From Bondage to Liberty in Religion Part 4

Not a tree has ever grown, not a plant has ever opened its leaves, blades or petals to the sun; not a seed has ever germinated, nor a flower ever bloomed that was not doomed to die. Did all this come upon all nature because Adam ate an apple? Would all the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, paraded before Adam that he might name them, be still living with him in the Garden of Eden, if he had not sinned? Would all the plants and trees and flowers that grew and bloomed in the Garden of Eden in the days of Adam and Eve's innocence be still there, with the same leaves and blooms, just as they were, if man had not sinned?

These questions I know look silly. But if we are forced to accept the premise, we must be prepared to accept the natural conclusion to which it leads. And if death--physical death--as orthodoxy has always taught, entered the world only because of Adam's sin, it naturally and inevitably leads to the conclusions I have indicated.

Another question presents itself. Can perfection, or that which is perfect, fall? If either man or angels were created pure, perfect, holy, and in the image and likeness of G.o.d, how can such a being fall?

It seems to me that it would be just as possible for G.o.d himself to fall. The very fact of the fall,--if such a fact exists or ever existed,--of either man or angel, is in itself conclusive proof of some moral imperfection or weakness somewhere. That man is morally imperfect is freely conceded. In plain words, he is a sinner. But was he ever otherwise? The farther back we trace him the worse he appears on the general average. All the Bible outside of this one story in Genesis, as well as all history attests this fact. Then may it not be a fact, that while man is a sinner, he always has been so; that he never fell, for he had been nowhere (morally) to fall from but always has been and still is morally imperfect and incomplete, but ever striving onward and upward?

But supposing this story of the fall to be true, what was the penalty for it,--physical death, as we have seen, or eternal spiritual death, or both? After all the preaching and writing about eternal death, d.a.m.nation, h.e.l.l-fire and brimstone as a result of Adam's sin, I could not find any such doctrine taught in the story of the fall, nor anywhere else in the Old Testament, and but very vaguely, if at all, in the New.

The story in Genesis cannot be construed by any reasonable rules of interpretation to mean or involve any other punishment on Adam or his posterity, for his sin, beyond physical death. "Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return" is the final climax of the penalty. There is no hint, so far as I can understand it, of immortality or any future life. There is not the remotest hint of it in this story. All the punishments for sin from Adam to Noah, and long afterwards, culminated and ended, so far as Genesis is concerned, in physical death. The Hebrew Hades, Sheol and Gehena, were creations of a much later period.

And who, or what was the serpent? A real snake, or the devil? I know the current belief is that the serpent is a mere figure for the devil, or that at least the spirit of the devil was incarnated in the serpent.

But there is not a line of Scripture to support either a.s.sumption. In the story itself it is stated only that the serpent was "more subtle than all the beasts of the field." He is cla.s.sed with them, not above them, except in subtlety. The whole fabric upon which this idea of the ident.i.ty of the serpent of Eden and the devil is based seems to be a single verse in Revelation (xii, 9): "And the great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, he that is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world; he was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him." There are one or two other pa.s.sages in the same book that speak of "that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan," but they have no more connection with or relation to the story of Eden, than Homer's "Iliad" has to the nebular hypothesis. And yet upon these few pa.s.sages is built up the whole fabric of the ident.i.ty of the serpent of Eden and the temptation, with the devil, Satan or Lucifer, that is so graphically portrayed in "Paradise Lost."

This whole story of the serpent in Eden is very likely but an adaptation, in another form, of the old Babylonian myth of "Marduk and the Dragon."

All this s.h.i.+fting of the penalty for Adam's sin from physical to spiritual death and identifying the serpent with Satan, was an after-invention, to try to make it harmonize with later developed doctrines of immortality. Any candid reader can see that no such interpretation can be placed upon the natural and simple language of the story itself. In fact immortality for man, according to the story, is forever inhibited, according to verses 22-24. After eating the forbidden fruit the only way to immortality was to "eat of the tree of life." And to keep Adam from the "tree of life," of which he might "eat and live forever," G.o.d drove him out of the garden and placed the cherubim over it with a "flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." According to this story, man is not immortal at all, and the only way to attain it is to get by the cherubim, or scale the walls of the garden of Eden and get to that tree.

