were a thousand things which you already had, to be packed, and as many more to be set aside, to be destroyed, or sold, or given away. And there were a thousand letters and papers to be examined, and a judgment formed, as to which should be preserved, and which should perish in the flames. And there were visits to be paid and repaid, and there were partings, and regrets, and tears. But all was over at length, and we were on our way to the world beyond the flood.

It was pleasant to get away from one's religious and political opponents, but painful to part with so many devoted friends, who had proved their affection for me and for my family by so many sacrifices, and their steadfastness in times of so much trial. But I had hopes of keeping up my intercourse with them through the Press, and of ministering to their gratification and improvement by sending them accounts of all I saw or learnt of an interesting character in the land to which I was going. I had also hopes that a quiet home, in a retired and peaceful part of a new country, might prove conducive to my own improvement and happiness.

One of the objects I had in view in going to America was to obtain a little quiet for calm reflection on the course I had so long been pursuing, and a sober consideration of the position which I had reached. I was not satisfied that the changes which had taken place in my views and way of life, since my separation from the Church and the ministry, had all been changes for the better. I had had suspicions for some time, that amidst the whirl of perpetual excitement in which I had lived, and the continual succession of angry contests in which I had been engaged, I had probably missed my way on some points, and I wished for a favorable opportunity of ascertaining whether these suspicions were well grounded or not.

But when I got to America I found myself in a condition less friendly to calm reflection and to a just and impartial review of my past history, than the one from which I had fled. The very day we landed in New York we fell in with the Hutchinson family. I had become acquainted with them in England, and had spent some time in their company, and had attended some of their concerts at Leeds. They were to sing that night in New York, and we attended the performance, and were delighted with their sweet wild music, and with their wisdom and their wit. They were all reformers of the radical school, and though their songs and conversation were not immoral or profane, they were advanced beyond the bounds of religion, into the neutral ground of Latitudinarianism.

When we got to Akron, Ohio, we found a Woman's Rights Convention in session; and there we got introduced to a number of advanced spirits, both male and female, and in their society became acquainted with quite a multitude of strange and lawless speculations, of which, till then, we had lived in happy or in woful ignorance. We reached at length the region where we were to make our home, and now other matters engrossed my mind. I had, in the first place, a farm to select, and then the purchase to make. I had then my goods to look after, my house to arrange, and my food to provide. Then work wanted doing on the farm—a hundred kinds of work, all new, and many of them hard and very perplexing. We wanted men to aid us; and men were not to be got; or, when got, were difficult to manage, and hard to please. And horses, and cows, and sheep, were wanted; and poultry, and pigs; and ploughs, and harrows, and wagons, and harness. And stoves and fuel were required. And the house had to be enlarged, and the barns rebuilt, and the gardens cultivated, and the orchard replanted. And a hundred lessons on farming had to be learnt, and a hundred more to be unlearnt. And we were always making mistakes, and sustaining losses. And our neighbors were not all that we could wish; and we were not all that they could wish. It was impossible to avoid impositions, and difficult to take injustice quietly; so we remonstrated, and resisted, and made things worse.

Before we had got ourselves fairly settled we began to be visited by a number of friends. And many of those friends were wilder and more extravagant, in their views on religion and politics, than myself; and instead of helping me to quiet reflection, did much to render such a thing impossible. They were mostly Garrisonian Abolitionists, with whom I had become acquainted while in England, or through the medium of anti-slavery publications. Many of them had had an experience a good deal like my own. They had been members and ministers of churches, and had got into trouble in consequence of their reforming tendencies, and had at length been cast out, or obliged to withdraw. They had waged a long and bitter war against the churches and ministers of their land, and had become skeptics and unbelievers of a somewhat extravagant kind. Henry C. Wright was an Atheist. So were some others of the party. My own descent to skepticism was attributable in some measure to my intercourse with them, and to a perusal of their works, while in England. The first deadly blow was struck at my belief in the supernatural inspiration of the Scriptures by Henry C. Wright. It was in conversation with him too that my belief in the necessity of church organization was undermined, and that the way was smoothed to that state of utter lawlessness which so naturally tends to infidelity and all ungodliness. My respect for the talents of the abolitionists, and the interest I felt in the cause to which they had devoted their lives, and the sympathy arising from the similar way in which we had all been treated by the churches and priesthoods with which we had come in contact, disposed me, first, to regard their skeptical views with favor, and then to accept them as true.

And now they welcomed me to their native land, and embraced the earliest opportunity of visiting me in my new home. And all that passed between us tended to confirm us in our common unbelief. I afterwards found that in some of the abolitionists, in nearly all, I fear, anti-christian views had led to immoral habits, which rendered their antipathy to Christianity all the more bitter. In almost all of them infidelity had produced a lawlessness of speculation on moral matters, which could hardly fail to produce in the end, if it had not already produced, great licentiousness of life.

I had no sooner got things comfortably fixed at home, than I received an invitation from the American Anti-slavery Society, to attend their Annual Meeting, which was to be held in Rochester, New York. I went, and there I met with S. S. Foster, Abby Kelly Foster, Parker Pillsbury, C. L. Remond, Henry C. Wright, Wendell Phillips, W. L. Garrison, Lucy Stone, Lucretia and Lydia Mott, and a number of other leading Abolitionists. Here too I met with Frederick Douglas, the celebrated fugitive slave, who had settled in Rochester, and was publishing his paper there. Some of the Anti-Slavery Leaders I had seen before in England, and had had the pleasure of having them as my guests, and of enjoying their conversation. Henry C. Wright, W. L. Garrison, Frederick Douglas, and C. L. Remond, were old acquaintances. The rest I knew only by report: but I had read the story of their labors and sufferings in behalf of the negro slave, and had longed for years to make their acquaintance. They were, in my estimation, among the best and bravest of their race. I had read of them a thousand times with the greatest interest, and a thousand times I had wished for the honor of co-operating with them in their generous labors. And now I was in their midst, on American soil. And all seemed glad to make my acquaintance, and eager to testify their regard for me, and to welcome me to a share in their benevolent labors. I was soon at home with them all, for they were a free and hearty people. I attended both their public and their private meetings. The anniversary lasted several days, and the time was one continued Festival. There were people from almost every part of the country, and the house of every Anti-Slavery person in the city was placed at the service of the visitors. They were as one family, and had all things in common. The public meetings were largely attended, and the audiences seemed favorably impressed. In the intervals I visited the Falls on the Genesee River. More beautiful and enchanting scenes I never beheld. In all but terrible grandeur they equal, if they do not surpass, the Falls of Niagara.

