Truth is the ladder by which
men climb to God, and goodness, and heaven. But Satan has found out that
there is a way _down_ the ladder as well as _up_, and that to praise the
ladder to the descending crowd is the surest way to draw them ever
further downward, till they lose themselves amid the blinding smoke of
the abyss beneath. We love, we cherish every sweet word of truth, but we
value nothing apart from God, and Christ, and Religion.
28. It is a bad thing when people are taught things in their youth that
are not true. They are sure, when they become students, if they are
honest and able, to find out the errors, and to lay them aside. And the
mere habit of detecting and laying aside errors, has a tendency to make
men skeptical. Now I had been taught a multitude of things in my youth
that were not true, both with regard to the doctrines and the evidences
of Christianity. These things I detected and set aside in riper years.
And I had so many things to set aside, that I came to look with
suspicion on almost all my creed. The skeptical tendency got too strong
for my habit of belief. I suspected where there was no good ground for
suspicion. I rejected truth as well as error. I held in doubt doctrines
that I ought to have cherished as my life.
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