But I was not sufficiently
conscious of the infinitude of truth, or of the narrow limits of my
powers, or of the infinite mysteries of which humanity and the universe
are full. And my desire for knowledge was infinite, and my appetite was
very keen, and I was so desirous to be right on every subject bearing on
the religion of Christ, and on the great interests of mankind, that
nothing that I could do seemed too much if it seemed likely to help me
in the attainment of my object.
Then I had no considerate and enlightened guide; no friend, no
colleague, with a father's heart, to direct me in my studies or my
choice of books. There was one minister in the Body to which I belonged
that might have given me good counsel, if he had been at hand, but he
and I were never stationed in the same neighborhood. And he had suffered
so much on account of his superior intelligence and liberal tendencies,
that he might have felt unwilling to advise me freely. The preachers
generally could not understand me, and they had no sympathy with my
eager longings for religious knowledge. They could not comprehend what
in the world I could want beyond their own old stereotyped notions and
phrases, and the comfortable provision made for the supply of my
temporal wants.
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