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
When we got to Akron, Ohio, we found a Woman's Rights Convention in
session; and there we got introduced to a number of advanced spirits,
both male and female, and in their society became acquainted with quite
a multitude of strange and lawless speculations, of which, till then, we
had lived in happy or in woful ignorance. We reached at length the
region where we were to make our home, and now other matters engrossed
my mind. I had, in the first place, a farm to select, and then the
purchase to make. I had then my goods to look after, my house to
arrange, and my food to provide. Then work wanted doing on the farm--a
hundred kinds of work, all new, and many of them hard and very
perplexing. We wanted men to aid us; and men were not to be got; or,
when got, were difficult to manage, and hard to please. And horses, and
cows, and sheep, were wanted; and poultry, and pigs; and ploughs, and
harrows, and wagons, and harness. And stoves and fuel were required. And
the house had to be enlarged, and the barns rebuilt, and the gardens
cultivated, and the orchard replanted. And a hundred lessons on farming
had to be learnt, and a hundred more to be unlearnt. And we were always
making mistakes, and sustaining losses. And our neighbors were not all
that we could wish; and we were not all that they could wish. It was
impossible to avoid impositions, and difficult to take injustice
quietly; so we remonstrated, and resisted, and made things worse.
Before we had got ourselves fairly settled we began to be visited by a
number of friends. And many of those friends were wilder and more
extravagant, in their views on religion and politics, than myself; and
instead of helping me to quiet reflection, did much to render such a
thing impossible. They were mostly Garrisonian Abolitionists, with whom
I had become acquainted while in England, or through the medium of
anti-slavery publications. Many of them had had an experience a good
deal like my own. They had been members and ministers of churches, and
had got into trouble in consequence of their reforming tendencies, and
had at length been cast out, or obliged to withdraw. They had waged a
long and bitter war against the churches and ministers of their land,
and had become skeptics and unbelievers of a somewhat extravagant kind.
Henry C. Wright was an Atheist. So were some others of the party. My own
descent to skepticism was attributable in some measure to my intercourse
with them, and to a perusal of their works, while in England. The first
deadly blow was struck at my belief in the supernatural inspiration of
the Scriptures by Henry C. Wright. It was in conversation with him too
that my belief in the necessity of church organization was undermined,
and that the way was smoothed to that state of utter lawlessness which
so naturally tends to infidelity and all ungodliness. My respect for the
talents of the abolitionists, and the interest I felt in the cause to
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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