deny the doctrine of natural
depravity." "No, I do not," said I. "It is no use saying that," he
replied, "when you explain away the passages of Scripture in which the
doctrine is taught."

Such encounters between me and my brethren were at one time by no means
uncommon. They took place at almost every meeting. The result was often
unpleasant. My brethren generally did not like to be disturbed in their
notions, or in their way of talking. But few, if any of them, were
prepared or disposed to enter on the investigations necessary to enable
them to ascertain what was the truth on the points on which we were
accustomed to converse. Some had not the power to revise their creeds
and their way of talking and preaching, and bring them into harmony with
Scripture and common sense. And people of this class were sure to look
on all who did not see things in the same light as themselves, as
dangerous or damnable heretics. They, of course, concluded that I was
not sound in the faith. They felt that I was a troublesome, and feared
that I was a lost and ruined man. The remarks which I made to them, they
repeated to their friends; and as they seldom succeeded in understanding
me properly, their reports were generally incorrect. In some cases my
statements were reported with important additions, and in others with
serious alterations, and in some cases their meaning was entirely
changed. And the change was seldom to my advantage. A difference of
expression between me and my brethren was mistaken for a difference of
belief; and the disuse of an unscriptural word, was mistaken for a
renunciation of a Christian doctrine. A dispute about the "eternal
sonship" was mistaken for a dispute about the divinity of Christ, and a
difference of opinion about the meaning of a passage of Scripture, came
to be reported as the denial of Christ's authority. In one case I gave
it as my judgment that there were really righteous people on earth when
Christ came into the world, and that it was to such that Christ
referred, when He said, He "came not to call the righteous, but sinners
to repentance." This was made into an assertion that the coming of
Christ was unnecessary. Inability to accept unauthorized definitions and
unscriptural theories of Scriptural doctrines, was construed into a
denial of those doctrines. My endeavor to strip religious subjects of
needless mystery, was represented as an attempt to substitute a vain
philosophy for the Gospel of Christ