Travels in Faith from Tradition to Reason
:-^ 'f r; \ ,' ■■^'^ ^M :;<-s .;Kr^ );:; K- ;^f ••< mh [C. \X :^ ^ 4-.1 ::^ ■v/ /^v \ r^#k. mil \i^^^^'k y. ^ SI TRAVELS IN FAITH FROM TRADITION TO REASON BY ROBERT cKaDAMS " There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds." Tennyson. • • # • > G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS New York: 27 & 29 West 23D Street London: 25 Henrietta St., Covent Garden 1884 COPYRIGHT BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Z884 Press 0/ G. P. PutnanCs Sons New York ;> i'ji 'OP ^ CONTENTS. PAGE. I. Travels in Faith i II. A Radical Avowal 71 III. Gain or Loss ? 77 IV. Human Religion 96 V. Is the Bible the Word of God ? 105 VI. The Bible a Human Book 115 VII. Human Ideas of God 125 VIII. Prayer 138 IX. Morality 144 X. The Future 156 XI. The Church and its Work 168 XII. The Decline of the Ministry 177 XIII. The Consolations of Christianity 186 XIV. Material Immortality 194 XV. Liberal Convictions 197 XVI. Reform 207 XVII. Truth in Error 215 XVIII. Free Thought Rhymes 236 TRAVELS IN FAITH. L When Dr. Lyman Beecher was asked, " What IS the best way to promote revivals ? " he answered, *' By telling of them." Temperance platforms, ex- perience meetings, and the efforts of evangelists prove that the surest way to gain converts is to narrate the conversion of others. " I believed, and therefore have I spoken," has been the warrant through ages for the utterance of sincere convic- tion. Truth is free to all men, and every searcher for it may tell what he thinks he has found. If he is proved to be wrong, the discussion excited will help to establish the right, and his failure will be a stepping-stone in the path of progress. Religious subjects have received the chief atten- tion throughout my life ; and I venture to state some results of my study and observation, in the hope that some who are endeavoring to preserve an inherited, but distrusted belief may be encour- aged to think for themselves. Doubt is the father 2 TRA VELS IN FAITH. of knowledge, and its questionings may as rightly be applied to religion as to astronomy. Some who do not care to read the theological and philosophical works of scholars may peruse and be helped by a simple narrative of personal experience and thought, for, as a German proverb says, ''What comes from the heart goes to the heart" ; and the following thoughts are the result of years of earnest, prayerful seeking after " divine truth." A shrinking from publicity is overcome by the desire for usefulness ; and the fear of unpopularity is allayed by the sentiment expressed in the words of F. A. Lange, " Never has the thoughtful ob- server the right to be silent, merely because he knows that for the present there are but few who listen to him." I was born in Boston on the first day of winter, 1839. My father*^ often pointed out to me a spot in the corner of his study, where, when he first heard that another son had been given to him, he kneeled and commended the newly given life to God. On the first day of spring, I was ** dedicated to God in baptism" at the old church in Essex Street, my father preaching a sermon from the words, '* And it came to pass after the death of Abraham that God blessed his son Isaac." My mother wrote in her journal on this day, " I * Rev. Nehemiah Adams, D.D. TRA VELS IN FAITH, took a Strong hold on God as a covenant God, not only mine, but my husband's and our parents' be- fore us, even to remote generations ; and I left my vow on his altar to bring up this child for him, patiently bearing any care and fatigue which in behalf of this child I may be called to endure." These vows were faithfully fulfilled, until her death from consumption when I was just eight years old. All my memories of her are pleasant, though I have but few distinct recollections of my inter- course with her. The two things which seem most forcibly stamped upon my mind are the Sunday afternoons when she talked with us and taught us the Westminster Assembly's Shorter Catechism, and the incongruous fact that on a Fourth of July she allowed me to smoke a sweet-fern cigar, — an indulgence so contrasted with the usual restraint of my life that my wonder and gratitude have viv- idly remained. In her journal, she speaks of me at the age of four as having been " such a comfort and joy to us ever since he was born." I will record a few of her complimentary statements, as they are inter- esting illustrations of the total depravity which theoretically possessed me ; and I make no other apology for quoting a fond mother's praises. She writes : ** His most striking trait of character is a sense of justice. He sees things as they are, and acts accordingly in a way far different from any TEA VELS IN FAITH. child I have had the opportunity of noticing/" '* With regard to his faults, I do not know of one that I could mention. I asked his father and aunt if they could tell me what his prominent failings were, but