But I had reached a sad extreme. I had lost all trust in a Fatherly God, and all good hope of a better life. I had come near to the horrors of utter Atheism. And the universe had become an appalling and inexplicable mystery. And the world had come to be a dreary habitation; and life a weary affair; and many a time I wished I had never been born. And there were occasions when the dark suggestion came, "Life is a burden; throw it down." But I said; "Nay; there are my wife and children: I will live for their sakes if for nothing else." And for their sakes I did live, thank God, till I had something else to live for. If I were asked what first gave a check to my skepticism, and led me to turn my face once more towards Christ and Christianity, I should say, "The answer is supplied by my story." As I have shown, it was the troubled state of my mind,--the tempest of unhappy feeling, and the whirlwind of excitement in which I had lived so long,--that had most to do in carrying me away from Christ; and now my mind was allowed to be at rest. The whirlwind of excitement had spent its fury. The tempest in my soul had subsided, so that the principal hindrance to my return was gone. There were other causes that had contributed to the destruction of my faith in Christ and Christianity, but this was the first and chief one, and the one which gave the principal part of their force to the rest. As I have shown, I had been taught things about the Scriptures that were not correct. I had found a number of the arguments used by divines in support of the divinity of the Scriptures to be unsound. I had detected pious frauds in the writings of some of the advocates of the Bible and Christianity. I had met with untenable views on the inspiration and infallibility of the Scriptures. I had, besides, adopted a defective method of reasoning on religious matters, which exerted an injurious influence on my mind. All these things, and many others which I cannot at present mention, had proved occasions of doubt and unbelief. But the probability is, that none of these things would have destroyed my faith in Christ, if I had been in a proper state of mind. There was nothing in them to justify unbelief to a mind unprejudiced, undistempered, calm. There was attractiveness enough in Christ, if the mists which passion had thrown around Him, to hide His worth and glory from my view, could be cleared away. And there was truth and goodness enough in Christianity, and there were evidences sufficient of its divinity, if one could have the films removed from one's eyes, and be permitted to behold it in its own sweet light. The great difficulty was in the disordered state of my mind, and the trying nature of my situation. What was wanted, therefore, to make it possible for me to return to my former faith, was not so much an explanation of particular difficulties, as a better, happier, calmer state of mind. Explanations of difficulties _were_ desirable, but they were not the first or