And there was an infinite abundance of strange and exciting conversation in many of the circles, not only on Slavery, but on the Bible and Religion, on the Church and the Priesthood, and on Woman's Rights, and the Bloomer Costume, and Marriage Laws, and Free-love, and Education, and Solomon's Rod, and Non-resistance, and Human Government, and Communism, and Individualism, and Unitarianism, and Theodore Parkerism, and Spiritualism, and Vegetarianism, and Teetotalism, and Deism, and Atheism, and Clairvoyance, and Andrew Jackson Davis, and the American Congress, and Quakerism, and William Henry Channing, and his journey to England, and Free-soil, and the Public Lands, and the Common Right to the Soil, and Rent, and Interest, and Capital, and Labor, and Fourierism, and Congeniality of Spirit, and Natural Affinities, and Domestic Difficulties, and—the Good time Coming. All were full of reform, and most were wild and fanatical. Some regarded marriage as unnatural, and pleaded for Free-love as the law of life. Some were for Communism, but differed as to the form which it ought to assume. One contended that all should be perfectly free,—that each should be a law unto himself, and should work, and rest, and eat, and drink, as his own free spirit should prompt him. Another said that the principle had been tried, and had failed,—that some were anxious to do all the eating, and sleeping, and loving, and left others to do all the working. Joseph Treat was there, advocating Atheism, and defending the right of men and women, married or single, to give free play to native tendencies and sexual affinities. But Treat was indifferently clad, and not well washed, and he was evidently no great favorite. * * * Most were in favor of non-resistance, and full individual freedom. To acknowledge the right of human government and of human laws, was treason to humanity. Man is a law to himself. He is his own governor. The Protestant principle of the right of private judgment and liberty of conscience strikes at the root of all the governments on earth. Each one's nature is his own sole law. The one principle of duty is, for every one to do that which is right in his own eyes. The principle of the Anti-Slavery Society means that, and neither more nor less. And the Anti-Slavery Society will, after emancipating the negro, destroy all the governments, remodel all the laws and institutions, and emancipate all the nations of the earth. Of course the laws of marriage will fall to the ground. Why not? They originated only with men,—with men who lived in darker times, and who were less developed, than we. It would be strange if children could make laws fit to govern men. And with the laws of marriage will go the laws of property in land. Land was common property at first, and what right had any one to make it private? The first man who appropriated land was a thief. And those who inherited it from him were receivers of stolen goods. And the title that was vicious at first could never be made valid by time. The continuance of a wrong can never make it right. Allow that men have a right to the land in consequence of long possession and inheritance, and you must allow that men may have a right to their slaves. The right to land, and the right to slaves, are not so different as some would suppose. What is man's right to his own body worth, if he is deprived of his right to the land? Man lives from the land, and unless he has a right to the land, he can have no right to life. A right to life implies a right to the land. Men live on the land as well as from it; and if they have not a right to the land, they can have no right to live. And man has a right to perfect freedom. Life without freedom is slavery; and slavery is the extinction of all rights, the right to life included. And woman has equal rights with man. And children have equal rights with either. The idea that human beings have no rights till they are twenty-one, is monstrous. What mighty change is it that takes place at the moment a person reaches the age of twenty-one, that he should be a slave a moment before, and a free man a moment after? No change at all takes place. The rights of a human being are the gift of Nature, and not the gift of the law. Who authorized men to make laws for one another? In making men different from each other, Nature has made it impossible for one man to legislate wisely for another. The majority have a right to rule themselves, but they have no fight to rule the minority. All rights are the rights of individuals, and the rights of individuals composing a minority, are the same as the rights of individuals composing a majority. A man may elect a representative; but he cannot be bound by a representative elected by others. Children should be educated, not by force or authority, but by attraction. The assumption of authority over a child by a parent is usurpation; the use of authority over a child is tyranny. The individuality of a child is its life, and life is sacred. To destroy individuality is murder. We have no right to take Nature's place, and make a human being something different from what she has formed him. Solomon's rod and Paul's authority are alike immoral. All should be governed by their attractions, like the orbs of heaven, and the constituents of the earth. The law of Nature is one, both for living men and dead matter. Our sympathies and affinities are our only rulers. They are ourselves,—our best selves,—and to allow either law or ruler to interfere with them, is self-destruction. We are no longer ourselves when we allow ourselves to be controlled by the will or power of another. Animals have equal rights with man. The poet was right when he said,

"Take not away the life thou canst not give, For all things have an equal right to live."

How can man have a right to take away the life of an animal? The lower animals occupied the world before man, and man, a later comer, could not abrogate the prior rights of his predecessors. The use of animal food is unnatural. It is unhealthy. In feeding on other living creatures man degrades, corrupts, and then destroys himself. And vegetables, grains, and fruits should be taken in their natural state. The art of cooking is an unnatural innovation. The first of our race did not cook. Man is the only cooking animal, and he is the only sickly one. He is the only one that loses his teeth, or suffers from indigestion. Teetotalism is binding on all. Alcohol is an unnatural product. Man is the only being unnatural enough to drink it. Grapes are good, and so is grain; but wine, and beer, and spirits, are a trinity of devils, which destroy the bodies and torment the souls of unnatural men. "There is no God," said one. "Gods and devils are alike fantastic creatures of the erring mind of man." "But there must be a God," said another. "All nature cries aloud there is a God. Our own hearts' instincts—our highest intuitions,—assure us there is. As well deny the universe, and the primal intuitions of humanity, as the being of God. A God and a future life are necessities of human nature. And there is, without us, a supply for every want within us. As soon will you find a race of beings with appetites for food, for whom no food is provided, as a race with longings for God and desires for immortality, while no God and immortality exist to meet those longings, to satisfy those desires." "But if there be a God to answer to our longings, and a blessed immortality to satisfy our desires, why not a devil to answer to our fears, and a hell to answer to our guilty terrors? And would a God leave us without a revelation of his will." "The instincts of our nature are the revelation of God's will. To obey our instincts is to obey the law of God." "Then is the law of God as various as men's natural tendencies? Does the murderer, whose tendency is to kill, obey the law of God, as well as the victim who struggles to escape his doom? And does the eagle obey the law of God in pouncing on the dove, and the dove in seeking to evade its talons? Is every tendency the law of God? If it be the will of God that the powerful tendencies of some should neutralize the feebler tendencies of others, is not might, right? And if might be right, why murmur at anything that is? For everything that is, exists by virtue of its might: and every thing that perishes, perishes in virtue of its weakness. Are you not sanctioning the doctrine of the Optimist, and saying with Pope,

"In spite of sense, in erring reason's spite, One truth is clear—whatever is, is RIGHT."

"Whatever is, is right," says another. "It is the result of eternal wisdom, of almighty power, and infinite love. God is all perfect, and He is all in all. A perfect God could have nothing short of a perfect object in all His works, a perfect motive prompting Him, a perfect rule to guide Him; and, as the author of all existence, a perfect material out of which to make the creatures of His love. All is perfect. It is men's own imperfection that makes them think otherwise." "All is perfect," you say, "yet man is imperfect; and his imperfection makes him think other things imperfect. All is perfect, yet something is imperfect; and that something is the most perfect or the least imperfect creature in existence." "Imperfection itself is a part of perfection," says the Optimist. "As discords are necessary to the highest musical compositions; so imperfection is necessary to the highest perfection."

"The most difficult point of all," says a philosophical Unitarian, "is that of necessity. Every thing must have a cause. Man's actions are the result of physical causes; yet man is consciously free." "Man is no more free than the planets," says an Atheist. "He acts freely, as the planets do,—that is, he acts in harmony with his tendencies,—in harmony with the causes of his actions,—the causes of his actions cause them by causing him to will them, by inclining him to do them; and the causes of planetary action produce that action in the same way: but the freedom and the necessity are the same in the one case as in the other. All is free, and all is bound. The chain is infinite, eternal, and almighty. The difference between man and a planet is, that man is conscious of his acts, and the planet is not." "Then duty is a dream," said a third, "and conscience a delusion; and responsibility a fiction; and virtue and vice are alike unworthy of either praise or blame, reward or punishment." "A tree is not responsible," said the Necessitarian, "yet we cut it down, if it bears no fruit; and we cut off the natural branches, and insert new scions, if its fruit is not to our liking. A musquito is irresponsible, yet we kill it when it gives us pain. A horse is irresponsible, yet we caress it when it gives us pleasure." "So man is no more than a tree, a musquito, or a horse! And selfishness is the measure of our duty! We caress or kill as we are pleased or pained." And so the conversation ran on in one party.

In another the Bible is the subject of conversation. But here all are agreed on the principal point. No one regards it as of supernatural origin, or of Divine authority. The question is, whether the Anti-Slavery Society shall acknowledge that the clergy are right in saying that the Bible sanctions Slavery. "That it does sanction Slavery is certain," says one. "Abraham was a slave-holder, a slave-trader, and a slave-breeder. Isaac inherited his slave property. Jacob had slaves, and had offspring by two of them. Moses allows the Jews to buy up the nations round about them, and to hold them as slaves, as a possession, and to transmit them as an inheritance to their children for ever. The Decalogue recognizes slaves as property. Jesus never condemns slave-holding, and Paul returns a fugitive, to his master. Take the clergy at their word. Acknowledge that their sacred book does sanction Slavery. Acknowledge that it allows a master to flog his slave to death, on the ground that the slave is his money. Acknowledge too that it allows the slave-holder to make his female slaves his concubines. Acknowledge every thing. Take the preachers' side in the matter, and you will shock the preachers, and you will shock the public, and cause them to give up the defence of Slavery." "The slave-holders are not governed by the Bible," says another. "Their appeal to it is only a pretence,—an argumentum ad hominem. They favor Slavery because it is profitable, and because they like it. Make it unprofitable, and they will soon find a different interpretation for the Bible." "Show that the Bible is no authority,—that it is merely a human book,—and you take away their argument for Slavery," said one. "Their argument is force," said another, "and you will never abolish Slavery till you take up arms and crush the tyrants." "But the Bible is the question," says a third. "Call a Convention to discuss the Bible," said I, and the Convention was accordingly called.

