137

OUTLINES OF MY MENTAL HISTORY.

(Continued from page 93.)

Hitherto, so far as belief can be a correct term to apply to unthinking assent, I was a believer in orthodox doctrines. I was still very young, and imbibed all the views presented by my parents and the sect to which they belonged, without question. But now a higher development of the rational faculty prompted me to scrutinize these views a little more closely, at first merely with the design of thoroughly understanding them. While thus engaged, I one day mentioned to two friends, much older than myself, one or two difficulties which presented themselves to me in the understanding of some passages of Scripture. The explanations they gave did not satisfy me, and I expressed my sense of their inadequacy to meet my wants. My friends, however, instead of trying to enlighten me intellectually, solemnly warned me against giving way to doubts, assuring me these questions were merely suggestions of the Devil, and must not be attended to. As I felt conscious of purity of intention, and was desirous only of knowing the truth, I was much wounded by their remarks. The difficulties still remained unsolved, but I feared to mentioned them to any other persons, lest I should be generally suspected of unbelief. Still, however, my mental state on the whole was one of reception of the teachings of orthodoxy.

When about sixteen or seventeen years of age, I met with a biographical extract from Southey, in which he describes the condition of John Bunyan, during the transition period of distress, which so remarkably separated the former dissipated portion of his life from the latter deeply religious portion. In his remarks on this mental phenomenon, being one shared with Bunyan by many other good men, and called by the Wesleyans conviction of sin, Southey attributes, with some plausibility, the whole of his sufferings to a debilitated state of his nervous system, perhaps arising from derangement of the digestive organs. He illustrates this view by known facts, and then from Bunyan's own journal gives extracts which indicate that at particular times, when, as Southey interprets, we may suppose the physical disorder to be a little subdued, the mental distress is also alleviated. Insignificant as all this may appear to some, it was to me the spark necessary to ignite the already prepared train. Doubts on various points had previously insinuated themselves into my mind, and now these were collected into one focus. Here were indications, nay proofs, that what had been supposed the operations of N. S. NO. 112.-VOL. X.

L

the spiritual nature in man, were, in reality, phenomena belonging only to matter,-highly organized. What if it should turn out that all other supposed spiritual phenomena, when examined, proved to be merely physical? The thought was dreadful to me, but the question must be put. This suspense was intolerable. I began to read and carefully to examine the established doctrines, and to my consternation everywhere found I was pursuing a phantom. From every fresh point of view I was at last obliged to turn away, more and more hopeless of the result. The Christian world professed to prove to the reason the truth of its system from external evidence of various kinds. First, there was the broad foundation of miraculous evidence. But here there were innumerable difficulties. If miracles were intended to prove the truth of Christianity, why were they only presented to us historically? Other religious systems also made equal professions, and had records, supposed to be perfectly authentic, of even more astounding miracles than were related in the Gospels. And why were so few convinced when Jesus Christ was among the Jews? They must have known better than we whether the prophecies were fulfilled in him or not, and whether his claims were established by miracles. Why, then, did they reject him, despise his claims, and condemn him to death? And supposing the Scriptural accounts of miracles performed to be correct, it seems clear that many of them might have been made much more evident and convincing to the world, if it had been required. An instance of this occurs in the account of the resurrection of Jesus. If it was required to convince us of the reality of this resurrection, why was it that the Lord never appeared publicly afterwards to confound his enemies,-that he visited the disciples only privately, and this also when a rumour had been industriously spread by the Jews that the body had been stolen from its tomb by his disciples? Surely this privacy and indifference were rather calculated to encourage the popular belief that he and his followers were deceivers, than to convince any one by miraculous evidence that he was the Messiah. All this supposes the Gospels to contain the exact truth of these matters. But then, the question came, What reason is there to believe these are true records? The ancient historians do not mention Christ or the Christians until a long time after the death of Christ, and then the most respectable and veracious of them mention the sect with contempt, as fanatical followers of one Jesus, who was crucified." Not one of the Gospels has its date, author, or origin ascertained, so as to be free from doubt. They vary in their accounts, sometimes apparently contradicting each other; and in such uncertainty was the Christian world, in the third century, as to the true

66

and spurious accounts of Christ, that a council had to select those books they considered divinely inspired, and stamp them with their own approbation, the selection being by no means made with unanimity on the part of the council. As regards the books of the Old Testament, the greatest uncertainty exists, as it appears from one of the historical books themselves (see 2 Kings xxii. v. 8, et seq.) that, at a certain period, there was not a single copy of the books of Moses known to exist in Judea itself; that, in making some repairs in the temple, a copy was found, as it were, by accident, and that the king was astonished and alarmed by its contents, and sent to consult a prophetess about it. Of course there is here room for the suspicion that the priest who professed to find it might be really the author of it. These thoughts were provoked and even compelled by the attitude assumed by the champions of religious orthodoxy. They profess to bring abundance of external evidence; they address themselves to the reason, and offer to satisfy it with proofs. Nay, more than this, the reason is made the basis of protestantism. The reformed churches set up the grand principle that every man has a right of private judgment in religious matters, and ought not to be bound to a traditional creed. In this they have done good service to humanity. But their principle must be carried out. I also must judge for myself about what ought to be believed.