they neither of them could. Still, he occasionally needs my saying, ' That is naughty/ or ' That is not right,* only, when he is reminded of doing wrong, he is usually willing to do right and make reparation." It is said that I went to school cheerfully, because, as I remarked, *' I wanted to please Christ." *' He has great power of associa- tion of ideas, in which his strength of memory also shows itself. A word will sometimes suggest a complete set of incidents which occurred long since. He thinks, works a thing out in his own mind, but does not seem so fond of learning to read as his brother. He looks through a subject at a glance. I have been surprised that a child of so much forethought and contrivance should be so free from cunning and guile. He is fair and open as the day." Some instances of forbearance and generosity are mentioned, and this part of the record closes with saying : ''His school-teacher is Mrs. Lothrop, mother of the Mary Lothrop whose little memoir is the charm of Sabbath- school readers. She said to me, ' Mrs. Adams,^ Robert is either early to be taken to heaven, or God is qualifying him for eminent usefulness.' " Thus, it seems I was one of the good boys, who. TRA VELS IN FAITH, 5 though they may charm '' Sabbath-school readers," are not so popular with the general public of to- day as the Tom Sawyers and the bad boys, whose " diaries " would be preferred to the extended ac- count of my youth, from which the above extracts are made. The character of my mother's Sunday talks with her children is shown in the following entry : ** It is my custom Sabbath evening to tell the three older children how .1 have enjoyed myself, what particular truths and passages of Scripture have interested me, and what the impression is which that day has left upon my mind, with which to enter on the busy scenes of the week. Sabbath before last, as I was thus sitting with them, I said : 'Children, this morning's sermon by Rev. Mr. Phelps, of Pine Street Church, made me feel that I ought not to rest satisfied with anything but your conversion. Parental and Sabbath-school in- struction is not enough, you must be born again, as much as if you were heathens.* M. (nine years old) looked very solemn. I continued : ' Your father this afternoon preached to those who sin- cerely desire to be Christians. M., you think you are one of those, don't you ? ' * Oh, yes, mother, I am sure I do, I pray and pray, but it don't come. Do tell me what father said.' The day had been intensely cold, and owing to slight indispositions the children had been kept at home. I told them 6 TEA VELS IN FAITH. about the sermon : one hindrance to some was the fear of what their acquaintance would think. ' Ha, mother!* said M., 'that ain't mine. I don't care what they think. Mother, I should be proud, proud to have them know I was a Christian.' An- ^ other hindrance was being afraid to trust the soul with Christ. ' I ain't afraid to,' she said. Another hindrance was loving one's lusts and passions. Here, we were interrupted. The next morning she said to me : ' Mother, I know what my hin- drance is. I love my passions too well to give them up.' " Shortly after, it is written : " Sabbath even- ing M. came into my chamber, and said : ' Mother, I feel solemn, there is a weight on my mind, and I can't get rid of it.' I asked her what it was. She replied, ' It seems as if all the wicked things I have ever done against you have come into my mind to- day, and I must answer for them all at the judg- ment seat of Christ. They will all appear there.' Then, she mentioned several of them. She was afraid to go to bed. I went up with her. Her feelings were very solemn and tender. Conviction of sin is a new feeling for her. Oh, how I would welcome the Spirit of God, if he would but come 'under my roof!" A few months after this, it is said that M. printed a statement which she handed to her mother. It was headed, *' Give an account of thy stewardship." After enumerating several trivial faults, exagger- TEA VELS IN FAITH. ated by a morbid conscience, she says : '' To-day, I gave myself to God to be his child forever. I am now going, through his strength, to try not to be impudent, not to call names, and not to use any vulgar language, and not to have a coarse voice. I am not going with any of my bad companions. That little child (M. D.), ten years old, as old as I am, is a Christian ; and I will try to be one too. I hope by New Year's day, at the beginning of the year, I shall be a Christian. I will read my Bible, and may I always ' consider every day as a blank leaf to be filled up for Christ.' May I al- ways remember God will bring me to judgment. May I be a praying child, and on my dying bed may I look back with happy remembrance to this day." The next week, my mother writes of having had to find fault with M., and says, '' I told her that, in view of what she had resolved the past week, I considered it the greatest sin