aid somewhat more than I had said; but the
statement they gave was true in substance, so I let it pass, and the
growing change for the better in my views and feelings soon made it true
in form.

CHAPTER XVIII.

PARTIES WHO CONTRIBUTED TOWARDS MY RETURN TO CHRIST.

After I fell into doubt and unbelief, the Church, and the ministry
generally, appeared to look on me as irretrievably lost. The great mass
of them made no attempt for my recovery. How much they cared for my soul
I do not know; but for nearly twenty years they left me to wander as a
sheep that had no shepherd. Many of them spoke against me, and wrote
against me, and some of them even met me in public discussion; but they
never approached me in the spirit of gentleness and love, to try to win
me back to Christ, and bring me once more into His Church. Some of them
treated me with grievous injustice. As I have said some pages back, one
minister made himself most odious to me and my friends, and did
something towards increasing our antipathy to the religion which he so
grossly dishonored, by his unjust and hateful doings. It is bad for
Christianity when men like these are put forward as its advocates. No
open enemies can do it so much injury as such unworthy friends.

There were others, however, who took a more Christian course, and if
they did not succeed in at once reclaiming me from my melancholy
delusions, they produced a happy effect on my mind, which helped to
bring about, in the end, my return to the Christian faith.

1. There was one man, a minister, who, though he wrote against some of
my views, always treated me with respect. He never gave me offensive
names, nor charged me with unworthy motives, nor treated me with
affected contempt. He regarded me simply as an erring brother, and
strove, with genuine Christian affection, to bring me back to what he
regarded as the truth. He died before my restoration to the Church, but
his labors on my behalf were not in vain.

2. A kind-hearted layman once sent me a book--"_The Philosophy of the
Plan of Salvation_,"--accompanied with a short, but affectionate letter.
The book did not convert me, but the kindness of the friend that sent it
had a happy effect. Though beyond the reach of logic, I was within the
reach of love.

3. The _Author_ of "_The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation_" was Mr.
Walker, a minister of Mansfield, Ohio. While in America I gave a course
of lectures in that town on the Bible.