CHAPTER XXVI.

CONVERSION.

My story, like my life, draws to its close. The change which my religious views have undergone has been more than once hinted. On religion, as on most other subjects, I no longer think or feel as I did in the day when I fancied I possessed more than human science, and wielded a more than human power.

I grew up without any decided religious doctrines, though inclining to what was called Liberal Christianity, that is, a Christianity kept up with the times, and conformed to the ever-changing spirit of the age. I was not an avowed unbeliever; I was not an open scoffer; I even thought it well to pay a decent external respect to religion, to attend church when convenient, and to patronize the Gospel, providing it was not preached with too much earnestness and devotedness, and not promulgated as a law which must govern all my thoughts, words, and deeds, but was proposed simply as a speculation, as a theory, or as an opinion, which I was at liberty to accept, modify, or reject, as seemed to me good.

Before my mesmeric experiments and acquaintance with Priscilla, I was a sort of Rationalist, accepting Christianity in name, and explaining its miracles and mysteries on purely natural principles. Afterwards, after my philanthropic schemes had miscarried, my worship of humanity as God had proved a failure, and my belief in progress had expired in the crucible of experience, I fell into a sort of despair, and would fain have persuaded myself that I believed in nothing. If I did not absolutely deny God, my belief in him became so obscured by the mists of my speculations and the corruptions of my heart, that I was in reality no better than an atheist. The devil was a bugbear invented by the priests, and men were mere motes in the sunbeam. I have already described the state into which I fell—a state from which I would risk my life to save my bitterest enemy.

Prior to the absolute crushing of all my hopes, which followed my having finished all the work I had marked out for myself to do, and found it nought, I regarded myself as a Free-Thinker, because I had either allowed myself to think, or had made myself acquainted with the thoughts of others, against religion. My freedom and independence of mind were in denying, not in believing. I was not free to think in favor of religion, nor sufficiently independent to believe Christianity, and labor in earnest to serve God and save my own soul. To have done so would have been sheer superstition, would have been sinking myself to the level of the vulgar, and to have exposed myself to the gibes and sneers of my scientific associates.

Nevertheless, my unbelief, my scepticism, and my radicalism, were a sort of violence done to my own better feelings and graver judgment. They never came natural to me, and I am sure I was never cut out for a philanthropist or a world-reformer. There was always something in the views and practices of my associates that disgusted me, and often was I obliged to hold my nose when they were discussed, as it is said Satan does when he encounters a confirmed sensualist. I had no natural relish for “the Newness,” and when at worst retained a secret reverence for the past, and dwelt with pleasure on the time-hallowed, over which for ages had flowed the stream of human affection, human joy, and human sorrow. I stood in awe before the shadow of the hoary Eld, and wished always to find myself bound by indissoluble ties to what had gone before me, as well as to what might come after me. Half in spite, and half under the charm of Priscilla, I embraced philanthropy, but not inwardly, for her sophistry never for a moment deceived me. Never was there a moment when I did not see through the philanthropists, radicals, and revolutionists with whom I associated, or when with a breath I could not have swept away their cobweb theories; never for a moment was I deceived as to the actual character of the devilish movements I myself set on foot.

It may be thought strange, such being the fact, that I could or would have played the part I did. It might be enough to say Satan had power over me; but I associated with the prophets of “the Newness,” and led on the movement, partly because I did not know what else to do, and partly because I could not endure absolute idleness. I saw indeed the destructive character of my movements, but I cherished a hope that by making things worse, I should prepare the way for making them better. You must demolish, I said, the old edifice, and clear away its rubbish, before you can erect a new, a more beautiful, or a more convenient structure on its site. I accepted, after a manner, the opinions and theories of the Neologists, not because they satisfied me, but because I knew not what else to accept; and, though not true, they might conduct me to truth. The road to the temple of Purity runs through the Bower of Bliss, the path to heaven crosses the devil’s territory, and error is the prodrome of truth. Such were the maxims I adopted, not indeed because I believed them, but because they were convenient, and because I saw not otherwise how to justify myself, or solve the problem of experience. I adhered to my philanthropy, infidelity, and radicalism, not because I loved or believed them, but because I saw nothing true in the principles and reasonings I was accustomed to hear opposed to them. The religious and conservative people I knew, and I supposed them the most enlightened and the least irrational of their class, seemed to believe and retain either too much or too little. On one side they seemed to accept and act on the principles which I and my party professed, and on the other to insist on conclusions which could be logically obtained only from a contradictory set of principles, and which they with one voice condemned as false, mischievous, and leading only to superstition, idolatry, and spiritual thraldom. Their denials struck me as too sweeping for their affirmations, and their affirmations as quite too broad for their denials. I found myself in the unpleasant predicament, either of divinizing humanity, or of embracing a religion which they held to be worse than the rankest infidelity.

