CONTENTS CHAPTER I. In the Cradle of Christianity CHAPTER II. Early Struggles CHAPTER III. New Temptations CHAPTER IV. The Critical Period CHAPTER V. Anchored at Last CHAPTER VI. Some Objections to Rationalism. CHAPTER VII. Rationalism and the World's Great Religions....

To My Children My Dear Children:— Y ou have often requested me to tell you how, having been brought up by my parents as a Calvinist, I came to be a Rationalist. I propose now to answer that question in a more connected and comprehensive way than I have ever done before. One reason for waiting until now was, that you were not old enough before, to appreciate fully the mental struggle which culminated in my resignation from the Spring Garden Presbyterian church of Philadelpha, in which, my dear Za

I was a Christian because I was born one. My parents were Christians for the same reason. It had never occurred to me, any more than it had to my parents, to ask for any other reason for professing the Christian religion. Never in the least did I entertain even the most remote suspicion that being born in a religion was not enough, either to make the religion true, or to justify my adherence to it. My parents were members of the Congregational church, and when I was only a few weeks old, they br

A s I look back upon the period of mental conflict and uncertainty which marked the closing years of my pastorate in the Presbyterian church, I am comforted by the thought that I did not wait until I was accused of heresy, tried by an ecclesiastical court and dismissed from the church before I severed my connection with the Presbyterian denomination. On the contrary, as soon as I had fully persuaded myself that I was no longer a Presbyterian, I, of my own accord, offered my resignation, after st

N otwithstanding our many heresies we still believed in Christianity—in its moral excellence, as we expressed it. Jesus was not God; Calvin was all wrong; but still there 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 soften a little the pain of losing Jesus the God, the temptation to exalt him as a perfect moral teacher beyond all others the world had ever seen very nearly swam

I n 1888 I became acquainted with the work of the Ethical Movement, which was then establishing a branch in Philadelphia. The platform of the movement appealed to me strongly, because it was completely divorced from the supernatural. It emphasized the deed, and ignored the creed; or rather, it believed in the creed of the deed. I invited the leaders of this movement to address my society, and to explain to us in detail the philosophy of Ethical Culture. All five of the lecturers of the Ethical S

A fter nearly ten years of service in the Ethical field, I felt constrained to withdraw from the fraternity of lecturers, because I realized that under the guise of a new name we were all slowly slipping back into the net of theology, from which we had escaped after years of struggle and suffering. When I look over my own lectures delivered during my connection with the Ethical Movement, I find in them clearly the traces of the same reactionary bias. The atmosphere of theology is perceptible on

R ationalism is cold," is a frequent criticism advanced by theological people. Without God and the hope of immortality, the Rationalist, according to church-goers, ought to be very miserable. Even if he should manage to escape the consequences of his unbelief while living, he is sure to suffer horrors when he comes to die. Life and death are so awful that only faith in God and the hope of a future life can enable us to endure the one and resign ourselves to the other. Such is the reasoning of Or

R ationalism does not attack the religions of the world, it tries to explain them. But religions do not wish to be explained, and consequently they denounce the investigator as an enemy of morals as well as of religion. Reason, the theologians contend, is incapable of understanding the divine mysteries, and forgets, of course, that faith alone can discover the hidden things of God. But they do not stop to think that they are reasoning even when they are giving reasons why we should not reason. B