How it was with my brethren I will not undertake to
say, but, as a person with any knowledge of human nature would have
anticipated, I was greatly misunderstood and misrepresented. Some of my
colleagues and friends were in a maze with regard to my views and
intentions. Shut up within the narrow confines of some old stereotyped
form of faith or fancy into which they had been born, or into which they
had been brought they knew not how, and afraid to change or modify one
_iota_ of their blind belief, investigation, search after truth,
enlargement of thought, or change of sentiment, was with them out of the
question. The very idea of anything differing from their own
traditionary or haphazard belief was, in the estimation of some of them,
no less than heresy, treason, or infidelity. Others, who were not so
much benighted, were afraid to venture on a free examination of
religious matters, or a careful comparison of their views with the
teachings of Scripture. Some trusted in their elders, and feared no
error so long as they kept in the track of their predecessors. I am not
certain that I should go too far if I were to say, that some were under
the influence of worldly and selfish motives, and were resolved to take
the course which promised to be most conducive to a quiet, easy,
self-indulgent life.
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