The Story of My Mind

e was that in Christianity which could not be found elsewhere. While I myself did not linger long in this indecisive mood, still it was very trying while it lasted. To s

one. I was, besides, so much in need of companionship and sympathy that I wonder now why I did n

e financial help, but we were happy to receive such moral support as men like James Freeman Clarke, Edward Everett Hale, Minot J. Savage and other equally distinguished preachers of Unitarianism could give us. The venerable Dr. Furness, more than once, occupied my pulpit, as also the Rev. Gordon Ames, whose church also proposed my name for a life membership in the American Unitarian Association. I can never be too grateful to the Unitarians for their hospitality to me in those tr

stants that they did not have sufficient reason for leaving the Catholic church. "But we could not believe in the mass," replied the Protestants. "If you believe in the virgin birth and the resurrection of the flesh, what but a whim could prevent you from believing also in transubstantiation," argued Renan. We can say the same of Unitarianism. If it can believe in part

the most perfect being or teacher who has ever visited this planet-a being possessing all the virtues,

was an impostor, and not the most perfect type of character the world has ever seen, as you claim." The answer is decisive. If Jesus believed himself to be only a mortal like ourselves, how explain his language of authority, his forgiving of sins, his miracles, his claim to be equal with the Father, and to have existed from all time? The weapons which Unitarianism uses against Orthodoxy, the latter can easily ignore. Nay, Unitarians are often quoted by the Ortho

Jesus was not morally perfect, or the wisest and best teacher, why does he monopolize the Unitarian pulpit? In conclusion, as already intimated, Unitarianism with its God-

essing one with us. Hall rent had to be paid, which was considerable, and the lecturer and his family had to be supported. The independent course I was following was not adding to the revenues of the society. The moneyed people, and the

some believer in Spiritualism, who told me how he or she had seen Darwin, or Emerson, or Goethe, or Voltaire at my side on the platform, while I was delivering my address, and how one or the other had smiled upon me with approval. I received messa

my wife, they helped to render those desolate days of anxiety and hardship a little less of a strain upon our resources. But I could

keep us from withering. But is not immortality as inconceivable as the Trinity? Why should a man object to the Baptist or the Unitarian immortality, if he can accept the immortality of the Spiritualists? Is the evidence furnished by modern mediums more convincing than that furnished by the mediums in the Bible? Are the spirits who manifest themselves in the Old and New Testaments, impo

at numbers are beginning to think that after all maybe eternal sleep is better than eternal life. For, in the grave there can come no pain, no sorrow, no tears. 'On the shore of that vast sea of oblivion no wave of sorrow breaks.' But, to my mind, life is too sweet ever to be given up, and I can't help liking the old-fa

exclusive hope. It reserved a place in heaven for the few, the elect,-whether Jewish, Mohammedan or Christian,-and condemned the multitude to the pains of hell. Can such a hope make for optimism? Can such a prospect brace up humanity at large? Moreover, the "old-fashioned hope's" picture of

our Mothe

tumult, sin an

hope and dread,

gathered int

trance of t

ves more holy

er and ever, and ever, and ever,-and ever-unless he has experienced it. Nor can anyone affirm "eternal life" (we think Dr. Roberts means conscious, personal immortality) until he has lived through an eternity. To live a million, million years, is not eternal life. Hence, no one who has not so lived, can speak intelligently of "eternal life." We cannot even say that the gods are immortal. Because they have lived until now, so to speak, is no argument that they will live forever. We have to wait until they

oft I've gaz

uld wrench aug

firm, or shake,

ll a mystery

all believers in eternal life fear the grave and deepen its gloom. The thought of another life often impoverishes the life we now possess. Pining for the far away tomorrow, we lose the joy at our doors. Schiller describes a recluse at the bar of heaven, arguing tha

ay be made dearer and nobler, richer, and happier, and that we

ducts of a f

reproduce fa

discharge of it should make no one a pessimist. At any rate, with Gr

le light will co

I shall

istence. The Spiritualists, like the Orthodox, reason logically enough against beliefs not their own, but when it comes to their own dogmas they do not consult reason at all. I had left Calvinism because it failed to furnish the evidence for its claims, how then could I join the Spiritualists

dy on the troublous waters to which the winds outside the harbor of Calvinism had driven me. In the words of Shelley, I had unfurled my sails to the tempest, and fear and alarm were to be my portion, until I

ighly recommended. Even President Eliot of Harvard had publicly endorsed it. While it was many years after the period I am now writing of, that my attention was called to this book, nevertheless, it is because the book is typical of the efforts to make Reason approve of the fundamentals of the popular faith, that I reproduce here what I said of it at the time: Balance is the name of a little book with a great aim. Its author, Mr. Orlando Smith, sets out as a new Columbus to discover not another earth, but another truth, which shall give to all known truths new meaning and worth. This truth, he believes, he has discovered, and christens it, "The Fundamental Verity." Lucid illustrations are massed together with

d breadth of the universe the account balances perfectly; and that Nature has no failures, and bad debts; that Balance forbids wrong, such for instance as the victory of one force over another, the author believes he has found in this law the unanswerabl

nces to suit yourself. Mr. Smith defines both Religion and Science with a vie

l, a deus ex machina-who from the eternities rules the world and is pledged

into tatters, that another life is inevitable since this life is unsatisfactory. Having shown that there are no failures in Nature, he now says, "We must admit, however, that justice is incomplete in this life." That, howev

eing who has failed hitherto is going to do better in the unknown future? And what about the animals? Will they have to look forward to another wo

ongs hymns, poems, noble thoughts or sentiments are possible, without the doctrine of a Supreme Being, and of another life. Thus the sc

, but not there, or only so far and no further. The men who offered me substitutes for Calvinism placed restrictions upon reason too, differing only in a