There were some whose conversations left this
impression on my mind. One young minister, when I was pointing out to
him some inconsistency between a statement he had made and the teachings
of Christ, put an end to the conversation by saying, "I don't want to
hear anything about such matters; I know what is expected of a minister
of the Methodist New Connexion, and I am resolved to be one; and I shall
just hold the doctrines necessary to keep me in the office, and nothing
else." And I suppose he did not stand alone.
Some lacked the power to think. They were all but mindless. Whatever
they might be able to do in reference to worldly matters, they were
unable to think, to compare doctrine with doctrine, or to reason in any
respect whatever on religious matters. One young man, a candidate for
the ministry, told me that he never had thought matters over in his own
mind, but taken what came in his way in books or sermons, never
troubling himself, or finding himself able, to do more than to remember
and to repeat what he heard or read. He had not the faculty to compare
the sayings of men with the sayings of God; or the sayings of one man
with the sayings of another. He was a mere dealer in words and phrases,
and he aspired to nothing higher than to live by the ignoble occupation.
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