It
saddens me to think that I am a bone of contention between them.
And yet, for all my unbelief, the Bible was my favorite book, and the
Psalms my adoration; and most truly can I affirm that my mental attitude
has ever been one of reverence and humility.
But every argument that has ever been advanced against Christianity (and
I think I know them all by this time) had risen spontaneously and
unprompted within me, and they have all seemed to me unanswerable, and
indeed, as yet, unanswered. Nor had any creed of which I ever heard
appeared to me either credible or attractive or even sensible, but for
the central figure of the Deity--a Deity that in no case could ever
be mine.
The awe-inspiring and unalterable conception that had wrought itself
into my consciousness, whether I would or no, was that of a Being
infinitely more abstract, remote, and inaccessible than any the genius
of mankind has ever evolved after its own image and out of the needs of
its own heart--inscrutable, unthinkable, unspeakable; above all human
passions, beyond the reach of any human appeal; One upon whose
attributes it was futile to speculate--One whose name was _It_,
not _He_.
The thought of total annihilation was uncongenial, but had no terror.
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