she had ever committed." Then follows another letter, filled with the agony of repentance and fresh resolves. The all-overshadowing memory of my early life is this striving for conversion, which pervaded the whole family and was my own most intense idea. Being more reticent and retiring than some others of the family, I do not seem to have made as many demonstrations to my parents as they ; and, there- fore, I give some records of their experiences, as 8 TRA VELS IN FAITH. showing the religious atmosphere of our home and the feelings which I entertained in common with them. My brother possessed a highly emotional nature^ and was *' converted " several times over. Some instances of his and my sisters' experiences will serve to illustrate my own, as I am conscious of having passed through many such strivings, though never gaining such "assurance of salvation." His first letter, written at the age of seven, is preserved. The contents were : '' My dear mother, I hope that you will pray for me, that I may be one of Jesus' flock." A record of a fault and its confes- sion says that W. came to his father, and said : " O father, last night I could not go to sleep, it worried me so ; and I thought I never could be a Christian till I told you of it, and I prayed to God to forgive me, and to help tell you of it. And, father, I have felt all day like Pilgrim with a bur- den on his back." Though irrelevant, I will insert the next record as showing that there were limits to his Scriptural knowledge : " This morning at family worship, reading of the land of Ham in the 105th Psalm, his father asked W. what land was meant. ' The land where hams grow, father.' " On the anniversary of our baptism, she writes : '* I reminded them of it. We talked it over alone. W. was very much affected. He shed tears, and then locked himself in his chamber." We both TRA VELS IN FAITH. 9 printed verses of Scripture, which our mother pinned up on the wall of our room, "that they maybe reminded of it each morning." More than two years after my sister M.'s con- version and fall from grace already mentioned, it ts said : '* On this same Sabbath eve, my dear child M. came to me and said, * Mother, I cannot but hope that I am a child of God.' I asked her why she hoped so. She replied : ' This last week, I have known what despair was. I have been in such distress about my sins. I thought. For twelve long years I have sinned against God. I asked God to forgive me my twelve long years of sin, because Christ has suffered and died for such sin- ners as me. I feel happy, and I want everybody to love God.* She told me a few weeks since that she had always felt entering her teens would be an important period in her life, a turning point in her history, and she meant to spend the interven- ing months (from April to August) in trying to be- come a Christian. Yesterday, W. came to his father at noon and said, ' Father, I hope that I am a Christian.' 'What makes you hope so, my son ? ' ' This morning, father, I felt I was a great sinner, and went to my chamber and asked to be forgiven, and gave myself to God.' He inci- dentally said that, at the time when he gave him- self to the Lord, after he had done so, he sat down in his chamber and sang, 'Jesus, save my dying 10 TRA VELS IN FAITH, soul/ " Then comes an entry about myself when seven years old : '* Sunday before last, R. He is a good Saviour, and I will put my trust in him. My dear father, you have been the means of my loving the Saviour. You have showed me the way, I have followed it. My father, I never knew what a Saviour was. I see him nailed to the cross for me, bleeding, dying for me. Dear Saviour, how I do love thee ! How I will serve thee ! And, if I live to grow up, I will go far and wide and tell the poor heathen what a Saviour thou art. My father, the Lord has taken me up. I will go through my eleventh year with the Saviour. Your dear, affec- tionate son, W. *' ' P. S. — Father, I feel the love of a Saviour.' *' He followed me into my room after meeting, and said that for a long time, when Saturday even- ing was coming on, he had felt a dreadful burden. The approach of holy time seemed to make him think of his sins the week past. To-day, he said, 12 TRA VELS IN FAITH, he had prayed and wept and begged for mercy in his room, and during his prayer he thought that he was heard and answered. He never felt so be- fore, and he poured out his heart in this letter. Dear boy, he has had deep convictions of sin. So has C. This gives me confidence in whatever of right feeling they have. He said that he thought, while I was preaching the New Years sermon this morning (* Lord, make me to know mine end '), if God had sent him word that he might die this year, and asking if he was willing to die or not, he would send back word, 'Father, thy will be done.' I am deeply interested and affected by his experience and appearance to-day." The journal was discontinued soon after this entry, but contains an expression of my father's deep emotion at the bereavement which had be- fallen him in the loss of his beloved wife. The following instruction is then recorded for his chil- dren's benefit, when they should read it in later years: — " God afflicts the soul of a child of his with these unutterable sorrows. He does not spare him. Bereavement with all its aggravating memories, its fearful solitude, its anticipations, consume him. All this happens to one who loves God. " Now, this makes me think and feel how willing and able God is to see the wicked suffer hell tor- ments. We have no adequate conception, till we TRAVELS IN FAITH. 