When I turned to examine the so-called proofs of the immortality of the soul, and of a future state of rewards and punishments, the result was equally unsatisfactory. As to the Scriptural proofs, for the reasons above given, I could place no reliance on them; and when I addressed myself to the evidence offered to the reason by controversialists and theologians, I found only what was either totally incomprehensible, or what appeared to me the sheerest nonsense. They said that spirit was immaterial, but they could not tell what matter itself was; had not the slightest notion of its true definition and boundaries,-how, then, could they say what was not matter? In their arguments on this subject, they give, as properties of matter, extension, gravity, impenetrability, and other of the properties of gross matter, such as stones, or any solid substance, and they say spirit has not these. But tell them that light, electricity, magnetism, heat, and the principle of gravitation, are all destitute of the properties they have named, and they are puzzled whether to class these things with spirit or matter. They say spirit can have no parts or organism, must be homogeneous in structure. If so, we cannot conceive individual spirits. Spirit must be an elemental substance like those subtile fluids we have named. But they affix no

qualities to this immaterial substance by which we can attain the remotest conception of it. Imagine any properties of substance, and your very imagining of it proved that it must be material and not spiritual, if their account of spirit be correct. In fact, the conception they have of spirit amounts to a simple negation-a non-entity. But, say they, spirit is pure thought. It is the element of thought. Well, then, says physiology and phrenology, we will shew you that thought is the work of the brain. We will bring you indubitable evidence that, without activity of the brain, you cannot think,—that a certain development of brain is necessary to certain kinds of thought,-that the brain forms the grand distinguishing feature of difference between men and the lower animals, and between man and man, and that, when the brain is diseased or injured, thought becomes erratic, or ceases altogether. This I could not deny, or find any means of countervailing.

The reason of the general adoption of the above-stated notion respecting the nature of spirit, appears to me to be the following. Its advocates say, "Let us prove that spirit does not partake of any of the qualities of matter which makes it liable to change and decay, and we then prove that the soul must be immortal from its very nature. All material things are thus constantly changing in their forms, and therefore we must exclude them. The soul must be something different from whatever we can form any notion of." It is thus that a name and a belief of immortality are attached to an unimaginable, undreamt of abstraction,in short, to nothing. Think of something, and the thought proves that cannot be the soul. The doctrine attempts to make the human soul independent of God,-self-existent, and incapable of being destroyed,— and it results in the suicidal destruction of the soul itself.

Equally confused and unsatisfactory is the orthodox doctrine of the being of God. He is made to be something of which no notion can by possibility be obtained,—an infinite abyss,—an immense vacuity. Instead of being the life of all lives, and the centre of all things, imparting of his own essential qualities to all beings,―he is made in the orthodox faith to be separate from the creation,-unapproachable, unimaginable, and utterly incapable of being known. In their thought, he is surrounded by paradoxes and contradictions, which they call mysteries. He is made by them to be vengeful and yet merciful, a Father, yet furiously and unpityingly destroying his children,-perfectly just, yet capable of the monstrous iniquity of punishing the innocent in the place of the guilty. He is represented, in their theological point of view, as three persons, and yet only one person; and if their metaphysical point of

view be taken, the whole personality vanishes into the inane, and the Deity becomes only the centre of all negations and contradictions.

During some weeks I was goaded on by my anxieties from the examination of one subject to another, and each successive conclusion fell a leaden weight on my heart. I had been taught to believe there was abundance of evidence of an external character for every item of orthodox belief, such evidence to the reason as might be brought into a court of justice. But now I found, to my astonishment, that this evidence was utterly worthless,-nay, such as any rational man would be ashamed to bring before an unbiassed jury. I had no sympathy with those writers who avowed themselves unbelievers, and who strove to the best of their power to overthrow Christianity. I even abhorred them. They were fearful and terrible to me. I had the strongest aversion to the thought of becoming an unbeliever, and an intense yearning after belief in spiritual things. I feared to read such writers as Voltaire, Paine, or Volney, lest they should effectually convince me that all religious belief was a delusion. Of this final conviction I had the utmost horror, and therefore clung to old views as long as I could find the smallest support from them, grasping convulsively at anything which promised any new clue to guide me. I read books which professed to reply to the arguments of unbelievers, and from these I gained some notion of the arguments themselves. I perceived also the utter inability of the most talented of the believers of the orthodox views to overthrow their opponents. As I could, therefore, entertain no hope of relief from disclosing my state of mind to any other person, but, as I had already experienced, was very likely to be misunderstood and misinterpreted, I kept my doubts locked up within my own breast.

My thoughts thus pent up, like the interior fire of a volcano, were in constant and furious commotion. The misery I endured, at that time, was beyond what I can conceive as resulting from any other source. Tranquil as was then my outward lot, I have never had any trouble which can for a moment be compared with what I then suffered. Particular moments of agony are so imprinted on my memory, that I can yet realize them with all their circumstances, to the most minute. How exceedingly glad I should have been to be assured of any one thing. I could have been gloomily reconciled to the prospect of extinction or annihilation, but when in the deepest darkness, there was always something within me which felt this to be impossible. The dog which crossed my path has frequently been envied by me, for its full, unreflecting enjoyment of animal life. But it seemed to me as though man only, of all beings, was purposeless and aimless: the "fatal gift of reason," as I