And thus the conversation ran in private circles, during the intervals of the public meetings.

I had supposed, that as the people of America had got a Democratic form of government, no further reforms were necessary, except the Abolition of Slavery. I now found however that there were more Reformers, and a greater variety of Reformers, in the circle into which I had fallen, than in England. There was nothing right,—nothing as it ought to be. The family, the church, the school, the government, religion, morals, and even nature were all wrong. The world was full of prejudice. We were heirs of all the mistakes of our forefathers for a thousand generations. "Every thing wants destroying," said one, "that every thing may be created anew." The oracle of the universe cries, "Behold, I make all things new;" and that oracle we ought to echo; and on that oracle we ought to act. "'When I was a child, I thought as a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.' Such was the language of the great Reformer of antiquity. The human race should adopt the same language, and follow the great example. The race should say, 'When I was a child, I thought as a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child; but now, having become a man, I will put away childish things.' I will put away my childish thoughts on religion, on science, on morals, on government, on education, on marriage, on slavery, on war, on every thing. The fact that they are old, is a proof they are wrong. The clothes which fit a child cannot fit a man. The notions, the institutions, the laws, which were good for the world's infancy, cannot be good for its manhood." "And they shall be put away, so far as I am concerned," said a lady. "And they shall be put away, so far as I am concerned," answered another. "Ye are born again," says a third. "That noble declaration proves you new creatures. Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

A thousand wild sentiments were uttered; a thousand extravagant things were said; and many unwise things were done. It was plain that a license of thought was preparing the way, had already prepared the way, for a license of deed. This license produced a fearful amount of mischief before long. It had produced no little then. Many a domestic schism,—many a disgraceful alliance,—many a broken heart,—were the result of those lawless, wanton speculations.

And some came to see their folly and repented in part. Lucy Stone declared she would never marry according to law; but she married according to law in the end, contenting herself with recording a vain and foolish protest. Harriet K. Hunt would never pay any more taxes till she was allowed to vote, and was eligible to the Presidency of the United States. Whether she has paid her tax or not we do not know; but she has not yet got a vote, and is certainly not yet the President of the United States. Mrs. C. L. made a declaration, the publication of which covered her hard-working and excellent husband with shame; but she too has since seen her error, and endeavored to make all things right.

It was rather amusing, but somewhat startling,—it was very bewildering, yet very instructive,—to listen to all the projects and theories of a multitude of thoughtful people, suddenly emancipated from religion and moral obligation, and from law and custom, and to speculate on what might be the result of so much extravagance. It put humanity before one in a new light. It was a new revelation. And all those people were educated up to the American standard. And they were all in tolerable circumstances. Some were rich, and most were owners of the lands on which they lived. Several of them had been ministers of the Gospel. Many of them were authors. And their appearance and manners were often equal to those of the best. And some of them could hardly be excelled as public speakers. Some of the lady speakers were the best I ever heard. After mingling in such society, and witnessing such a strange breaking up of "the fountains of the great deep" of thought, and fancy, and animal passion, it is hard to say what might not take place in the world, if the spirit of infidel reform which is pervading the nations should become general.

I returned to my home neither a better nor a wiser man. But I was full of thought. I had been afraid that in the excitement of controversy, and under the smart of persecution, I had gone too far. But here were people who had gone immeasurably farther. I was afraid I had been too rash. But here were pleasant looking and educated people, compared with whom I was the perfection of sobriety. And the sense of my comparative moderation quieted my fears, prevented salutary investigation, and prepared me to go still farther in the way of doubt. New books were placed in my hands, all favorable to anti-christian views. I got new friends and acquaintances, and all were of the doubting, unbelieving class. Several of them were atheists, and insinuated doubts with regard to the foundation of all religious belief. Till my settlement in America I had continued to believe, not only in God, and providence, and prayer, but in immortality; and to look on Atheism as the extreme of folly. But now my faith in those doctrines began to be shaken. Instead of drawing back from the gulf of utter unbelief, and retracing my steps toward Christ as I had partly hoped, I got farther astray; and though I did not plunge headlong into Atheism, I came near to the dreadful abyss, and was not a little bewildered with the horrible mists that floated round its brink.

Thus my hopes of calm and quiet thought, and of a sober reconsideration of the steps I had taken in the path of doubt and unbelief, were all, alas! exploded, and the last state of my soul was worse than the first.

To make things worse, I got into trouble with my Christian neighbors. My alienation from Christ had already produced in me a deterioration of character. I was not exactly aware of it at the time, and if I had been told of it, I might not have been able to believe it; but such was really the case. The matter is clear to me now past doubt. I had become less courteous, less conciliatory, less agreeable. I had discarded, to some extent, the Christian doctrines of meekness and humility. My temper had suffered. I was sooner provoked, and was less forgiving, I was more prompt in asserting my rights, and more prone perhaps to regard as rights what were no such things. And I made myself enemies in consequence, and got into unhappy disputes and painful excitements.

I imagined, I suppose, while in England, that the disturbers of my peace were all outside me, and that when I went to America I should leave them all behind; but I see now that many of them were within me, and that I carried them with me over the sea, to my far-off Western home. And they gave me as much trouble in my new abode as they had given me in my old one. It is the state of our minds that determines the measure of our bliss. As Burns says,

"If happiness have not her seat And centre in the breast, We may be wise, or rich, or great, But never can be blest. No treasures, nor pleasures. Can make us happy long; The heart ay's the part ay That makes us right or wrong."

And my heart was out of tune, and tended to put everything around me out of tune.



CHAPTER XVI.

THE STORY OF MY DESCENT FROM THE FAITH OF MY CHILDHOOD, TO DOUBT AND UNBELIEF.

My parents were Methodists of the strictest kind, and they did their utmost to make their children Methodists. And they were very successful. They had eleven children, ten of which became members of the Methodist Society before they were twenty years of age; and even the odd one did not escape the influence of religion altogether.

I was a believer in God and Christ, in duty and immortality, from my earliest days. And my faith was strong. Things spiritual were as real to me as things natural. Things seen and things unseen, things temporal and things eternal, formed one great whole,—one solemn and boundless universe. I lived and breathed in a spiritual world.

My parents were rigorously consistent. They were true Christians. They not only talked, but looked and lived as persons who felt themselves in the presence of a great and holy God, and in the face of an awful eternity; and the influence of their godly life, and daily prayers, and solemn counsels fell on me with a power that was irresistible.

If the doctrine taught me in my early days had been the doctrine of Christ, and the doctrine of Christ alone, in a form adapted to my youthful mind, the probability is, that I should have grown up to manhood, and passed through life a happy, useful and consistent Christian. But I was taught other doctrines. Though my father and mother taught me little but what was Christian, doctrines were taught me by others that shocked both my reason and my sense of right. I was taught, among other things, that in consequence of the sin of Adam, God had caused me to come into the world utterly depraved, and incapable, till I was made over again, of thinking one good thought, of speaking one good word, or of doing one good deed. I felt that I did think good thoughts, and that I had good feelings, and that I both said and did good things. But this I was told was a great delusion:—that nothing was good, and that nothing was pleasing to God, unless it came from faith in Christ. But I had faith in Christ. I believed in Him with all my heart. I had believed in Him from the first. The answer was that I had believed with a common kind of faith, but that it was another kind of faith that was necessary to salvation, and that whatsoever did not spring from this other kind of faith, was sin. And I was given to understand, that if I thought otherwise, it was because of the naughtiness of my heart, which, I was told, was deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. What this other kind of faith was, I did not know, and could not learn. I was then told that the natural man could not understand the things of the Spirit, and that before I could understand them, I must experience a change from nature to grace; all of which was past my comprehension. I was then informed that I must wait till God revealed those things unto me by His Spirit. But this made the matter no plainer.

