I had now reached the crisis. After pursuing this course of study and this line of reasoning for a period of about three years after finishing the book I have herein described, does any one wonder that I threw the whole thing overboard, Bible, inspiration, revelation, church and religion, into the scrap heap of superstition, legend, fable and mythology? I gave up the whole thing as a farce and a delusion, as "sounding brass and tinkling cymbals." I could no longer honestly preach such a gospel; I could not be a hypocrite. I withdrew from the church and ministry and turned my attention to secular pursuits. And having nowhere else to go, I naturally drifted into that state of mind which the world calls agnosticism. CHAPTER VI THE REACTION: A NEW CONFESSION OF FAITH At this time I knew nothing of a liberal church. If I had, I doubt if I was in a condition of mind to consider it. I was so utterly disgusted with ecclesiasticism as I knew it that I was but little prepared if at all, to give anything of the kind fair consideration. The pendulum had swung to the opposite extreme. I abandoned everything but God. I never doubted for a moment the existence of a Supreme Being. Nature and instinct taught me this. But who, or what, or where, this Supreme Being was, or what his attributes or characteristics were, I did not pretend to know, or care. I relegated it all to the realm of the unknown and unknowable. For a while I went to church occasionally, merely for the sake of respectability, and not because I took any interest in common with it. I listened to the preaching with such patience and fortitude as I could command. I heard only the same old platitudes about a dying Christ and the flames of perdition I had heard all my life and preached for eight years myself. I often felt as if I would like to help the preacher out in his struggle to "divest himself of his thoughts." I finally quit going to church altogether, until I located where I had an opportunity to attend a Reformed Jewish synagogue, which I did quite often, and always heard broad-gauged, intellectual discourses.