What I should believe in case the freedom of my mind and the just
and harmonious action of its powers were fully restored, I could not
tell; but I had a strong impression, amounting to something like an
assurance, that I should believe more than I did with respect to God and
a spiritual world. Had I, on arriving in England, found myself in
favorable circumstances, my mind might quickly have recovered its
freedom, and returned, in part at least, to the faith of its earlier
days. But this was not my lot. I was beset with new temptations, and was
doomed to further disappointments.
The Secularists had got out a prospectus of a new paper, and I was urged
to become one of the editors; and thinking that it would seem mean and
selfish to begin a paper of my own under such circumstances, I
reluctantly consented. I however stipulated for full control over one
half of the paper, and when I found that articles of a disgraceful and
mischievous tendency were published in the other half, I published a
special notice in mine, every week, that I was not answerable for those
articles.
In August 1860 my wife and children arrived in England. They were sorry
to find me in connection with that paper and with the party which it
represented; and they set themselves at once to work to bring about a
change; and it was not long before they succeeded.
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