t till my mind had ripened as to the right path in circumstances so
perplexing. I will only briefly say, that I at last settled among some
who had previously been total strangers to me. To their good will
and simple kindness I feel myself indebted: peace be to them! Thus I
gained time, and repose of mind, which I greatly needed.

From the day that I had mentally decided on total inaction as to all
ecclesiastical questions, I count the termination of my Second Period.
My ideal of a spiritual Church had blown up in the most sudden and
heartbreaking way; overpowering me with shame, when the violence of
sorrow was past. There was no change whatever in my own judgment, yet
a total change of action was inevitable: that I was on the eve of
a great transition of mind I did not at all suspect. Hitherto my
reverence for the authority of the whole and indivisible _Bible_ was
overruling and complete. I never really had dared to criticize it; I
did not even exact from it self-consistency. If two passages appeared
to be opposed, and I could not evade the difficulty by the doctrine
of Development and Progress, I inferred that there was _some_ mode
of conciliation unknown to me; and that perhaps the depth of truth in
divine things could ill be stated in our imperfect language. But from
the man who dared to interpose _a human comment_ on the Scripture, I
most rigidly demanded a clear, single, self-consistent sense. If he
did not know what he meant, why did he not hold his peace? If he did
know, why did he so speak as to puzzle us? It was for this uniform
refusal to allow of self-contradiction, that it was more than once
sadly predicted of me at Oxford that I should become "a Socinian;"
yet I did not apply this logical measure to any compositions but those
which were avowedly "uninspired" and human.

As to moral criticism, my mind was practically prostrate before the
Bible. By the end of this period I had persuaded myself that morality
so changes with the commands of God, that we can scarcely attach any
idea of _immutability_ to it. I am, moreover, ashamed to tell any
one how I spoke and acted against my own common sense under this
influence, and when I was thought a fool, prayed that I might think it
an honour to become a fool for Christ's sake. Against no doctrine did
I dare to bring moral objections, except that of "Reprobation." To
Election, to Preventing Grace, to the Fall and Original Sin of man,
to the Atonement, to Eternal Punis