I held to the great
foundation truths of religion, and to the general principles of
Christian truth and duty, and, I will not say, defended them, for they
needed no defence beyond their own manifest reasonableness and
excellence,--but stated them both with sufficient clearness and fulness.
But neither party was in a state of mind to learn from the other. War,
whether it be a war of words, or a war of deadlier weapons, tends
generally to widen the differences and increase the antipathies of the
combatants. And so it was here. And one party certainly went further and
travelled faster in the way of error after this exciting contest than he
had done before.
And greater extremes produced more bitterness of feeling in my
opponents. One man wished me dead, and said to a near relation of mine,
"If there was a rope round his neck, and I had hold of it, I would hang
him myself." And this was a man remarkable, in general, for his meekness
and gentleness. Another said he "should like to _stick_ me:" but _he_
was a butcher. Another person, a woman, said, "Hanging would be too
good for him: hell is not bad enough for him." There was one even among
my relations that would not speak to me; a relation that before had
regarded me with pride. At some places where I was announced to lecture,
men organized and plotted to do me bodily injury, and in some cases they
threatened me with death.
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