I was further taught, that I was, in some way, answerable for Adam's sin,—that God made Adam the federal head of all mankind, and that all were bound by what he did;—that if he had done right, all would have come into the world pure, and good, and happy, and sure of eternal life; but that through his sin, we wore all born, not only utterly depraved, but guilty and liable to eternal damnation.

Then followed strange things about satisfaction to offended justice, trust in Christ's merits and righteousness, justification, regeneration, and sanctification, all mysteries as dark to me as night.

Sometime after, I found in my Catechism the doctrine of God's absolute and infinite fore-knowledge,—the doctrine that from eternity God knew who should be saved and who should be lost. This gave me the most terrible shock of all. It was plain that my doom was fixed forever. For if it was certainly foreknown, it must he unchangeably fixed.

These dreadful doctrines filled me with horror. They all but drove me mad. For a time, when I was about eight or nine years old, they did drive me mad. They were more than my nature could bear. I felt that if things were as these doctrines represented them to be, the ways of God were horribly unjust. And as I could do no other than believe the doctrines, my whole soul rose in rebellion against God. I supposed, as a matter of course, that I should be sent to hell for my rebelliousness; still I rebelled. It seemed a dreadful thing that God should hang one's eternal destiny on things that were not in one's own power. I thought that if people could not do all that God required of them, He ought to allow them to fall back into their original nothingness. My mind especially revolted against the arrangement which God was said to have made with Adam, and the terrible consequences entailed thereby on his posterity. To bring men into being, and force them to live on forever, and at the same time to hang their eternal destiny on another, or on something beyond their power, seemed dreadfully unjust. I felt that every man ought to be allowed a fair trial for himself, and to stand or fall by his own doings. And nothing could make me feel that I was really answerable for the sin of Adam, any more than that Adam was answerable for my sins. And how God could impute one man's sin to another, was past all comprehension. And I felt, that if matters were managed as they were represented to be, the government of the universe was not right.

But supposing that God had a right to do as He pleased, and not knowing that He was so good that it was impossible that He should ever please to do wrong, I suffered in silence. But I often said to myself, 'God does not deal fairly with mankind,' and my feelings towards Him were anything but those of love and gratitude. So far was I from feeling any obligation to Him, that I looked on my existence as a tremendous curse, and I would gladly have consented to undergo any amount of torment, for any length of time short of eternity, for the privilege of being allowed to return to my original nothingness. The thought that even this was too much to be hoped for,—that it was fixed unchangeably that I must live on forever, and that there was but one dark path, which I might never be able to find, by which I could escape the unbounded and unending torments of hell, darkened all the days of my early youth, and made me exceedingly miserable. Some kind of blind unbelief, or a partial spiritual slumber at length came over me, and made it possible for me to live. But even then my life was anything but a happy one.

I cannot give the story of my life at length; but I afterwards got over the difficulties of my early creed, or exchanged the blasphemous horrors of theology for the teachings of Christ, and became a cheerful, joyous Christian, and a happy and successful Christian minister.

As I have said in Chapter fourteenth, I regarded the Bible as the Word of God from my early childhood. I believed every word to be true, and every command to be binding. My faith, at first, rested on the testimony of my parents and teachers, and of those among whom I lived. Every one I heard speak of the Book, spoke of it as divine, and the thought that it might be otherwise did not, that I remember, ever enter my mind. This my hereditary faith in the Bible was strengthened by the instinctive tendencies of my mind to believe in God, and in all the great doctrines which the book inculcated.

The first attempt to prove the divinity of the Bible, of which I have any recollection, was made by my mother, while I was yet a child. What led her to make the attempt I do not remember. It might be some perplexing question that I had asked her; for I used to propose to her puzzling questions sometimes. Her argument was,—'Bad men could not write such a book, and good men would not. It must therefore, have been written by God.' Another argument that I remember to have heard in those days was,—'No man would write the Bible who did not know it to be true; because it tells liars that their portion will be in the lake of fire and brimstone.' There was also an impression among such people as my parents, that the Bible was so good a book, and that it wrought with such a blessed power upon their souls, that it was impossible it should be written by any one but God. The last had probably the greatest effect upon their minds. Then they found in the Bible so many things in harmony with their best affections, their moral instincts, and their religious feelings, that they felt as if they had proof of its heavenly origin in their own souls. I came, at one period of my life, to look on these arguments with contempt. And it is certain, that to give them much force with men of logical habits, they would require qualification, and considerable illustration. But they are none of them so foolish as I once supposed. As for the last two, they are, when presented in a proper way, unanswerable.

There was another argument that was sometimes used, namely,—that though the different portions of the Bible were written by persons of widely distant ages, of different occupations and ranks, and of very different degrees of culture, they all aim at one end, all bear one way, and all tend to make men good and happy to the last degree. This is a great fact, and when properly considered, may well be accepted as a proof that the Bible, as a whole, is from God.

What effect these arguments had on my mind in my early days, I do not exactly remember, but the probability is, that they helped to strengthen my instinctive and hereditary faith in the divine origin of the Bible.

This my instinctive and hereditary faith was a great and beneficent power, and would have proved an inestimable blessing, if it had been preserved unshaken through life. And I am sorry it was not. I have no sympathy with those who speak of doubt as a blessing, and who recommend people to demolish their first belief, that they may raise a better structure in its place. We do not destroy our first and lower life, to prepare the way for a higher spiritual life. Nor do we kill the body to secure the development of the soul. Nor do we extinguish our natural home affections, in order to kindle the fires of friendship, patriotism, and philanthropy. The higher life grows out of the lower. The lower nourishes and sustains the higher. At first we are little more than vegetables: then we become animals: then men; and last of all, sages, saints, and angels. But the vegetable nature lives through all, and is the basis and strength of the animal; and the animal nature lives, and is the basis and strength of the human; and the human lives, and is the basis and strength of the spiritual and divine. And the higher forms of life are all the more perfect, for the vigor and fulness of those by which they are preceded.

And so with faith. Instinctive faith is the proper basis for the faith that comes from testimony. And the faith which rests on testimony is the proper basis for that which comes from reason, investigation, experience, and knowledge. And in no case ought the first to be demolished to make way for the second, or the second discarded to make way for the third. To kill a tree in order to graft on it new scions, would be madness; and to kill, or discard, or in any way to slight or injure our first instinctive child-like faith, to graft on our souls a higher one, would be equal madness.

Our instincts are infallible. The faith to which they constrain us is always substantially right and true, and no testimony, no reasonings, no philosophy, ought to be allowed to set it aside. Testimony, and science, and experience, may be allowed to develop it, enlighten it, and modify it, but not to displace or destroy it. It is a divine inspiration, and is essential to the life and vigor of the soul, to the beauty and perfection of the character, and to the fulness and enjoyment of life. If you lose it, you will have to find it again, or be wretched. If you kill it, you will have to bring it to life again, or perish. It is a necessary support of all other faith, and a needful part of all religion, of all virtue, and of all philosophy. Skeptics may call it prejudice; but it is a kind of prejudice which, as Burke very truly says, is wiser than all our reasonings.

I did not fall out with my instinctive belief, though I did not know its value; but I was so formed, that I longed for proofs or corroborating of its truth. I wanted to be able to do something more, when questioned by doubters or unbelievers as to the grounds of my faith, than to say, 'I feel that it is true;' or to refer to the testimony of my parents and teachers; and I did not rest till I could do so.

I had a dear, good friend, Mr. Hill, a schoolmaster, a local preacher, and a scholar, who, believing that I had talents to fit me for a travelling preacher, and desiring to prepare me for that high office, kindly undertook to aid me in my studies. After he had taught me something of English grammar, he began to teach me Latin. When he had got me through the elementary books, and exercised me well in one of the Roman historians, he lent me a copy of Grotius, on the truth of the Christian religion, and recommended me to translate it into English, and then to translate it back again into Latin. 'It contains the best arguments,' said he, 'in favor of Christianity, and it is written in pure and elegant Latin; and by the course I recommend, you will both improve yourself greatly in Latin, and obtain a large amount of useful religious knowledge.'