I was now ready to determine for myself that this whole story of the Garden of Eden was a myth, legend, or some oriental allegory, the true purport and meaning of which is now wholly unknown; beyond the reasonable conjecture that it originated with some very ancient oriental philosopher, in the childhood of the human race, and is an allegorical portrayal of his attempt to solve the problem of the origin of evil, of suffering and death in the human race.

THE FLOOD

But I pursued my course of reasoning and investigation further. I approached the period of the flood. The infinite and omniscient G.o.d is revealed as disappointed with this creature that He had made "in his own image and likeness." He gets angry with him for his perversity, declares He is sorry He made him, and resolves to destroy the whole race, except one family whom He proposes to preserve for seed for a new start; together with every beast, fowl and creeping thing of the earth, except one pair of each for seed. Think of an infinite and omniscient G.o.d, who knew all things from the beginning, all that man would ever do, before He created him, now looking down from heaven on his work, confessing it to be a stupendous failure, getting angry and repenting that He had made man or beast; and now resolving to take vengeance by drowning the whole outfit! If man was so perverse that he needed to be destroyed, why wreak vengeance also on the animal creation that had not sinned? And if the animal creation must be included in the universal destruction, why do it by a process thru which all marine life naturally escaped, while all terrestrial life was destroyed? Then why save any seed of such perverse stock? Was not G.o.d acquainted with the laws of heredity that had worked so perfectly in transmitting the sin of Adam down thru all the generations thus far; and did He not know the same thing would continue in the "seed of the race" after the flood?

If He really desired to correct the mistake He had made, why did He not destroy the whole race, root and branch, while He was at it, renovate the earth and start with a new creation of better stock?

This flood story must be noticed a little closer. Noah is commanded to build an ark, as his family is chosen especially to preserve the race for a new start. He is also to save in pairs, male and female, specimens of every beast of the field, fowl of the air, and creeping things of all the earth to preserve the species. And now when the ark was ready, these beasts of the field, fowls of the air, and creeping things of all the earth, polar bears, moose, reindeer, and the thousand varieties of fur-bearing animals from the arctic north, together with those of the torrid deserts and jungles of the south, lions, tigers, hyenas, elephants, leopards, antelope, giraffes, ants, mice, hawks, doves, wolves, lambs, serpents of all varieties, of birds, beetles, flies, bugs and insects, all came of their own accord, in the exact number prescribed, quietly walked into the ark and lay down to rest until the deluge was over!

The deluge over, the new race started was as bad as ever. Even righteous Noah got drunk from the first crop of grapes he raised, and cursed one of his son's posterity to perpetual servitude. The race soon tried to outwit G.o.d by building a tower by which to reach heaven, and G.o.d's only way to prevent its success was to confuse their tongues so they could no longer work together, and the scheme had to be abandoned. The race grew continually worse, drifted into idolatry, and G.o.d resolved to try a new scheme to ultimately save the race. We come now to:

THE CALL OF ABRAHAM

Abraham is called to leave the land of his fathers, go to a new country and start a new race, through whom G.o.d would yet save the world, as all his previous efforts had proven failures. Here we have the beginning of the Jewish nation, whose history I have not s.p.a.ce to even outline, much less to follow in detail. Study it for yourself in its fullness, because it has a vital relation to modern orthodoxy as now represented and taught in most of the churches. A few points, however, must be noted. The story tells us that the great G.o.d of the universe selects this one man, one family and one nation to be supremely blessed above all the balance of mankind, and to whom He committed his revelation and plans for their ultimate salvation, and denied these blessings to all the rest of his creatures. Could such a G.o.d be just? When the Israelites were trying to get out of Egypt, while Moses and Aaron were to go and beg Pharaoh to let them go, G.o.d is said to have hardened Pharaoh's heart not to do so, only to have an excuse to plague Egypt, kill the first born in every house and then overwhelm Pharaoh and his whole army in the Red Sea! Can a just G.o.d do that? When they finally arrive at the borders of the promised land they are commanded to literally exterminate the inhabitants and neighboring tribes, root and branch, men, women and children indiscriminately and unsparingly. G.o.d is described as resorting to lying, deceit and intrigue to lure the enemies of Israel to their destruction. Time fails me to pursue this horrible record in its details. It begins with Abraham and ends only with the close of the Old Testament Canon. Study it for yourself.

Could a just G.o.d be guilty of such outrageous conduct? I think not.

