It was all in vain; I became satisfied that the complaint was not of a temporary nature, not owing to overwork or over-excitement, not easily cured--if curable at all,--but nervous and hereditary. Thereupon, I wrote a letter to my trustees absolutely resigning my office and declining to be a clergyman any longer, as I could not attempt to renew the same kind of labor. An attempt was made to secure a successor; several names were mentioned, and among men greatly my superiors in learning and eloquence, but none, it was thought, represented the precise form of speculation, the exact view of religion which my friends desired. The Society therefore was disbanded, and no attempt has been made since to reorganize it. The members were scattered, some among other churches, some among other cities, while some never joined any religious society whatever. Thus a thriving and growing organization is now simply a memory. X. THE PROGRESS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN AMERICA. An article in the _North American Review_ for April, 1885, on "Free Thought in America," is chiefly significant as showing how gradual and tentative the progress of thought in religion was. The comments on individuals are often wide of the mark, but the general drift is quite correct. The course was shadowy, but the main point was unmistakable. At this day, the wholesale abuse of religion is harmless, and can exert no wide influence. The friends of liberal thought are against it; and those who seek the old grim conclusion do so in another way, striving to substitute a new faith in nature for the old faith in divine inspiration, and to prove the latter to have been a growth rather than an imposition. The study of comparative religions has put a new face on the question, and the concern is now to discover the source of faith in the supernatural and not to make it appear a creation of priestcraft. No sooner had serious investigations into antiquity become known, than the method pursued by Voltaire and Dupuis was abandoned, and each generation since has confirmed the facts of historic development. That my own immediate predecessors were Emerson and Parker is most true. With the writings of the former I was familiar; the latter was my intimate friend. Perhaps my theological views are due to him more than to any other man, though the circumstances of his generation were peculiar, and determined, in a much greater degree than in my own case was possible, the cast of his thought. The Unitarian controversy, in which he played so prominent a part, and by stress whereof he was driven into some of his positions, is over. The anti-slavery struggle, into which he threw himself and as a result of which his religious antagonisms were sharpened, was ended many years ago.