I did as I was bid, and the result was truly delightful. I found in the book proofs both of the existence of God, and of the truth of Christianity, which seemed to me most decisive. When I had got through the book, I felt as if I could convince the whole infidel world. By translating the work first into English and then back into Latin, and repeating my translations to my teacher without manuscript, I got the whole book, with all its train of reasoning, so fixed in mind, that I was able to produce the arguments whenever I found it necessary. I could, in fact, repeat almost the whole work from beginning to end.

I can hardly describe the pleasure I felt when I found that my faith had a solid foundation to rest upon,—that after having believed instinctively, and on the testimony of my parents and teachers, I could both justify my faith to my own mind, and give sound reasons for it to any who might question me on the subject.

I afterwards got Watson's Theological Institutes, which amplified some of the arguments of Grotius, and added fresh ones. Here too I found large quotations from Howe's LIVING TEMPLE, an argument for the existence of God drawn from the wonderful structure of the human body, and considerable portions of Paley's work on NATURAL THEOLOGY. About the same time I read the Lectures of Doddridge, which gave me a more comprehensive view than either Grotius or Watson, both of the evidences of the existence of God, and those of the truth of Christianity. I afterwards met with Dwight's Theology, in which I found a number of things which interested me, though some of his reasonings seemed mere metaphysical fallacies.

I next read Adam Clarke's Commentary, where I found, besides his arguments for the existence of God, abundance of quotations from Paley, Lardner, Michaelis, and others, on the credibility of the New Testament history, and the truth of Christianity. His a priori argument for the existence of God seemed only a play on words. His other arguments were much the same as Watson's.

About this time I read Mosheim's History of the Church. This did me harm. It is a bad book. It is, in truth, no real history of the Church at all, but a miserable chronicle of the heresies, inconsistencies and crimes of the worldly and priestly party in the Church, who perverted the religion of Christ to worldly, selfish purposes. The whole tendency of the book is to put the sweet image of Christ and the glories of His religion, out of sight, and to present to you in their place, a distressing picture of human weakness and human wickedness. It is a great pity that this wretched pretence to a church history was not long ago displaced by a work calculated to do some justice, and to render some service, to the cause of Christ.

I afterwards read works in favor of Christianity and against infidelity, by Robert Hall, Olinthus Gregory, Dr. Chalmers, Le Clerc, Hartwell Horne, S. Thompson, Bishop Watson, Bishop Pearson, Bishop Porteus. I also read Leland's View of Deistical Writers, Leslie's Short and Easy Method with Deists, Faber's Difficulties of Infidelity, Fuller's Gospel its Own Witness, Butler's Analogy, Baxter's Unreasonableness of Infidelity, and his Evidences of Christianity, Simpson's Plea for Religion and the Sacred Writings, Ryan on the Beneficial Effects of Christianity, Cave on the Early Christians, the Debate between R. Owen and A. Campbell, Scotch Lectures, G. Campbell on Miracles, Ray's Wisdom of God in Creation, Constable's History of Converts from Infidelity, Newton on the Prophecies, Locke on the Reasonableness of Christianity, Nelson on the Cause and Cure of Infidelity, Priestley's Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion, Jews' Letters to Voltaire, and works by Beattie, Soame Jenyns, West, Lyttleton, Ogilvie, Addison, Gilbert Wakefield and others. I also read sermons on different branches of the evidences, by Tillotson, Barrow, and others. One of the last and one of the best works I read on the Evidences of Christianity, were some sermons by Dr. Channing. These sermons presented the historical argument in a simpler and more impressive form than any work I had ever read.

This reading of works on the evidences did not prove an unmixed blessing. I am not certain that it did not prove a serious injury.

1. In the first place, the works I read weakened, in time, and then destroyed, my instinctive and hereditary faith, and gave me nothing so satisfactory in its place. They filled my mind with thoughts of things outside me, and even outside Christianity itself, which did not take a firm and lasting hold of my affections. They seemed to take me from solid ground and living realities, into regions of cold, thin air, and bewildering mists and clouds.

2. In the second place, the writers disagreed among themselves. They differed as to the value of different kinds of evidence. Some were all for external evidences, and some were all for internal evidences. Some said there was no such thing as internal evidence. 'The very idea of such a thing,' said they, 'supposes that man is able to judge what doctrines are true, or rational, or worthy of God; and what precepts, laws, institutions, and examples are right and good; and man has no such power. Reason has no right to judge revelation. All that reason has a right to do is to judge as to the matter of fact whether the Bible and Christianity be really a revelation from God or not, and, if it be, what is its purport. As to the reasonableness of the doctrines, and the goodness of the precepts, reason has no right or power to judge at all.'

Others contended that miracles could never prove the truth or divinity of any system of doctrines or morals that did not commend itself to the judgments and consciences of enlightened, candid, and virtuous men. These two parties, between them, condemned both kinds of evidence.

3. Then thirdly; some used unsound arguments. They used arguments founded on mistakes with regard to matters of fact. Grotius, for instance, based two of his arguments for the existence of God on misconceptions of this kind. 'That there is a God,' said Grotius, 'is evident from the fact, that water, which naturally runs downward to the level of the sea, is made to run upwards through subterranean channels, from the sea to the tops of the mountains, and thus supply springs and streams to water the earth, and supply the wants of its inhabitants.' But the waters are not forced upwards from the sea to the mountains in this way: they are carried to the hills in the form of vapors.

True, the evidence for the existence of God supplied by the conversion of water into vapor, and by the many beneficent ends answered thereby, is as real and as convincing a proof of God's existence as any evidence that could have been furnished by such an arrangement as that imagined by Grotius. But I did not see this at the time; hence the discovery that the argument of Grotius was unsound, had an unfavorable effect on my mind.

'Again,' says Grotius, 'it is plain that the world must have had a beginning, from the existence of mountains. For if the earth had existed from eternity, the mountains, which the rains and floods are always reducing, washing down particles into the valleys and plains, would long ago have disappeared, and every part of the earth would long before this have been quite level.' Here was another error. Grotius was not aware, it would seem, that there are forces continually at work in the interior of the earth making new mountains,—that some portions of the earth are continually rising, and others gradually subsiding.

4. Several of the arguments which I met with in Doddridge's great work I found to be unsound. And there were others which, if I did not discover to be fallacious, I felt to be unsatisfactory. They were, in truth, as I afterwards found, mere metaphysical puzzles.

5. Among the most honest and earnest works on the evidences that came in my way, were those of Richard Baxter. But many of his arguments were unsatisfactory. Among other things of doubtful value, he gave a number of ghost stories, and accounts of witches and their doings, and of persons possessed by evil spirits, and even of men and women who had sold themselves to the devil, and who had been seized and carried away by him bodily, in the presence of their neighbors and friends. Then some of his arguments took for granted points of importance which I was particularly anxious to have proved. Much of his reasoning seemed conclusive enough, but when sound and unsound arguments are so blended in the same book, the unsound ones seem to lessen the credit and the force of the sound ones.

On the subject of the evidences, Baxter, like Grotius, was behind the times. His works might be satisfactory enough to people of his own day, but they were not adapted to the minds of people of the present day.

6. The works of Paley and Butler gave me the greatest satisfaction. Paley, both in his Natural Theology and in his evidences of Christianity, seemed to be almost all that I could desire, and I rested in him for a length of time with great satisfaction. But I read him only once, and I ought, for a time at least, to have made him my daily study, and imprinted his work on my mind, as I did the work of Grotius.

7. Many writers on the Bible attempted to settle points which could not be settled. They tried to make out the authors of all the books in the Bible, and this was found impossible. Different writers ascribed books to different authors. The Book of Job was ascribed by one writer to Job himself, by another to Moses, and by a third to Elihu. The Book of Ecclesiastes was ascribed by some to Solomon, by others to a writer of a later age. Writers differed with regard to the authorship of many of the Psalms and many of the Proverbs. They differed with regard to the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Book of Revelation, and even with regard to some of the Gospels. They multiplied controversies instead of ending them, and in some cases made matters seem doubtful that were not so.