As is well known, the doctrine is that G.o.d thus called Abraham and the Jewish nation apart from all the balance of the human race, that thru them He might ultimately send his son into the world to save the race from sin and h.e.l.l. To this end promises and prophecies are said to point, thruout the entire Old Testament from Abraham to its close, and even as far back as the Garden of Eden and the first sin.

When Jesus of Nazareth appeared he was accepted by his followers as this promised Savior, the Messiah of promise and prophecy, and has been so accepted by the Christian world ever since. To him was attributed a miraculous birth as the Son of G.o.d; and in the opinion of his followers he was soon considered, not only the Son of G.o.d, but G.o.d Himself incarnated bodily in the son. In other words, that G.o.d Himself came down from heaven in the form of human flesh, to save the world by making an atoning sacrifice of Himself for the sins of humanity. And when Jesus came, suffered and died on the Cross, we are told that "the scheme of redemption was completed." And what is this "scheme" of redemption, or "plan" of salvation? This was the crucial point to me.

I thought man was certainly a sinner and needed a Redeemer. I looked it over with scrutinizing care. Here is one G.o.d who is three G.o.ds. A part of G.o.d left heaven, came to earth as a man, died on the Cross to satisfy the other part of himself for sins somebody else committed! I know this sounds to the orthodox like sacrilege, but I mean it seriously. Think of it for a moment! G.o.d dividing himself, one part in heaven, one part on earth and the third part, the Holy Ghost, a go-between! Boil it down to its last a.n.a.lysis and this is what it means. Either this, or three separate G.o.ds, one of whom comes to earth to die in order to appease the wrath of the other, the third remaining in heaven with the first until the second returns, when He would come to earth to continue the work begun by the second. There would thus be always two G.o.ds in heaven and one on earth. This is, in a nutsh.e.l.l, the sum and substance of Trinitarian orthodox Christianity.

We are told seriously that "there is no other name given under heaven, nor among men, whereby we may be saved except Jesus Christ." And that in order to be saved, we must believe in him as the only begotten Son of G.o.d, and in the atoning sacrifice of his death for our sins. Here I seriously inquired: If the salvation of the human race is entirely and exclusively dependent upon faith in the merits of the death of Jesus as an atoning sacrifice, what became of all the people who died before his coming? Orthodoxy answers that they were saved by faith in the _Promised Savior to come_, as given to Abraham, Moses, and the prophets. If so, how many were saved? The Jewish nation never looked for a spiritual Messiah. It was always a temporal one. There is no evidence that they ever had the remotest conception of a Messiah that was to make a vicarious atoning sacrifice of himself for them. Hence their faith in this promise was in vain. It was not the kind that saves, according to orthodoxy. An occasional prophet, like Isaiah or Jeremiah, or some others, _might_ have so understood and believed it.

But very few, if any, others did. Then the great ma.s.s of "G.o.d's chosen people" are now in h.e.l.l; for they did not believe _rightly_; and all the balance of the world is there because they never heard of such a promise and hence did not believe at all!

But the question here arises, If salvation from Abraham to Christ was secured by faith in the promised Messiah _to come_; and which, as we have just seen, according to orthodox definitions, was practically a complete failure; how were they saved from the time of Adam until the promise made to Abraham?

The answer of orthodoxy is, By the promise made to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, that "the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." This is not the exact language of Genesis, but of the creed.

The substance is correct. But according to Genesis this was not a promise to Adam and Eve at all; but a part of the curse p.r.o.nounced on the serpent! There is nothing in the record to indicate that either Adam or Eve even heard it, or ever knew anything about it. There is nothing in the record to indicate that the serpent was present when G.o.d accosted Adam and Eve about their transgression. Besides, the incident is never referred to again in the whole Bible, by either prophet, priest, Christ or apostle. It is simply an example of that far-fetched method of interpretation I have before referred to, to establish a preconceived opinion and satisfy the demands of such a necessity.

There is not a single line in the whole Bible to justify such an interpretation of this incident. The only possible cross reference that might indicate it is in Rom. xvi, 20: "And the G.o.d of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly." And this can have no reference to the incident in Eden. Besides, if this sentence on the serpent was a promise of the victory of Christ over him, it was _already accomplished_ before Paul wrote these words.

