the extreme. There are no errors, no extravagances, no
depths of degradation, into which the lawless self-reliant man may not
fall. When I had lost my faith in Christ, and had freed myself from all
restraints of Bible authority and Church discipline, I said to myself,
"I will be a MAN; all that a man acting freely, giving his soul
full scope, tends naturally to become; and I will be nothing else." I
had come to the conclusion that man was naturally good--that, when
freely and fully developed, apart from the authority of religion,
churches and books, he would become the perfection of wisdom, and
goodness, and happiness. I said to myself, "Christ was but a man; and
the reason why He so much excelled all other men was, that He acted
freely, without regard to the traditions of the elders, the law of
Moses, or any authority but that of His own untrammelled mind. I will
follow the same course. I will free myself from the prejudices of my
education, from the influence of my surroundings, and from the authority
of all existing laws and religions, and be my own sole ruler, my own
sole counsellor, my own sole guide. I will act with regard to the
religion of Christ, as Christ acted with regard to the religion of
Moses; obey it, abolish it, or modify it, as its different parts may
require. I will act with regard to the Church authorities of my time as
Jesus acted with regard to the Scribes and Pharisees of His day; I will
set them aside. I will be a man; a free, self-ruled, and self-developed
man."

Alas, I little knew the terrible possibilities of the nature of man when
left to itself. I had no conception of its infinite weakness with regard
to what is good, or its fearful capabilities with regard to what is bad.
I had no idea of the infinite amount of evil that lay concealed in the
human heart, ready, when unrepressed, to unfold itself, and take all
horrible forms of vice and folly. I indulged myself in my mad
experiments of unlimited freedom till appalled by the melancholy
results. I did not become _all_ that unchecked license could make me;
but I became so different a creature from what I had anticipated, that I
saw the madness of my resolution, and recoiled. I came to the verge of
all evil. God had mercy on me and held me back in spite of my impiety,
or I should have become a monster of iniquity. Man was not made for
unlimited liberty. He was made for subjection to the Divine will, and
for obedience to God's law. He was made f