8. The writers on evidences often attempted to prove points which were not true, and which, if they had been true, would have been no credit to the Bible or Christianity. Some of them spent more time in laboring to prove that Christianity taught doctrines which it did not teach, than in proving that the doctrines which it did teach were 'worthy of all acceptation.' Some left the impression that Christianity was a mass of vain, improbable, and incomprehensible doctrines, calculated neither to satisfy man's intellect nor his conscience, neither to renovate his heart, nor improve his life, nor increase his happiness. Such writers served the cause of infidelity rather than the cause of Christ.

9. Some, like Hartwell Horne, gave so many rules for interpreting the Bible, and required such a multitude of rare qualifications to fit a man for being a Bible student, that they left the impression on one's mind that the Book must be utterly unintelligible to people at large. And they directed the attention of their readers so much to matters of little or no moment, that they lost sight of the matters which the Bible was specially intended to teach and impress on men's minds and hearts.

10. Many dwelt so much on things doubtful, that they left the impression on the minds of their readers, that there was little or nothing but what was doubtful. They busied themselves so much in answering objections, that they left the impression that there was little or nothing but what was open to objections. They had so little to say about what was true, and good, and glorious beyond all question, that they left people in doubt whether there was any thing past question or controversy in Christianity or not.

11. And many treated the subject so coolly or carelessly, that they abated rather than increased the interest of their readers in religious matters.

12. And the great mass of writers followed one another so servilely,—they wrote so much by rote, and so little from experience or real knowledge, that all seemed cold and formal, uninteresting and unprofitable. It was a rare thing to come across a writer that touched the heart, or even satisfied the judgment.

13. And they often labored hard and long to prove points of little or no importance, while points of greatest moment were left untouched, or handled so unskillfully as to do harm rather than good.

14. And almost all had unauthorized and unscriptural theories of Scripture inspiration, which it was impossible for them to prove, and which they so manifestly failed to prove, that a critical reader could not but see their failure. They tried to justify expressions and actions which could not be justified, and to reconcile differences which did not admit of reconciliation.

15. Even the historical arguments of Paley and Grotius consisted of so many particulars, and carried one so far back into regions with which one was so imperfectly acquainted, and into states of society which it was so difficult for one to realize, that it was impossible they should have much power over the heart; and the little they had was soon lost, when their books were laid aside. Even when we remembered the facts, and could run them over in our minds, we could not feel the force of the argument based on them, or use it so as to make it felt by others.

The historical argument drawn from miracles never exerted much satisfying power on my mind for any length of time. I could remember that it had satisfied me once, but that was not to feel its satisfying power then. And you could not go back to your books continually, and pore over the arguments forever. So that long before I became a doubter, I felt that the historical argument could never be useful to people generally, either in producing faith where it was not, or in perpetuating it where it was. I was sure that if mankind at large were to be brought to receive and cherish Christianity, it must be by proofs of a simpler and more popular kind, which people could feel, and carry along with them in their hearts as well as in their heads. And now I see most clearly that I was right. Miracles had a use, and I may show what it was by and by; but it was not the use to which they have been so often and so vainly applied.

16. The writers on prophecy were as unsatisfactory as those on miracles. They often handled the prophecies unfairly if not deceitfully. They treated as absolute prophecies, prophecies which were expressly conditional. And they lost sight of the fact, so plainly stated in Jeremiah xviii, that all prophetic promises and threatenings are conditional. Then they took one bit of a prophecy and left another: kept out of sight predictions which had not been fulfilled, and dwelt exclusively on phrases which had been fulfilled.

They dealt deceitfully with history as well as prophecy. They made or modified facts. They gave fanciful interpretations to prophecies. And they tried to make prophecy prove what it could not prove, however unquestionable and miraculous the fulfilment might be. The manner in which Nelson and Keith dealt with prophecy was often childish, and even dishonest. A careful examination of their works left a most painful impression on my mind.

What Albert Barnes says about much of the reasoning of preachers and divines is applicable to this class of writers more than to some others. 'A great part of the reasoning founded upon prophecies is unsound. Much of the reasoning employed by the early Christian Fathers, by the Schoolmen, and by the Reformers had no intrinsic force: it was based on ignorance and error. Yet theologians are prone to cling to it. They forget the age in which they live. They linger, they live, among the shades of the past. Their thoughts, their dialect, their way of reasoning are all of other days.

'The quality of another kind of reasoning common among divines is, that it is not understood by the mass of men, and that it does not seem to be understood by those who use it.'

17. In the following paragraph he speaks important words about theology as well as about theological reasoning.

'There is much theology,' says he, 'that a good man cannot preach. It would shock his own feelings; it would contradict his prayers; it would be fatal to all his efforts to do good; it would drive off the sinner to a hopeless distance, though he had begun to return to God; it would be at war with the elementary convictions which men have of what must be true. Among the doctrines of this theology are those,—that Christ died for the salvation of only a part of mankind,—that we are to blame for Adam's sin,—condemned for an act done ages before we were born.

'The theology that should be preached to make the pulpit what it should be, should be based on obvious and honest principles of Scripture interpretation. The preacher is the interpreter of a book, and he should be the voice, the organ, of its true and natural meaning. Nothing should be misquoted; nothing should be perverted or misapplied. His interpretation should be seen and felt to be in harmony with the scope, the drift, the spirit, the aim of the Bible. The success of preaching has been greatly hindered by false principles of Biblical interpretation. In interpreting other books men have gone on rational principles; but in interpreting the Bible they have gone on principles quite irrational. They have sought for double senses, and mystical meanings, and used texts as proofs of doctrines, that had no reference to the doctrines whatever. Metaphors and symbols have had all possible meanings forced on them. Infidels and men of the world are approached with arguments that are little less than insults to their understandings. They are disgusted, instead of being convinced. They are led to look on the Bible with disdain. They are willing to remain infidels, rather than become idiots. One is pained and sickened that such a multitude of impertinent and inapplicable texts should be brought as proofs of Christian doctrine;—texts applicable to anything else rather than the points under consideration. Even Dr. Edwards misuses texts of Scripture thus. The Bible is to be interpreted as other books are. Men are not to hide themselves in the mist of a hidden meaning, and shock the common sense of the world. Preachers should go on the supposition, that in every congregation there are shrewd and sagacious men, who can appreciate a good argument, and see the weakness of a bad one; men who can appreciate a good sermon, if there be a good sermon to be appreciated. For such, he may be assured, is the fact.'

All these unwise things had a tendency to shake my faith in writers on the evidences, to lessen my interest in the subject, to abate my confidence in the knowledge and integrity of the authors, and to diminish my faith in the supernatural origin of the Bible and Christianity.

18. The evidences that had most weight with me were the internal evidences. But these were often handled in an unsatisfactory way. The greater part of Soame Jenyns' little work was good, as far as it went; but it went only a very short way. It took a step or two, in the most difficult, doubtful, and uninviting part of the road, but it left the vast paradise of internal evidences unexplored, and even unapproached. His work was rather an apology for Christianity, proving that it was not open to censure, than a demonstration of its incalculable worth and power.

I did not myself see clearly at the time, that the adaptation of Christianity to man's wants, to man's nature, and its tendency to promote man's temporal as well as his spiritual welfare, was really a proof of its divine origin. I saw that it was a valid answer to the infidel objection that it was useless or mischievous; but not that it was a decisive proof of its divinity. Hence though I employed it as a refutation of infidel charges against Christianity, I never pressed it further.

And though I got at length much larger views of the excellency of Christianity than those presented by Soame Jenyns, I saw not half, I saw not a tenth of its worth and glory. I saw not a tenth even of what I see now. I now see there are no limits to the excellency of Christianity, or to the power of the argument supplied by its glorious character, in proof of its divinity.

And the worth and excellency of Christianity you can carry continually in your mind. They present themselves whenever you open the Gospels, or look at Jesus. They move you whenever you think of the happy effect Christianity has had on your own hearts and lives. They come to your minds whenever you look on the prevailing vices and miseries of society, which result from a want of Christianity. They touch your heart, as well as convince your judgment. But I neither saw them in their true light nor in their full extent before I fell into doubt; so that they were unable to make up for the deficiency in the external evidences, and to check my growing tendency to unbelief.