13 are in great affliction-, what the future sufferings of the wicked can be. 'If these things are done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry ? ' ' And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear ? * All the con- solations of religion cannot prevent the memory of past joys from being unutterably painful. What must it be to lie down in sorrow ! Besides, if the Saviour suffered as he did for you, and you reject him, there will be no unwillingness on the part of God to inflict torment. Constituted as we are, it is easy for God to make us completely miserable, just by withdrawing some things from us. O my dear children, flee from the wrath to come. * It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.' These two verses in the prophet Nahum appear to me to be exceedingly impressive : ' God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth, and is furious: the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.' 'The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble ; and he knoweth them that trust in him' " Sixteen years afterward, he opened the book and added some final comments, closing with the words : " My sorrows have deepened in me a conviction of future endless misery, and have helped me, I hope, to flee from the wrath to come. I am persuaded that God is able and willing to see men suffer hereafter. He can look on pain, especially when men have refused 14 TRA VELS IN FAITH, a dying Redeemer. II. My brother^s conversion, last recorded, was soon forgotten ; and, when about sixteen years old, he became a Christian *'for good," after an expe- rience somewhat resembling those of his earlier years. He never wavered after this ; but through college and his ministry, until his lamented death at the age of forty-two, he was steadfast in the faith, and through great trials exhibited a patience, for- bearance and gentleness, which, joined to the strong will and ardent temperament that he possessed, caused those who knew him best to regard him as a perfect character. He held to his father's theo- logical views in the most minute particulars, and TRAVELS IN FAITH, 15 in every sermon portrayed the terrors of eternal doom and the hope of the atonement. Though an orator of great power, his stern theology was not relished by the lax New England churches, who, though professedly holding it in their creeds, yielded inconsistently to the enlightened spirit of the age, and tried to ignore what in honesty they should disavow. One of his hearers remarked to me, while deprecating the plainness of his preach- ing : *' We don't go back on the old doctrines ; but, you know, times have changed, and — eh — You understand." We went to church Sunday morning, and to Sun- day-school and church in the afternoon ; after which, the time before tea was recognized as a period for retirement and reflection. Never shall I forget the mental experiences of those hours, and my efforts in them ** to become a Christian." I would read a little in Doddridge's ''Rise and Progress," Allein's ''Alarm," Baxters "Saints' Rest," or some other standard book of that sort ; and, having gained a certain amount of fervor, I tried to convince myself of sin by self-examination and reflection upon my " ruined state by nature," — for, having no heinous sins of my own, I had to rely for agony upon Adam's transgression. Then, I pictured to my mind Christ's sufferings upon the cross yi7r me ; dwelt upon the thorns, the nails, the spear, and sought to impress my feelings till the i6 , TRA VELS IN FAITH. tears flowed. Then, I thought I had gained a pen- itent state. I prayed in agony for forgiveness, and lingered on my knees for some evidence of conver- sion. Sometimes, I felt a certain amount of peace after these exercises ; but, not having such joy as I had read that others experienced, I never dared to believe that I was converted, and at frequent intervals, after I was ten years of age, these striv- ings were repeated. I had some good Sunday-school teachers ; but I enjoyed most the ministrations of a gentleman who, after a few minutes spent upon the regular lesson, read to us from a book about the tortures of the Spanish Inquisition. He suddenly left for the West, having forged a check ; and we lost this weekly feast of horrors. I was well grounded in the Catechism. Fox s ** Book of Martyrs " and the " New England Primer" were my chief Sunday picture-books, it being wicked to look at ''week-day books " on the holy day. I remember running shrieking to my father's room, thinking, in nightmare, that the skel- eton with a scythe that adorns the " Primer " was after me. Vividly do I remember the Sunday evening gatherings in the parlor after tea, when verses and hymns were recited by each in turn, and we eagerly listened to the prattling song of the youngest : — TRA VELS IN FAITH. 