And if such a promise had been made, with the meaning attached to it that is claimed, G.o.d certainly knew that the race would soon forget it, and thus render it futile and give him additional excuse to vent his wrath and wreak his vengeance against his helpless creatures. If faith in such a promise was the only way of salvation from Adam to Abraham then practically all the world up to that time is now in h.e.l.l! Who can believe such a caricature of G.o.d?

But after all, what about the salvation of the race since the death of Christ? If salvation since his coming is only attainable thru personal faith in him as the miraculously begotten Son of G.o.d, and in his death as a vicarious atonement for sin; and that all are lost except those who have thus believed, how many are saved? Certainly very few. Take a mere glance at the world since the time of Christ. Leaving out of consideration the countless millions who never heard of him, and confining ourselves to those who have, how many of them fully met exactly these conditions? If such a doctrine is true, there are but few people in heaven except infants; and it is only in recent years that some of the orthodox have admitted infants indiscriminately into heaven!

I could comprehend to some extent how, if G.o.d had offered salvation and a home in heaven forever to all mankind on such easy terms as faith in the merits of the death of Jesus, He could visit condign punishment on such as knew it and wilfully rejected it. But I could not see the justice of such a punishment being inflicted on the countless millions of people who never heard of it, had no means of knowing it, and could not be justly blamed for not knowing it. Another thing that I now put the test of reason to, was the doctrine of salvation by faith itself.

Was faith the only thing that could merit the favor of G.o.d? Was character of no avail? Was all moral purity, goodness and brotherly love but "filthy rags in the sight of G.o.d," unless b.u.t.tressed by belief in the Deity of Jesus and the vicarious atonement? Was salvation after all as arbitrary as that described in "Holy Willie's Prayer"?

"O, Thou who in the heavens dost dwell, Who as it pleases best thysel'

Sends one to heaven and ten to h.e.l.l, A' for Thy glory, And not for any good or ill They've done afore Thee."

I thought of such moralists and philosophers as Zoroaster, Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, Plato, and thousands of others who have lived in the past, and left a lasting impression in the world for the good of mankind that continues to this day, some of them but little less than Jesus himself, in the moral sublimity of their lives and teachings, and wondered if these men were all in h.e.l.l to roast and fry and burn forever because they had not "exercised faith" in the merits of a dying G.o.d of whom they had never known or even heard! And every n.o.bler sentiment of my human nature rebelled against such an idea. To attribute such a character and proceeding to G.o.d is to make him, in cruelty and injustice, below the level of the most ferocious beast of the jungle. This was not all. I beheld the divisions in the church itself. Some hundreds of different denominations, all bearing the name Christian, each claiming to be right and all the balance wrong, each claiming to expound the only truth, and all the balance error; each claiming to direct to the only true and infallible way of eternal life and all the balance only deadly heresies. I found the history of the Christian Church written in blood. For fifteen hundred years Christian had slain Christian as a part of his religious duty. Fire and f.a.got, sword and rack and all the instruments of torture known to the ingenuity of mankind were employed for the torture and death of heretics--all in the name of Christ and for the salvation of the world.

Catholics tortured and burned Protestants and Protestants murdered each other. Calvin consented to the burning of Servetus and the New England Puritans hung witches and persecuted Quakers and Baptists by burning holes in their tongues with hot irons, and driving them from their midst as they would the pestilence. I wondered how, if G.o.d ever takes any interest in affairs on earth and hears the prayers of his children, he could sit supinely by on his throne and permit such things to be done in his name and for his glory! If his spirit could enter into the hearts of men and direct their thoughts and minds, why did He not do it and stop this useless slaughter? Again I turned back to the beginning of things. If G.o.d foresaw what Adam would do and the dreadful consequences of it, why did He not make him different so he would not fall? Was it not just as easy? But if G.o.d can be better glorified by saving a fallen creature than by keeping him from falling, then why did He not make this "plan of salvation" so plain and clear that there could be no possibility of misunderstanding or misconstruing it? If G.o.d was to be ultimately glorified in the sacrifice of his son as a means of salvation for the world, and this salvation was to come simply by faith in this promise, why did He not make this promise so specific and clear that the most ignorant and benighted could not misunderstand and fail to accept it? Why did not G.o.d reveal this promise to all mankind alike, so that all might be saved, instead of to one family and one nation? And when this son came and "died for the world" why did not G.o.d make it known to the entire world instead of a handful of Jews in an obscure corner of the earth? And when this "plan" was completed, why was it not heralded in every nook and corner of the earth, wherever man was found, instead of being confined for centuries around the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean? Then again, I say, why was not this "plan" made so plain and unequivocal that no man, however ignorant, could possibly fail to comprehend it, and all men understand it exactly alike, and thus live in the bonds of a true brotherhood, the sons of the one great G.o.d, instead of butchering each other for fifteen hundred years in the name of religion, each sect claiming to be the only true followers of the Son of G.o.d, and all the balance reprobates and devils?