For a time, while I was in good health, while I possessed and wielded a more than human power, and had not yet exhausted the world in which I did believe, or despaired of recasting it after my own image, I got along without much difficulty; but when I no longer saw any object in life, when there was from my own point of view no longer any work for me to do, and I was thrown back on my own failing godship, and left to devour my own heart, I became wretched, more wretched than I can express. The blow which prostrated me, and the disease which it developed, and brought me to handgrips with Death, changed the current of my thoughts, but unhappily only to render them for the time still more painful. “You know, O Socrates,” says Cephalus in Plato’s _Republic_, “that when a man thinks that he is drawing near to death, certain things, as to which he had previously been very tranquil, awaken in his bosom anxiety and alarm. What has been told him of hell and the punishment of the wicked, the stories at which he had formerly laughed or mocked, now fill his soul with trouble. He fears that they may prove true. Enfeebled by age, or brought nearer to the frightful abodes, he seems to perceive them with greater clearness and force, and is therefore disturbed by doubts and apprehensions. He reviews his past life, and seeks what evil he may have done. If he finds, on examination, that his life has been iniquitous, he awakes often in the night, agitated and shuddering, as a child, with sudden terrors, trembles and lives in fearful expectation;” or, as I may add with St. Paul, “a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation.” As I found myself on my dying bed, things began to wear to me a very different aspect from what they did when I was in the heyday of youth, in the full flow of my animal spirits, or filled with the vain and delusive hope of subjecting all nature to my will. The lessons which I had heard in my childhood, and which I had ridiculed or forgotten, came back with startling power; and in my lonely reflections I was forced to ask what, if that which they tell us of death and judgment, of heaven and hell, the rewards of the good and the punishment of the wicked, should turn out to be true?

My trouble, my anxiety, and my alarm increased in proportion as Mr. Merton forced upon me, by his conversations, the full conviction that I had really been dealing with devils, that Satan is really a personal existence, and that I had made a covenant with him, and had acted under his influence. My rationalism had led me to question his personal existence, and to attempt to explain the demonic phenomena without the supposition of his interposition. Denying Satan, I had denied Christ; and being now forced to recognize Satan, I was forced to confess Christ, and all the Christian mysteries. By the same process by which I had explained away the demonic phenomena, I had explained away the miracles and the supernatural character of Christianity. By that same process of reasoning by which Mr. Merton compelled me to admit the false miracles, the lying signs and wonders of Satan, I was forced to admit the true miracles, therefore the Divine commission, and therefore the Divinity of Christ, because Christ claimed to be the Son of God.

Here is, I apprehend, the principal source of that difficulty which so many people find in admitting the reality of the demonic phenomena. They cannot admit Satan and his works, without admitting Christ and redemption, purchased with his own blood on the cross,—in a word, without admitting all the Christian mysteries and dogmas,—Christianity itself, and that not as an opinion, not as a speculation, but as the law of God for conscience. Most men have, at least, a dim perception of this fact; and as they do not like to admit Christianity in a Christian sense, they will not suffer themselves to believe that there is any thing Satanic in the dark phenomena of human history. For, whatever may be the professions we hear, whatever the apparent zeal displayed in the cause of a bastard Christianity, our age is an unbelieving age, and hates, I may say, with a perfect hatred, Christ and his Church. The age is blind to the perception of Christian truth, but sharp-sighted to whatever is requisite to prevent that truth from making its way to the heart. It sees very clearly what it must concede, if it accepts Mr. Merton’s doctrine; and therefore, with all its energy and astuteness, it insists on explaining the demonic phenomena on natural principles, or on denying them outright.

But detached from the world by experience of its hollowness, and by my mortal illness, I became less disposed to resist the grace of God, and in some measure prepared to listen with candor to Mr. Merton’s reasoning. I very soon became convinced that I had really fallen into the error of calling good evil, and evil good. I had really substituted Satan for God, and in doing so had committed the precise error the Christian clergy had always laid to my charge. I saw that they had been right in advocating what I called, with Priscilla, the system of repression, and I wrong in advocating the contrary system. I saw that, as a reasonable man, I must abandon the whole order of ideas which I had cherished in my Satanic pride and lust, and embrace that order of ideas which I had hitherto rejected as false and mischievous. There was no room for compromise. I must say decidedly either “Good Lord” or “Good Devil,” and as I could no longer say the latter, I must say the former.