17 " I love my Shepherd's voice. His watchful eye shall keep « My wandering soul among The thousands of his sheep. He feeds his flock, he calls ^em names. His bosom bears the ten-der lambs." One of the earliest hymns that I recited was : — " Welcome, welcome, dear Redeemer, Welcome to this heart of mine." But my great favorite was : — " Lo ! he comes, in clouds descending. Once for favored sinners slain." I recall saying, with broken voice and intense feel- ing:— " Just as I am, without one plea. After the hymns were said, we were asked to tell anything we had heard or thought of during the day ; and, if we could muster up a quotation from a sermon or a pious reflection of our own, we were very proud. These were enjoyable seasons, but I realize now how very emotional they were. It was the climax of the day, after which the evening singing and talking, or the ''monthly concert of prayer for foreign missions " at Park Street Church, where we could get into a pew with other minis- ters' sons, gave an agreeable reaction. The excite- ment was not lessened, though varied, one evening, when one of these boys swallowed the ten-cent piece destined for the collection-box. i8 TRA VELS IN FAITH. Among my schoolmates was a boy who, in beauty of person, mental capacity and loveliness of dispo- sition, was unrivalled in the estimation of all who knew him. I became in love with him to a degree approaching infatuation. All that pertained to him was precious to me, and his presence was bliss. I even hesitated to pray that my love to God might be increased, lest in some way that might diminish my love for Arthur. My younger sister — ten years old — had been writing letters to her schoolmates, urging them to attend to the salvation of their souls ; and, when the summer vacation separated me from my be- loved friend, it occurred to me to imitate her, and make this the theme of a letter to him, asking if he did not desire to be a Christian. He replied in fervid terms, saying, ** I do, I do ; " and all summer a correspondence was carried on, filled with intense rfeligious emotion. I determined to become a Chris- tian before I met him again ; and, one Sunday af- ternoon, I got upon my knees with the resolve to remain there till God converted me. For two hours, 1 wept, prayed and implored for salvation, until, tired out, I arose with the feeling that I had done my part, and, if God wouldn't do his, and save me, I must accept the fact that I was not one of the elect, and must resign myself to going to hell. I felt a peaceful satisfaction at having done my best, but had no assurance that I was a Christian. TRA VELS IN FAITH, 19 When I met my friend in the fall, our diffidence was so great that not a word was said about our correspondence, nor was the subject of religion ever alluded to in our future conversation. This evidences the unnaturalness of such mental exer- cises. He was converted a few years later under the influence of a sermon, and joined the Church ; but his fair and promising life was blighted by dis- ease, and the hopes inspired by his exquisite char- acter and uncommon powers of intellect perished in his early grave. At the age of three, I was sent to school, proba- bly more with a view to be kept out of the way than for regard to my intellectual needs. I can remember sitting in a little rocking-chair and learn- ing to sew small bags for holding spools of thread ; but my other lessons are not recalled, though it seems to me that I was born with the ability to read, for I do not remember ever having learned the art. At an early age, I entered the Brimmer. School, then in charge of that excellent teacher, Mr. Joshua Bates, ably assisted by Mr. John H. Butler and Mr. Daniel C. Brown. I was often at the head of my classes, and devoted much time out of school to the preparation of my lessons. I can remember sitting in school with folded arms, al- most bursting with self-consciousness and satisfac- tion at my high rank and the approval of my teach- ers. The studies were wisely chosen, except that 20 TRA VELS IN FAITH. English grammar was drilled into the boys by rote before they were capable of understanding its prin- ciples, and they still talked *'bad grammar" in the playground. All that I ever learned in school of history, geography, and physics was gained here ;* and the days when natural philosophy was taught and illustrated by experiments with apparatus were