19. There were other influences that helped me down to unbelief. Negative criticism, pulling things to pieces with a view to find faults, to which our modern philosophers give the fine name of Analysis, tends to cause doubt about every thing. It eats out of one the very soul of truth, of love, and of faith. It tends naturally to kill all our good instincts and natural affections, and to render not only religion, but philosophy, virtue and happiness impossible. The Cartesian system of reasoning, which begins by calling in question every thing, and which refuses to believe anything without formal proof, is essentially vicious. The man who adopts it and carries it out thoroughly, must necessarily become an infidel, not only in religion, but in morals and philosophy. And he must become intolerably miserable, and destroy himself, unless, like John S. Mill, he can find out some method of deceiving himself.

And this is the system of reasoning now in vogue. This vicious system I adopted, and it hastened my fall into unbelief as a matter of course. Not one of all the most important things on earth admits of proof in this formal way. You cannot prove your own existence in this way. You cannot prove the existence of the universe. You cannot prove the existence of God. You cannot prove that there are such things as vice and virtue, good and evil. You cannot prove that men ought to marry, rear families, form governments, live in society, tell the truth, be honest, restrain their appetites and passions, or abstain from treachery and murder. All reasonings in favor of religion, virtue, society, philosophy, must rest on assumptions,—must take a number of things for granted,—must take for granted the truth and goodness of those instincts, sentiments, and natural affections which constrain us to be religious, social, and moral, independent of argument. All reasoning, to be of any use, must begin, not with doubt, but belief. The reasoning that begins with doubting every thing, and accepting nothing till it is proved by formal argument, will end in doubt of every thing that ought to be believed. It will end, not only in Atheism, but in boundless immorality, and in utter wretchedness and ruin. The man who would not be undone by his logic, must pity Descartes instead of admiring him, and instead of following him go just the contrary way. Descartes made a fool of himself, or his method of reasoning made a fool of him, the very first time he used it. His very first argument was a fallacy and a folly. He pretended, first, to doubt, and then to prove, his own existence. His argument was, 'I think; therefore I exist:' as if he could be more sure that he thought, than he was that he existed. He took his existence for granted when he said 'I think.'

20. Other things helped on the horrible change that was taking place in my soul. I got a taste for reading a different kind of works from those which I had been accustomed to read. I turned away from works on religion and duty, and began to read the works of the critical, destructive party. I turned away even from the best practical writers of the orthodox school, such as Baxter, Tillotson and Barrow, and read Theodore Parker, Martineau, W. F. Newman, W. J. Fox, and Froude. I also read Carlyle, Emerson, and W. Mackay, the metaphysical bore, and C. Mackay, the charming, fascinating, but not Christian poet. Theodore Parker became my favorite among the prose writers. His beautiful style and practical lessons had already reconciled me to his harsh expressions about the Bible, and to his contemptuous treatment of miracles; and now I had degenerated so far that I liked him for those very faults.

I read the writings of the American Abolitionists, all of which tended to draw me from the Church and the Bible, and to bring me more fully under skeptical influences. I began to look more freely and frequently into works of science, and most of those waged covert war with supernaturalism, and sought to bring down the Bible and Christianity to the level of ordinary human thought. All ideas of authority in books and religious systems, in ecclesiastical and social institutions, gradually faded away. All ideas of superhuman authority, or divine obligation, in marriage, in home, and in family life vanished. All things lost their sacredness, and came down to the vulgar level of mere human opinion, or of personal interest, convenience, or pleasure.

21. There was a change in my companions. Those who had high and holy thoughts of all things, and whose meat and drink it was to do good, withdrew from me; and men and women came around me who cared only for earth and self; whose talk was of gain, and fashion, and self-indulgence; and whose desire it was to silence conscience, and to stifle thoughts of duty.

22. I ceased to pray. I had already given up family prayer. I now gave up private prayer. I gave up prayer altogether. I had impulses to prayer, but I resisted them. Prayer was irrational, according to the new philosophy, and must be discarded.

23. And praise and thanksgiving went next. What reason could there be for telling an all-wise God what you thought of Him, or how you felt towards Him? And besides, it now began to appear that God had not been so very bountiful as to deserve either high commendation, or enthusiastic thanksgiving.

24. I had fresh work. Politics first got into partnership with my religion, and then turned religion out of the concern. And politics, severed from religion, soon become selfish, and even devilish. So long as Christian philanthropy occupied my thoughts and feelings, it helped religiousness; but when it gave way to polities, my religiousness declined, languished, and died.

25. I began to indulge in amusements. Chess, drafts, cards, concerts, theatres, and feasting asked for a portion of my time and money, and I gave it to them. I began to think of pleasure more than of usefulness; to live for myself rather than for others; and the higher virtues and religion went down together.

26. My position improved. I passed from poverty to comparative wealth. This helped my degeneracy. I had more abundant means of self-indulgence, and I began, though slowly, timidly, and with misgivings, and self-reproaches, and occasional fits of remorse, to use them for selfish, worldly purposes. God had given me more, so I gave Him less. Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked. Jesus knew what He was saying when He warned people against the danger, the deceitfulness, of riches.

27. I was often uneasy during the decline of religion in my soul, but philosophy had its anodynes, its soothing syrups, its dreamy, delusive, spiritual drugs. It could flatter, it could cheat, in the most approved fashion. It could bewitch, intoxicate, and take captive the whole soul,—judgment, conscience, fancy, everything.

Satan can put on the appearance of an 'angel of light.' He can talk religion. He can talk philanthropy. He can preach the most beautiful doctrines. He can use the most charming words. At the very moment that he is destroying religion and virtue, he can speak of them in the highest terms, and even sing of them in the sweetest strains. He can talk of liberty in the most swelling, high-sounding, and fascinating style, while all the time he is making men the most degraded and miserable slaves. He can lead people, singing and dancing, laughing and shouting, through a philosopher's paradise, to a purgatory of guilt and horror. And all the time he will preach to them the finest doctrines; the most exalted sentiments. 'Religion!—everything is religion, that is in accordance with the laws of our own nature, that is suitable to our position and relations, that helps our brothers or our families. And all truth is religious truth. All science is divine revelation. All laws are God's laws, except the arbitrary laws of men. All work is divine work, if it be according to nature. All useful work is religion. Farming, trade, government, are all religion. So are waking and sleeping. They are all divine ordinances; they are all divine service. All good work is worship. Singing foolish hymns, reading foolish lessons, preaching foolish sermons, offering foolish prayers, in unhealthy churches, half stifled with foul air, are not religion. Religion is the free and natural utterance of great, true thoughts, of good and generous feelings, of nature's own rich sentiments and inspirations. The flowery fields, the shadowy woods, the lofty mountains are nobler places of worship than the dark and damp cathedral; and the fresh air of heaven is a diviner inspiration than carbonic acid gas. And the sun is a diviner light than waxen tapers, explosive lamps, or oxygen-consuming gas. And the gorgeous sun-tinted clouds are grander and more beautiful than painted windows! God's temple is all space; His altar; earth, air, skies! His ministers are sun, moon, stars; birds, beasts, and flowers. Nature is God's revelation; the true Bible; written in an universal language; speaking to all eyes; needing no translation; in danger of no interpolation, alteration, or mutilation. Man is the true Shekinah,—the veritable image, the real glory, the true revelation and manifestation of God. Man is the saviour of man: the teacher, the guide, the comforter of man. Every one, male or female, is a servant, a minister of God. All are priests. All are kings. The truth makes us free: free from all authorities, but the authority of God,—God in the soul. Christ is our brother, not our master. He is a helper, not a ruler. And all are helpers of each other. All are saviours. All are Christs. Inspiration is not a matter of time, or place, or person. It is eternal and universal. It is in all, and it endures forever. Every good book is a Bible. Every good hymn or song is a holy psalm. Purity of body is holiness, as well as purity of mind. Every day is a sabbath, a holy day. Every place is holy ground. The Church of God is the human race. All are God's disciples, under training by nature's operations, and by the events of daily life. The earth is God's great school-house; mankind are one great school; God is our chief Master; the universe is our lesson book, and all we are ushers and under teachers. All things are our helpers, not masters;—our servants, not lords. They are made for us, not we for them; and must be used so as to make them answer their ends. The Sabbath was made for man; not man for the Sabbath. Bibles are for men, not men for Bibles. Governments, churches, authorities, laws, institutions, customs, events, suns, moons, stars, systems, atoms, elements, all are made for man, and to man's interest and pleasure they must be subordinated. All must be changed to meet man's changing wants. Nothing is entitled to be permanent, but that which answers beneficently to something permanent in man. Man is lord of the universe. Man is lord of himself. Man is his own rightful governor. Man is his own law. His nature is his law. Each individual man is his own law. Individualities are divine, and must be respected; respected by laws and governments. Law must yield to individuality; not individuality to law. Individuality is sacred. The individuality of the individual is his life, and must be fostered. It is a new manifestation of God. As to means of grace,—all expressions and interchanges of kind feeling are means of grace. Shaking hands is a means of grace. Free, friendly talk, a concert or a song, a social ride, a family feast, a social gathering, a pleasant chat, a game at whist, all are means of grace. All are holy to holy souls. All are pure to pure minds. Eating, drinking, sleeping are all divine ordinances. Religion, in its higher and more enlightened form, raises our views of all things; makes all things beautiful; all things glorious. It does not bring down the high and holy; but lifts up all things to a divine level. It desecrates no temple; but consecrates the universe. It breaks no Sabbath; but makes every day a Sabbath, and all time one lengthened holy day. It degrades no priest; but makes all men priests. It does not bring down the high, but raises the low. It denies not heaven; but brings down heaven to earth. Everywhere is heaven. God's kingdom is an universal kingdom. His presence, His throne, His glory, are everywhere, and heaven is all around us and within us. The universe is heaven.' Thus spake the devil.