But the most inconsistent and unreasonable phase of the whole thing is yet to come. If salvation is attainable only through the merits of the "death on the Cross" of Jesus Christ, then Jesus _had to be crucified_.

It was a part of the "eternal plan." No other death would do. If Jesus had died a natural death there could have been no salvation. He must needs be punished, killed for the sins of Adam and all mankind.

He was "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." To carry out this "divine purpose" somebody had to crucify him. Every actor in this great "drama of redemption" was a necessary factor. No one was either unnecessary or unimportant. Judas was necessary to betray him into the hands of his enemies. He and the part he performed were necessarily as much a fore-ordained and eternally predestinated factor in the "scheme of redemption" as that of Jesus himself. The Jewish priests who prosecuted him before Pilate were as equally necessary as the subject of the prosecution. The Jewish nation whom they represented, or some other nation, was equally necessary as a background for this prosecution, in whose name it was conducted. Pilate or some other was necessary as the judge to hear the trial and p.r.o.nounce the sentence of death before it could be carried out. And finally, the Roman soldiers were necessary to execute the sentence. All these, Jesus, Judas, the priests, the Jewish nation, Pilate and the Roman soldiers, were necessary links in the one great chain of the "scheme of redemption,"

or "plan of salvation" by the vicarious atonement of the Son of G.o.d on the Cross. If either one of them had failed, the chain would have been broken, G.o.d's eternal plans and purposes thwarted, and man left without redemption to eternally peris.h.!.+

And yet poor Judas was driven by remorse to a suicide's grave, and according to the doctrines of the Church, for these nineteen hundred years has been justly writhing, frying and burning in the bottomless pit of eternal torments, and will continue so to suffer forever,--and for what? For faithfully performing and fulfilling that part in the scheme of redemption which he was, by the eternal decrees of G.o.d, foreordained and predestinated from before the foundation of the world to perform; and which he could neither escape nor avoid, without breaking the chain, and thus defeating the eternal purposes of G.o.d in the redemption of mankind! For nineteen hundred years the Church has thus execrated and anathematised Judas Iscariot, Pontius Pilate, the High Priests, the whole Jewish nation and the Roman Empire, and consigned them to eternal perdition, the tormenting flames of an eternal h.e.l.l, and scattered the Jews to the four quarters of the earth, never ceasing its horrid persecutions, in many places even to this day; and all for what? For crucifying Christ; for carrying out the divine purpose planned from before the foundation of the world; for obeying the Eternal Will; for doing only what they were _compelled_ by the eternal fates to do in order that mankind might be saved from the eternal burning!

Our author that I had been studying says on page 257, "No man can read the Bible with any faith in its teachings, and deny that this terrible calamity (the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish nation) overtook the Jews on account of their great sins, _especially their rejection of the Son of G.o.d_." (Italics mine.) Suppose they had not rejected him.

Suppose they had accepted him as the Messiah of prophecy, as the Church insists he was, and had set about to make him their king and succeeded; and he had lived on a normal life and died a natural death, what would have become of the "scheme of redemption" by vicarious atonement? What about the "plan of salvation," the remission of sins only thru the "power of the blood"? "Apart from the shedding of blood there is no remission." Then if the Jews _had not_ rejected Jesus and thereby caused his blood to be shed, what would have been the eternal destiny of the whole human race? According to orthodox Christianity, the whole plan would have failed, and the whole human race would have been irretrievably lost and plunged forever and ever into eternal torments, "where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched"!