the most enjoyable days of my school life, and, I believe, the most profitable. I was removed from these useful studies before the last year of the course, in order to pursue a more classical routine* In a private school for a year I was confined almost wholly to Latin, French, and algebra, and then en- tered the Boston Latin School, which was under the charge of the renowned teacher, Francis Gard- ner. The usual course of study required five years ; but Mr. Gardner announced that an *' advanced di- vision " would be formed of the best scholars, which would be put through in four years. My ambition was the only reason for joining this class, and led to my being ** put through " most literally in one year. Latin and French occupied nearly the whole of our attention, but the former was the great study. Andrews and Stoddard's Latin Grammar had to be committed to memory, and was recited in this way. The first boy called upon began the lesson, then another was called at random, who must continue where the first left off. If he failed to do so accurately, it was accounted an error, and \ TRAVELS IN FAITH, 21 every important word missed was an error. The boys were told that, if they were conscious that they could not have recited what another boy was say- ing or could not have answered a question asked another, they must count an error; and, at the close of the lesson, each was asked in turn how many er- rors he had, and was marked accordingly. Five was the highest mark given for lessons, and each error caused a deduction of one ; and, if as low a mark as two was given at any recitation, the pupil failed to receive an approbation card at the end of the week. A few conscientious boys counted errors to themselves ; but others, among them some of the poorest scholars, never acknowledged errors except for public failures. Being morbidly conscientious, I often turned the benefit of .a doubt against myself, or else was dis- tressed with self-accusations that I could not have recited correctly, if I had been called upon. A similar rule was adopted as to conduct. When Mr. Gardner left the room, instead of appointing a ''monitor" to act as spy, he said, '* I leave you upon your honor." On his return, he asked, ''Who have been out of order?" The "good boys " raised their hands, and were marked for dis- 22 TRA VELS IN FAITH. order ; but the bad boys, who had incited all the whispering and mischief, made no sign, and took home their approbation cards to their proud parents at the end of the week, provided their public lesson failures had not forfeited them. This system of reciting made me study intensely. I could repeat the Latin Grammar verbatim from the beginning, and its list of '* exceptions " will haunt me all my life. But little time was taken for play ; and I often cried at being sent to bed at nine o'clock, in fear that I had not properly memorized my lesson. My friend Arthur was in this class ; and his wonderful genius enabled him to stand easily first, without great effort. I one month stood first, but was usu- ally second, except when one of the non-confessors superseded me. I approached school and recita- tion with fear and trembling ; and, after a year of this strain, headache was fastened upon me, and, after repeated attempts to continue with my class, I was obliged to leave school, and the family phy- sician ordered me to sea. III. I HAD made a voyage to Spain as a passenger, and was about to start on a voyage to England. Sea life had deadened my religious impressions TRA VELS IN FAITH. 23 somewhat ; and the profanity which prevailed on shipboard had become familiar to my ear, though not to my lips. My brother and I had a small billiard-table in an upper room, upon which we had given instructions to some of the deacons sons, to the scandal of certain good ladies of the parish. A pious and faithful servant, who had been sixteen years in the family, tossed this table out of window one night ; and we rescued it, badly broken, from a neighboring yard the next day. That night, as Barbara sought her couch, her bed collapsed in ruins, and proved that *' Providence " is often on the side of small boys as well as of '* the heaviest artillery." Let me record here that, one spring, when the snow melted in the West Roxbury woods, old Barbara was found peacefully sleeping her last sleep, with her head upon her muff, she having strayed away in the fall in aberration of mind and laid herself down to die. The billiard-table was repaired after a fashion, though its bed was hardly a dead level ; and, dur- ing one exciting game with my brother, I startled him, and myself also, by uttering my first oath. That evening, my father called me into his study, and asked me if I did not feel that I could call my- self a Christian. I answered, '* No." He then asked me to write out a statement of my religious feelings which he might read to the examining com- mittee of the church, saying that he would like