Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again: A Life StoryBarker, Joseph
Religion
Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again: A Life Story
Barker, Joseph
Barker, Joseph, 1806-1875; Methodist Church -- Clergy -- Biography; Skepticism
I was expelled on a Saturday afternoon. I was unable to stay till the
closing scene, as I had an engagement to preach anniversary sermons on
the Sunday, some thirty miles away. But the news soon reached me, and I
received it with strange and indescribable emotions. I felt that
something very important had happened,--that I was placed in a new and
serious position, and was entering on a new and untried way of life; but
I little dreamt what the results would be. I expected an eventful
future, but not the kind of future that was really waiting for me. I
anticipated trials, and sorrows, and great changes; but how strangely
different the realities have proved from what I anticipated in my
fevered dreams! But I had strong faith in God, and a firm trust in His
all-perfect Providence, and no one saw me tremble or turn pale.
I had not been expelled long when I found myself face to face with a
terrible host of trials. Some who had promised to stand by my side took
fright, and left me to my fate. Some found their interests were
endangered by their attachment to me, and fell away. Some were
influenced by the threats of their masters, and some by the tears and
entreaties of their kindred, and reluctantly joined the ranks of my
enemies. Some thought I should have yielded a point or two, and were
vexed at what they called my obstinacy. There were fearful and
melancholy changes. People who had always heretofore received me with
smiles of welcome, now looked cold and gloomy. Some raged, some wept,
and some embraced me with unspeakable tenderness; while some wished me
dead, and said it had been better for me if I had never been born.
One man, a person of considerable influence, who had encouraged me in my
movements, and joined me in lamenting the shortcomings of the Connexion,
and in condemning the conduct of my opponents, no sooner saw that I was
doomed, than he sent me a most unfeeling letter. I met the postman and
got the letter in the street, and read it as I walked along. It pained
me terribly, but it comforted me to think that it had not fallen into
the hands of my delicate and sensitive wife. That no other eye might see
it, and no other soul be afflicted with the treachery and cruelty of the
writer, I tore it in pieces, and threw it into the Tyne, and kept the
matter a secret from those whose souls it might have shocked too rudely
for endurance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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