is unspeakable uproar of
the elements continued for several days. At times I crept on deck for a
few moments, and, holding by the rigging, gazed on the wild magnificence
of the appalling scene. And all this time my heart, instead of being
tortured with its customary fears, was full of a cheerful joyous
confidence. It was as if some spirit of heaven had taken possession of
my soul to give me sweet presentiments of the approach of better days.
And so perhaps it was. I was moving onwards, though I knew it not, to a
happier destiny, and the peace and joy I felt were as the dawn or
twilight of the coming day of my redemption.

We reached Liverpool at length, and I was soon at Betley, the native
place of my wife, which was to be my temporary home. And now, if I had
fallen into good hands, or if the better thoughts and tendencies of my
soul had been sufficiently strong, I might have entered at once on a
happier course. But I encountered an unlooked-for difficulty. As I have
said, my intention was, on landing in England, to begin a periodical,
and to keep apart from persons of extravagant views. I was not a
Christian, nor did I, at the time, suppose I should ever become one; but
I was an earnest moralist, and I had become more moderate in my ideas
both on religious and political subjects. And I was, to some extent,
prepared to receive fresh light. I had got an impression,--I had had it
for some time before I left America,--that my mind was not in a
thoroughly healthy state,--that it was not exactly itself,--that it was
so much biassed in favor of irreligion, that it was incapable of doing
justice to arguments for a God and Providence, for a spiritual world and
a future life. I partly believed, and now I know, that facts and
arguments in favor of the great fundamental doctrines of religion, did
not affect and influence me so much as they ought,--that my doubts and
disbeliefs were stronger than facts or the nature of things warranted. I
suspected, what now I regard as past doubt, that erroneous principles,
and a defective method of reasoning, and long practice in searching out
flaws in arguments, and detecting and exposing errors and pious frauds,
had disposed me too strongly to distrust and disbelief,--that I was in
fact a slave to bad habits of thought and reasoning, as really as the
inveterate drunkard is the slave to his irrational appetite for strong
drink. What I should believe in case the freedom of my mind and the just
an