to 24 TRA VELS IN FAITH, have me make some sort of an avowal before sail- ing upon another voyage. I did this, and accom- panied him to the meeting, where my letter was read, and some of the good deacons put questions to me, which I answered ; but I told them frankly I did not feel warranted to call myself a Christian. The next day, I was astounded at being told by my father that I was accepted for admission to the Church. My brother was little less than thunder- struck, for he evidently considered me less pious than I had ever been. My father said he had long believed I was a Christian, without being conscious of it myself, and that, if I would begin and en- deavor to live like one, the evidences would come to me. After my voyage to England, I decided to adopt the sea as my profession ; and, accordingly, I shipped before the mast in a clipper ship, bound on a voyage around the world. At my fathers re- quest, I joined the Church ; and I gradually accus- tomed myself to the belief that I was a Christian. I soon after entered upon life in a ship's fore- castle. My surroundings were not what would be called edifying, nor would they be considered '* means of grace." My church vows were a con- scious restraint upon me, but neither these nor the fear of God exercised so strong a hold upon me as my father's love. He had been both father and mother to me ; and my reverence and affection for him were so great that he always controlled me TRA VELS IN FAITH, 25 without commands, his usual utterances being, ** I wouldn't do so," or ** I think you had better not do that." Now that I was separated from him, in any temptation the first thought that came to me was, ** What would my father say?" And this so gov- erned me that, after years of roving about the world, I was able to say to him I could not recall an act that I should be ashamed to tell him. For two years, between the ages of seventeen and nineteen, I remained on shore in a counting- room in Boston. Being thrown again into relig- ious surroundings, and a great revival being then in progress all over the land, I began to test my evidences of conversion. I recalled the manner of my joining the Church ; and, realizing that I never had anything like the ecstatic sensations which were proclaimed on all hands by new converts, I fell into despondency, and regarded myself as a false pro- fessor ; feared I had committed the unpardonable sin, and grieved away the Holy Ghost ; and that, in partaking of the Lord's Supper, I had eaten and drank unworthily, and had thus eaten and drank damnation to myself (I. Cor. xi., 29). For some months, gloom and despair haunted me, and I could understand why people committed suicide ; but, at last, I resolved to think no more of the past, but to be a Christian from the present. A paper of Addison's in the Spectator^ No. 465, '* Means of Strengthening Faith," greatly assisted me, espe- 26 TRA VELS IN FAITH, cially his first rule, — that, being once convinced of the truth of any article, we should never after suf- fer ourselves to call it in question ; and my father taught me that joy and peace were not invariable accompaniments of conversion, but were blessings which God, for wise purposes, might sometimes withhold for a time. Now, I began a truly ** relig- ious life " ; became a Sunday-school teacher, pick- ing up my class from the streets and in house to house visiting ; distributed tracts on the sly, drop- ping them on the Common or leaving them se- cretly on seats ; made addresses at neighborhood meetings among the poor, and started a young men's prayer-meeting. The pastor and deacons disapproved of this, and thought we should exer- cise our gifts in the church prayer-meeting. My health obliged me to take to the sea again ; and I followed it steadily for several years, work- ing painfully through all the grades of third mate, second mate, mate, and captain. The life was al- ways uncongenial to me, and unsuited to my dispo- sition and tastes ; but I accepted it as a providen- tial calling, and, by faithful devotion to duty, I in a measure overcame the lack of natural aptitude. My voyages were mostly long ones, in **deep water," as sailors say. I made short voyages to the Mediterranean and the Baltic, but California, China, the East Indies, and British India were the most frequent destinations. I sailed twice around the world, and several times half-way around, and back the same way. Seven times I sailed past Cape Horn, and ten times I passed the Cape of Good Hope. The distances sailed on the various voyages amount to about three hundred and fifty thousand miles. For several years, I accepted implicitly the scheme of theology in which I was educated. If a question arose about any doctrine, I consulted the Catechism and the Bible ; and, if the latter was not intelligible, I referred to Scott's Commentary for an explanation. What satisfied Thomas Scott's intellect I thought should be sufficient for my hum- ble mind ; but, if a final appeal became necessary. 