hing the Scriptures, and exploring
Nature, in pursuit of truth,--that when I advocated infidel views, I
advocated them believing them to be true, and believing that truth must
be most conducive to the virtue and happiness of mankind. True,
appearances were against me; but I felt myself bound, even when an
unbeliever, to "walk by faith,"--by faith in principles which I supposed
myself to have found to be true. My life, even in my worst condition,
was a life of self-sacrifice for what I regarded as eternal truth. When
I gave up my belief in a Fatherly God, and my faith in a blessed
immortality, I believed myself to be making a sacrifice at the shrine of
truth. I thought I heard her voice from the infinite universe demanding
the surrender, and conscience compelled me to comply with the demand. I
felt the dreadful nature of the sacrifice, but what could I do?

I remember the words I uttered, and I remember the mingled emotions
which filled and agitated my soul, on that occasion. I was distressed at
the terrible necessity of giving up the cherished idols of my soul, yet
I was filled for a moment with a strange delight at the thought that I
was doing my duty in compliance with the stern demands of eternal law,
and the dread realities of universal being. And I hoped against hope
that the result would all be right.

I weep when I read the strange words which I uttered on that dark and
terrible occasion. I said to myself, "The last remains of my religious
faith are gone. The doctrines of a personal God, and of a future life, I
am compelled to regard as the offspring, not of the understanding, but
of the imagination and affections." It is no easy matter to wean
one's-self from flattering and long cherished illusions. It is no easy
matter to believe that doctrines which have been almost universally
received, and which have been so long and so generally regarded as
essential to the virtue and happiness of mankind--doctrines, too, which
have mingled their mighty influences with so much of the beautiful and
sublime in human history, and which still, to so many, form all the
poetry and romance, almost all the interest and grandeur and blessedness
of human life, have no foundation in truth. To persons who believe in a
Fatherly God, and in human immortality, pure naturalism is terribly
uninviting. It was always so to me. I well remember the mingled horror
and pity with which, when a Christian, I regarded the man who had no
personal God