Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again A Life Story

I am not certain that I can state the exact process by which I passed from doubt and unbelief to faith in Christ, but the following, I believe, is very near the truth.

1. One, alas! is, that it is very difficult to bring young people to benefit by the experience of their elders. It would be a happy thing if we could put old men's heads on youn...

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 wh...

Help me, O Thou Great Good Father of my spirit, in the work on which I am now about to enter. Enable me, on the great and solemn subject on which I am now to speak, to separate...

I had a third tendency which helped to get me into trouble; namely, a reforming tendency. Earnest and active-minded young men are generally reformers. In me the reforming tenden...

In compliance with the request of some skeptical neighbours, I lectured against the Divine authority of the Bible in my first settlement in Ohio. Mr. Spofforth, a Methodist mini...

In 1846, I began to dabble in politics. And my views of political subjects were as much out of the ordinary way as my views on matters pertaining to religion. I was a republican...

I was expelled on a Saturday afternoon. I was unable to stay till the closing scene, as I had an engagement to preach anniversary sermons on the Sunday, some thirty miles away....

I heard T. Batty yesterday. His text was, "Come unto Me all ye that labor, and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." He urged people to come to Christ, but he never told t...

As my readers will have seen before this, the changes in my views were rather numerous, if not always of great importance. And the cases I have given are but samples of many oth...

I had a second powerful tendency which helped to get me into trouble, and so became an occasion of unhappy feeling, namely, a _practical_ tendency. This was bred in me. It was a...

As a young minister I had two or three marked tendencies. One may be called a rationalizing tendency. I was anxious, in the first place, clearly to understand all my professed b...

I had now for some time been gradually approaching the views of the more moderate class of Unitarians. Some of my friends, when they saw this, became alarmed, and returned to th...

1. With regard to my views. I found that some of the doctrines which I had been taught as Christian doctrines, were not so much as hinted at by Christ and His Apostles,--that so...

How easy it is for men to mix up their own fancies, or the vain conceits of others, with divine truth,--or rather, how hard it is to _avoid_ doing so,--we may see by the case of...

After I fell into doubt and unbelief, the Church, and the ministry generally, appeared to look on me as irretrievably lost. The great mass of them made no attempt for my recover...

Lessons I have learned.--1. Men slow to learn wisdom by the experience of others.--2. Danger of bad feeling.--3. Of a controversial spirit.--4. Old ministers should deal tenderl...

The Methodist Body to which my parents belonged, and to which I myself belonged till I was twenty-one years of age, was the Old Connexion or Wesleyan Body. I was a local preache...

1. There are several causes of skepticism and infidelity. One is vice. When a man is bent on forbidden pleasures, he finds it hard to believe in the truth and divinity of a reli...

There are several other causes of doubt and unbelief which we might name, if we had time; but we have not. There is one however which we must notice, because it had considerable...

When a man has travelled far, and seen strange lands, and dwelt among strange peoples, and encountered unusual dangers, it is natural, on his return home, that he should feel di...

drains being out of order, the offensive materials from other houses lodged under the floor of our cellar kitchen, and sent forth, through the floor, deadly effluvia. In this ce...

Continuation of my Story.--Lectures on the Bible in Ohio.--Trouble.--Riot.--Rotten eggs.--Midnight mischief.--Had to move.--Settlement among Liberals, Comeouters.--_Too_ fond of...

Story of my descent from the faith of my childhood, to doubt and unbelief.--Bad theological teaching in my early days.--Dreadful results.--Perplexity.--Madness.--Survive all, an...

Reforming tendencies.--Corruptions in the Church.--Bad trades.--Faults in the ministry.--Toleration of vice.--Drinking habits.--Intemperance.--The Connexion.--Faulty rules.--Bad...

Story of my life continued.--Results of my expulsion.--Fierce fighting.--Desperation of my persecutors.--Great excitement on my part.--Rank crop of slanders.--Monstrous ones.--A...

Further theological investigations.--Unwarranted statements by preachers.--John Foster's Essay on Some of the Causes by which Evangelical Religion is Rendered Distasteful to Per...

My style of preaching.--Decidedly practical.--Using Christianity as a means for making bad people into good ones, and good ones always better.--Reasons for this method.--A famil...

Enters politics.--Advocates extreme political views.--Republicanism.--Foretells the French Revolution of 1848.--Great political excitement in England.--Government alarmed.--Get...

Extracts from my Diary.--A strange preacher.--Horrible sermons.--Lights of the world that give no light.--Theological mist and smoke.--Narrow-mindedness.--Intolerance.--T. Allin...

The Bible.--My earliest views of its origin and authority.--Changed as I grew up.--Further changes.--Important facts about the Bible.--False theories of its Divine inspiration.-...

The steps by which I gradually returned to Christ.--Lectures and sermons on the road.--Answers to objections against the Bible and Christianity.--Spiritualism.--Strange phenomen...

How preachers and theologians indulge their fancies on religion.--John Wesley.--His resolution to be a man of one book.--What came of his resolution.--His sermon on God's approb...

Approach to Unitarianism.--Kindness of Unitarians.--Preaching and lecturing in their pulpits.--Ten nights' public discussion with Rev. W. Cooke.--Subjects.--Results.--Publicatio...

Modification of my early creed.--Unscriptural doctrines relinquished.--Scriptural ones adopted.--Some doctrines modified.--Theological fictions dropped.--Eager for the pure, sim...

Causes of unbelief.--Vice.--Other causes.--Constitutional tendencies to doubt.--Disappointed expectations about Christianity.--Mysteries of Providence.--Misrepresentations of Ch...

Another cause of unbelief.--Bad feeling between ministers or among church members.--Alienates them from each other.--Then separates them from the Church.--Then from Christ.--How...