Many people, knowing my order of thinking when I was well and in the world, may blame a change so complete and so universal; but only because they are people of confused, incomplete, and disjointed thought, whose views are always dim, obscure, and incoherent, and who can never understand the operations of a mind that reduces all its views to their fundamental principle, to a clear, well-defined, and self-coherent whole, so that any change at all must be change of principle, and involve an entire change of system. Philosophical and logical minds may err, but in their premises, not in their conclusions from them. No question with them is ever a question of detail, and none ever turns on a collateral issue. If they start from infidel premises, they will come to the conclusion that Satan is God, and adjust their theory of the universe accordingly. If they assume, as their point of departure, that liberty is in the absence of all restraint, and that liberty in this sense is good, they must come to the conclusion so earnestly insisted upon by my instructress Priscilla, and of course reject that whole order of ideas which asserts the need of law, the utility of government, or the necessity of restraint. That, in doing so, they go against common sense, they are as well aware as are their opponents; but that fact cannot move them, for the legitimate conclusion from it, if their premises are right, is that so-called common sense is wrong, and needs to be corrected. If the common opinions, doctrines, or judgments of mankind are against them, they are indemnified by finding a common feeling, a secret but real feeling, of all men in their favor; for the very fact that restraint is necessary, proves that perverse nature demands, when left to itself, universal liberty or unbounded license. They have but to adopt the doctrine of the innate purity and sanctity of nature, to call this natural feeling a pure and holy instinct, and bid us follow nature, in order to make out their complete logical justification. They are simply consequent, to use a logical term; and their opponents, who accept their premises but deny their conclusions, are inconsequent.

The common run of men, who oppose this class of thinkers and speculators, not by a complete and coherent system constructed on the principle of law and authority, and who are constantly saying Good Lord and Good Devil, Good Devil and Good Lord, trying forever to conciliate both at the same time, and endeavoring with all their might to serve both God and Mammon, which He who “spake as never man spake” declares to be impossible, whenever they are hard pushed, cry out against them as logic-choppers, hair-splitters, narrow-minded system-mongers, and represent them as wanting in broad and comprehensive views, in liberal and generous feelings, as mere theorists, destitute of plain, practical common sense. What is really a merit in them, is denounced as folly or crime, and the whole pack,

“Tray, Blanche, Sweetheart, little dogs and all,”

are let loose against them. This is wrong. Either our feeling, our sensitive and affective nature, is to be made subordinate and subservient to our reason, or our reason is to be subordinated and made subservient to feeling. To attempt to maintain them as two equal, coördinate, and mutually independent powers, after the manner of the Gallicans in relation to Church and State, is only to prepare the way for internal anarchy and disorder. The fool makes reason subservient to his feelings, emotions, affections, or passions, and as to his proper manhood, lives as a slave; the wise man subjects these to his reason, that is, to understanding and will, and lives, moves, and acts as a freeman.

Now I had one of those minds which reduce their views to system, or to their fundamental principle. My starting-point, my fundamental principle was false, and therefore my whole system or theory of the universe was false. This once discovered, I necessarily embraced the opposing principle, and as necessarily embraced it in all its legitimate consequences. I never was so constituted as to be able to strike a balance between truth and falsehood, or to accept a principle and deny its consequences. In matters of practice, I can understand, where no principle is sacrificed, what are called compromises, and I have never needed to be told that true prudence usually forbids us to push matters to extremes. When we act, we must consider the practicable, and the expedient, as far as principle leaves us any discretionary power; but in asserting principles, in the question between truth and falsehood, right and wrong, I have always felt it necessary to be on one side or the other. It ought not therefore to be considered strange that, forced by Mr. Merton and my own serious reflections to deny that Satan is God, I should swing round to the other extreme, and assert that God is God; or that, starting from this bold proposition as a first principle, I should adjust, or endeavor to adjust my whole order of thought to it. I am aware that my having done so will, with the mass of my countrymen, bring reproach upon my memory, and induce some who may cherish a regard for me to attempt to apologize for my want of inconsistency and incoherency; but, happily, the praises or the censures of men cannot affect me any longer, and I shall soon be where they cannot reach me.

Brought back to an intellectual conviction of the truth of Christianity, my trouble increased; for if Christianity be true, it is not simply the revelation of a truth to be believed, but also of a truth to be practised—of a law to be obeyed. I had not obeyed that law; I had deliberately, systematically violated all its precepts for years, and had taught others to do the same. I had fallen under its condemnation, and had incurred its severest penalties. The prospect that now opened before me was not pleasing. There was a vision of blackness and despair. The judgment I derided, the heaven I had scorned, the hell I had braved or treated as a fiction, were all realities. I must soon appear before my Judge, loaded with crimes and sins innumerable, and of the blackest dye. It was impossible to imagine one more wicked or guilty than myself. I could plead nothing in excuse or extenuation of my guilt. I had proved myself the enemy of my race, a foul-mouthed and black-hearted rebel against God, my sovereign, who had done nothing to me but load me with benefits. It was no pleasant thought. I had consorted with devils. I had chosen them for my associates, and what more fitting than that I should be left to my own choice, to reap the fruits of my own doings, and be doomed to dwell eternally with them in hell? It was what I deserved, what immaculate Justice might well inflict. The thought was not to be endured.