I had now reached the crisis. After pursuing this course of study and this line of reasoning for a period of about three years after finis.h.i.+ng the book I have herein described, does any one wonder that I threw the whole thing overboard, Bible, inspiration, revelation, church and religion, into the sc.r.a.p heap of superst.i.tion, legend, fable and mythology? I gave up the whole thing as a farce and a delusion, as "sounding bra.s.s and tinkling cymbals." I could no longer honestly preach such a gospel; I could not be a hypocrite. I withdrew from the church and ministry and turned my attention to secular pursuits. And having nowhere else to go, I naturally drifted into that state of mind which the world calls agnosticism.

CHAPTER VI

THE REACTION: A NEW CONFESSION OF FAITH

At this time I knew nothing of a liberal church. If I had, I doubt if I was in a condition of mind to consider it. I was so utterly disgusted with ecclesiasticism as I knew it that I was but little prepared if at all, to give anything of the kind fair consideration.

The pendulum had swung to the opposite extreme. I abandoned everything but G.o.d. I never doubted for a moment the existence of a Supreme Being. Nature and instinct taught me this. But who, or what, or where, this Supreme Being was, or what his attributes or characteristics were, I did not pretend to know, or care. I relegated it all to the realm of the unknown and unknowable.

For a while I went to church occasionally, merely for the sake of respectability, and not because I took any interest in common with it.

I listened to the preaching with such patience and fort.i.tude as I could command. I heard only the same old plat.i.tudes about a dying Christ and the flames of perdition I had heard all my life and preached for eight years myself. I often felt as if I would like to help the preacher out in his struggle to "divest himself of his thoughts." I finally quit going to church altogether, until I located where I had an opportunity to attend a Reformed Jewish synagogue, which I did quite often, and always heard broad-gauged, intellectual discourses.

As I have before said, up to this time, and for years thereafter, I had never read a distinctively "infidel" book, nor even a liberal religious one. My change of opinions had all come from an honest effort to seek proofs for the faith of my fathers, which I inherited. But I never ceased to be a student. My temporary antagonism to the church soon vanished. I simply viewed it with utter indifference, and somewhat of sympathy. I had no more creed to defend, and none to condemn. I had no desire whatever to propagate my own ideas or disturb any one else in theirs. I felt that if any one got any satisfaction out of his religious beliefs he was welcome to it. I would not disturb him for anything. I looked upon it as a harmless delusion, and if it made one any better, society was so much the gainer. But to me it was as "sounding bra.s.s and tinkling cymbals." But I cannot say that I was satisfied with my position. Man is a social as well as an emotional animal. Agnosticism is neither social nor emotional. It is cold-blooded and indifferent at its best. It is simply a bundle of doubts and negations. Men are bound together in social and fraternal ties by what they affirm and believe in common. But they care nothing for what they deny.

But having no creed to defend and no preconceived opinions to prove, and being of studious habits, I was now prepared to study in search of abstract truth for truth's own sake, ready to accept it from whatever source it might come, and follow it wherever it might lead.

Without arrogating to myself any special merit or credit for taking this course, I wish that all people would do the same. As I said in the very beginning of this book, most people inherit their religious beliefs, and there they stop. We are Baptists, or Methodists, or Presbyterians, or Catholics, because we were born so. We transmit our beliefs to our children, from generation to generation, each following the faith of his ancestors, without ever stopping to inquire why, or seek a reason. And if a thought is ever given to it, or any search made, it is but rarely for abstract truth, but for the proofs that support the inherited faith, the preconceived opinion. It is like one going into his house and bolting the door on the inside. Nothing is ever given out and nothing ever permitted to come in. This is exactly why for centuries the world was drenched in Christian blood, shed by Christian hands. Each had its infallible creed, to which all the world must bow--or take the consequences.

It took me several years to get myself settled with anything like a definite "creed of my own," tho I was never in the least disturbed about it, and only gave it such time as I could spare from a busy business and professional life. By this time I had reached such definite conclusions as satisfied my own mind, tho I never,--after my "crisis,"--held any opinion, and do not now, that I am not willing to change at any time that evidence is furnished to justify it. In my search for truth I found myself confronted with certain facts that Agnosticism did not satisfactorily explain. These were facts of Nature, of Man as a part of it, of man's nature, habits, history, thoughts, conduct, and social relations,--in fact, all that pertains to the phenomena of Nature and Human Life and Relations. The conclusions I reached const.i.tute.

MY NEW CONFESSION OF FAITH

_THE UNIVERSE AND G.o.d_