ould
have scruples with regard to fornication or adultery. Though these
painful discoveries did not at once convince me that infidelity was
wrong, and Christianity right, they were not without effect. They
lessened my respect for the infidel philosophy, and prepared the way for
my return to Christ. In England, where I expected on my return, to find
unbelievers better, I found them worse. I supposed that the Secularists
thought as I did with regard to virtue. I thought their object was to
advance the temporal interests of mankind, and never dreamt but that
they regarded virtue as the greatest of those interests. And when I
found first one and then another to be dishonest, drunken, licentious, I
was disposed to regard them as exceptions to the general rule. To the
last; nay, for some time after my entire separation from the party, I
supposed the profligate, unprincipled, abandoned ones to be the few, and
the honest and virtuous ones to be the many. And when at length I was
convinced past doubt of my mistake, the effect was terribly painful. But
it was salutary. It went far towards convincing me, that whether
religion was founded in truth or not, it was necessary to the virtue and
happiness of mankind. It prepared me and inclined me still further to
return to Christ, and brought me a step or two nearer to His side.

14. Then again, the influences of my family were strongly in my favor. I
had a wife that always loved me, and that never ceased to pray. And I
had children that grew up believers, to a great extent, under the shadow
of my unbelief. They had suffered, as I have already said, from the
cruel treatment to which they had seen their father subjected: they had
been awfully prejudiced against certain classes of ministers, if not
against ministers generally; but now their prejudices were well nigh
gone. And they had never been embittered against Christianity. And now
they had come to feel strongly in its favor, and to look on skepticism
both as a great error, and a terrible calamity. My youngest son was
something of a genius. He was a clever mathematician, and an acute
logician. And he would say to me sometimes, when he heard me uttering
antichristian sentiments, "Father, I think you are wrong. I am sure you
are wrong on that point; and if you will listen to me I think I can
convince you that you are." And I did listen. I had long been accustomed
to regard my children more as friends and companions, than as inferiors,
a