"
And I was very successful in my work. I never travelled in a circuit in
which there was not a considerable increase of members, and in one place
where I was stationed, the numbers in church-fellowship were more than
doubled in less than eighteen months.
In those days it never once entered my mind that I could ever be
anything else but a Christian minister: yet in course of time I ceased
to be one; ceased to be even a Christian. I was severed first from the
Church, and then from Christ, and I wandered at length far away into the
regions of doubt and unbelief, and came near to the outermost confines
of eternal night. And the question arises,
How happened this? And how happened it that, after having wandered so
far away, I was permitted to return to my present happy position?
These two questions I shall endeavor, to the best of my ability, to
answer.
CHAPTER II.
CAUSES OF UNBELIEF.
How came I to wander into doubt and unbelief?
1. There are several causes of skepticism and infidelity. One is vice.
When a man is bent on forbidden pleasures, he finds it hard to believe
in the truth and divinity of a religion that condemns his vicious
indulgences. And the longer he persists in his evil course, the darker
becomes his understanding, the more corrupt his tastes, and the more
perverse his judgment; until at length he "puts darkness for light, and
light for darkness; calls evil good and good evil, and mistakes bitter
for sweet, and sweet for bitter.
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