I had made a covenant with death. I had entered into an agreement with hell, and had by a solemn pact given myself to the devil, and who had ever heard that such a one had ever received grace to repent? Had I not blasphemed the Holy Ghost, committed the unpardonable sin? My accomplice had been rescued, it was true, but she had been less guilty than I. She had been deceived, seduced by the wiles of the serpent, and struggled to break the meshes he had cast around her as soon as she fully understood their real character. Guilty she certainly had been, but there was some limit to her guilt. I can hardly say that I was deceived. From the first I suspected the truth, and when I remained blind, I remained so wilfully. I had acted deliberately;—not from the strength of feeling, or the heat of passion, but coolly, from calculation, with full assent. There was a great difference between us. What hope, then, remained for me?

The world will laugh at me for all this, and wag their heads at the mighty magician starting back with fear of death and dread of hell. The world has no faith. If it can make sure of this life, it thinks we may jump, as Macbeth proposed, that which is to come. But the world is nothing to me now, and I am not moved by its mockeries. I am not ashamed to own my fears. I fear not dying. I fear what may come after death. I fear the last judgment. I fear hell. I fear being condemned to dwell forever with the damned. The salvation of my soul to me now is the great, the all-absorbing question—the question of questions.

Mr. Merton continued to visit me, and to unfold to me the scheme of Christian Redemption, and assured me that, if I willed it, there was salvation even for me, for Christ had died for all, had made ample satisfaction on the cross for the sins of the whole world, and that great as my sins were, they were surpassed by the Divine Mercy. He instructed me in what I had to believe, and in what I had to do. The baptismal waters were poured over me, and I was confirmed by the Holy Chrism, and I hope that my pact with Satan is broken, and my soul delivered. But I know not whether it be so or not; I know not whether I deserve love or hatred. I still fear and tremble, but will not despair. I am trying, as far as in my power, to undo the wrong I have done, and have dictated with that view these my confessions, which will see the light as soon as may be after I am no more.

All are kind to me. My friends, those who have known me in my pride and wickedness, strange to say, do not desert me; and those I love best are constantly near me, and do all they can to relieve my pain, and to strengthen my good resolutions. Priscilla is not unfrequently my nurse, and James is most kind and affectionate to me. If human aid or sympathy could avail me, I should have nothing to fear. But here I lie waiting my departure. How it will fare with me hereafter, God only knows. His will be done.

My story is told. My confessions, as far as I can make them to the public, are made. Let no man see in me an example to be followed, or regard me otherwise than as a miserable wretch who, in manhood and health, abused all God’s gifts, and has nothing to relieve his character from utter detestation but a late death-bed repentance. My life can serve as a beacon; let it so serve. Yet I beg all whom I have wronged to forgive me, for I would, as far as possible, die in peace with all the world. I have nothing to forgive, for I have received no wrongs. I have done wrong to the world, but I have suffered no wrong from it. I cannot ask that my memory should be cherished, for it deserves only to be execrated. Yet is it pleasant to feel that there are some who, bad as I have been, still love me, and will drop a tear of sincere grief over my lifeless remains. There are, too, some who, from the abundance of their charity, will, as they pass by my final resting-place, breathe the prayer, so consoling to the living at least,—“May his soul rest in peace.” After all, good is greater than evil, and love stronger than hell.

THE END.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcriber’s Note

Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.

19.25 that [“/‘]occult power,[”/’] as an earlier Replaced. philosophy

20.17 [“]There is something fearful Added.

103.27 endeavoring to look killing.[”] Added.

144.8 More[o]ver, I did not wish Inserted.

156.25 per Deum sanctum,[”] Added.

161.25 would expla[i]n all this Inserted.

185.13 the _stat[u]s quo_ Inserted.

202.21 author[r]ity may modify without danger Removed.

209.13 république d[e/é]mocratique Replaced.

251.2 sitt[t]ing-room Removed.

269.11 [“]was one of the most learned Added.

286.21 is the prin[ci]ple of all things Inserted.

308.18 Then a flint[s t/ st]one Space shifted.

401.30 from utter detesta[ta]tion Removed.