And now came in his progressive poets to give those broad, those high, those rational, those philosophical principles, this theology and religion of advanced humanity, this Church and worship of the future, the fascination of their ecstatic genius, and all the charms of numbers, rhyme, and melody. 'My religion is love,' sings one, 'the richest and fairest.' 'Abou Ben Adhem,' sings another. 'He loves not God; but loves God's creature man. Give him a place,—the highest place,—in heaven.' Another sings, 'The poor man's Sunday walk.' The advanced religionist, addressing his wife, exclaims,

The morning of our rest has come, The sun is shining clear; I see it on the steeple-top: Put on your shawl, my dear, And let us leave the smoky town, The dense and stagnant lane, And take our children by the hand To see the fields again. I've pined for air the livelong week; For the smell of new-mown hay; For a pleasant, quiet, country walk, On a sunny Sabbath day.

Our parish church is cold and damp; I need the air and sun; We'll sit together on the grass, And see the children run. We'll watch them gather butter-cups, Or cowslips in the dell, Or listen to the cheerful sounds Of the far-off village bell; And thank our God with grateful hearts, Though in the fields we pray; And bless the healthful breeze of heaven, On a sunny Sabbath day.

I'm weary of the stifling room, Where all the week we're pent; Of the alley fill'd with wretched life, And odors pestilent: And long once more to see the fields, And the grazing sheep and beeves; To hear the lark amid the clouds, And the wind among the leaves; And all the sounds that glad the air On green hills far away:— The sounds that breathe of Peace and Love, On a sunny Sabbath day.

For somehow, though they call it wrong, In church I cannot kneel With half the natural thankfulness And piety I feel When out, on such a day as this, I lie upon the sod, And think that every leaf and flower Is grateful to its God; That I, who feel the blessing more, Should thank Him more than they, That I can elevate my soul On a sunny Sabbath day.

Put on your shawl, and let us go; For one day let us think Of something else than daily care, Or toil, and meat, and drink: For one day let our children sport And feel their limbs their own: For one day let us quite forget The grief that we have known:— Let us forget that we are poor; And, basking in the ray, Thank God that we can still enjoy A sunny Sabbath day.

What can be more natural,—what more plausible,—what more rational,—what more pious? Yet it means forgetfulness of God, forgetfulness of Christ, forgetfulness of duty, forgetfulness of immortality. It means self, and sin, and ruin. And so it is with a multitude of other sweet poems. One of the sweetest singers that ever received a poetic soul from God, ignores Christ and Christianity. His works are full of truth, but it is truth turned into a lie, and made to do the work of sin and death. It is Satan clad as an angel of light.

Every day a Sabbath, means no day a Sabbath. All places holy, means no place holy. All things worship, means nothing worship. All honest labor religious, means no labor religious. Freedom means license, contempt for virtue, enslavement to vice. Progress means falling back. Elevation means degradation. Liberality means leniency to error and evil, and severity towards truth and goodness. In short, darkness means light, and light means darkness; good means evil, and evil good; bitter means sweet, and sweet bitter. Reform means revolution, and renovation means degradation, and all these charming things mean wretchedness and ruin.

We must not be understood as condemning all the sentiments uttered by the great deceiver. Many of them are true and good. They are Christian. Satan is too wise to preach unmitigated falsehood. He understands too well the art of using truth so as to serve the ends of falsehood. It is enough for him if he can sever men's souls from Christ, and truth from divine authority, and religion from Christianity, the Church, and the Bible. Allow him to do this, and he will discourse and sing to you a world of sweet words and lofty sentiments. Truth is the ladder by which men climb to God, and goodness, and heaven. But Satan has found out that there is a way down the ladder as well as up, and that to praise the ladder to the descending crowd is the surest way to draw them ever further downward, till they lose themselves amid the blinding smoke of the abyss beneath. We love, we cherish every sweet word of truth, but we value nothing apart from God, and Christ, and Religion.

28. It is a bad thing when people are taught things in their youth that are not true. They are sure, when they become students, if they are honest and able, to find out the errors, and to lay them aside. And the mere habit of detecting and laying aside errors, has a tendency to make men skeptical. Now I had been taught a multitude of things in my youth that were not true, both with regard to the doctrines and the evidences of Christianity. These things I detected and set aside in riper years. And I had so many things to set aside, that I came to look with suspicion on almost all my creed. The skeptical tendency got too strong for my habit of belief. I suspected where there was no good ground for suspicion. I rejected truth as well as error. I held in doubt doctrines that I ought to have cherished as my life. Change became too easy; judgment too hasty; and error and unbelief were naturally the result.

It is especially a bad thing when an earnest young student sees signs of carelessness in religious writers; a readiness to repeat what has been said before; to support what is popular, without endeavoring to ascertain whether it be true or not. It is still worse when a student discovers in religious writers signs of dishonesty and fraud. I discovered both. I saw cases in which false doctrines were passed on from generation to generation, and from writer to writer, without the least attempt to ascertain their true character. I saw other cases in which dishonesty was manifest, in which fraud was used, in support of doctrines. Old creeds were allowed to remain unaltered, long after portions of them had been found to be unscriptural; and error was subscribed as a matter of course. The result was, a distrust of everything held by such parties, unless it was supported by the plainest and most decisive proofs.

29. I was now in a state of mind to go down quietly and almost unconsciously into utter unbelief. And I went down. I did not reject the doctrine of the divine origin of the Bible and Christianity, but gradually lost it. My faith died a natural death. I was in the world, and became a worldly man. I mixed with unbelievers, and gradually came down to their level. I had supposed that a man could be as religious outside the Church as inside; but I found it otherwise. It was a sad, an awful change I underwent; but I not only did not see it, at the time, in its true light, but was actually unconscious for a long time that it was taking place.

In November 1852, I attended a Bible convention at Salem, Columbiana County, Ohio. It lasted three days. I spoke repeatedly, and at considerable length, at its meetings. My remarks wore directed chiefly, not against the Bible, but against what I regarded as unauthorized theories of Scripture inspiration. I contended that those theories were injurious to the interests of virtue and humanity.

I also spoke about the darkness in which the human authorship of portions of the Bible was wrapt. My remarks were a mixture of truth and error, but in their general tenor they were unjust, and could hardly fail to be injurious.