28 TRAVELS IN FAITH, I consulted my father s book, *' Evenings with the Doctrines," and that settled the matter. Doubt was sinful^ and sceptical or controversial works were to be read only by trained theologians who had been skilfully educated to combat them. The Catechism got well mixed up in my mind with the Bible and Milton's '' Paradise Lost" ; and a Methodist Bible- class leader at the Young Men's Christian Associa- tion, good Captain Girdler, snubbed me painfully, when I asserted, in reply to his attacks upon elec- tion, that the Bible said, God '* hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass " (using the words of the Catechism). I never had really thought for myself upon religious doctrines until my first voyage as master of a vessel, when, on an East India voy- age, I visited the ports of Singapore and Penang. There, I met some English missionaries who held the doctrines of the Plymouth Brethren ; though, when asked if they belonged to that sect, they answered, '' Oh, dear^ no ! " I learned afterward that the Brethren had differed upon some such question as whether Christ would have sinned if he could, or could have sinned if he would ; and those who held to the '* peccability " of Christ were ex- cluded from communion with the Plymouth body. A very bitter conflict arose ; and any one who had not ''judged the evil" was worse than a heathen to the original sect, led by John Darby. These good men first instilled dissent into my mind. TRA VELS IN FAITH. 29 I was a Strict Sabbatarian, and they startled me with the declaration that the Lord s day was in no sense the Sabbath. I believed in infant baptism ; and they taught believer s baptism, with immersion as the mode. I had taken in all Scotfs spiritual interpretations of the Old Testament prophecies and his theory of the Book of Revelation, which maintained that nearly all its prophecies had been fulfilled in past history, and soon the " dry- ing up of the Euphrates" — which meant the de- cline of Turkey — ^would be followed by the millen- nium. But these Brethren taught the principle of the literal interpretation of the Scriptures, — that they might be read and understood without note or comment by any one who undertook the task under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. They declared that God meant what he said, and that it was a sin against the Holy Ghost to explain away the direct meaning of his words by interpreting all the promises made to the Jews as foretelling blessings to the Christian Church. This principle led to the theory that the Jews would yet be restored to Palestine, Christ would appear to the select few on earth, and they would meet him in the air with the dead saints, who would rise in the first resurrection. Then, the *' marriage sup- per of the Lamb " would take place, and, in the mean time, antichrist would gain power over the earth ; but, at the height of his persecutions of the 30 TRA VELS IN FAITH. Jews, Christ and his followers would appear ** in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God." Then, the kingdom of Christ would be established upon earth, and a thousand years of blessedness would ensue, after which, a brief and decisive conflict with Satan would follow, and the second resurrection and last judgment would end the record of this present world. They objected to the present one-man ministry of the churches, and declared that the New Testament taught the liberty of ministry of all believers, according to their gifts. They made much of the indwelling and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Their disap- proval of commentators was chiefly directed tow- ard the standard works ; and they urged me to read Macintoshes '' Notes," and gave me a good supply of tracts relating to their views, I studied the Bible diligently at sea, and in time came to accept many of their doctrines. I especially saw that Jesus foretold, and the apos- tles believed in, his speedy return to the earth to destroy the wicked and establish his kingdom ; and the system of interpretation, which made all these yearning hopes, expressed on nearly every page of the New Testament, to be merely prophetic fore- casts of spiritual blessings to the ** Church " two thousand years later, did violence to all my concep- tions of the common-sense way of treating lan- guage. Let any one read what Paul says, ''by the TRA VELS IN FAITH. 31 word of the Lord," in I. Thess. iv., 13-18, and say if the expression ''we that are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord," and the whole tenor of the passage, does not require the honest admis- sion that these events were looked for during the lifetime of some then living. They were mistak- en, and Pauls inspiration was disproved ; but the Brethren found some ingenious excuses to save this last admission, though I now see them to be as dishonest as the theories I abandoned. 