be even a Christian. I was severed first from the
Church, and then from Christ, and I wandered at length far away into the
regions of doubt and unbelief, and came near to the outermost confines
of eternal night. And the question arises,

How happened this? And how happened it that, after having wandered so
far away, I was permitted to return to my present happy position?

These two questions I shall endeavor, to the best of my ability, to
answer.

CHAPTER II.

CAUSES OF UNBELIEF.

How came I to wander into doubt and unbelief?

1. There are several causes of skepticism and infidelity. One is vice.
When a man is bent on forbidden pleasures, he finds it hard to believe
in the truth and divinity of a religion that condemns his vicious
indulgences. And the longer he persists in his evil course, the darker
becomes his understanding, the more corrupt his tastes, and the more
perverse his judgment; until at length he "puts darkness for light, and
light for darkness; calls evil good and good evil, and mistakes bitter
for sweet, and sweet for bitter." He becomes an infidel. It is the
decree of Heaven that men who persist in seeking pleasure in
unrighteousness, shall be given up to strong delusions of the devil to
believe a lie.

2. But there are other causes of skepticism and unbelief besides vice.
Thomas was an unbeliever for a time,--a very resolute one,--yet the
Gospel gives no intimation that he was chargeable with any form of vice.
And John the Baptist, one of the noblest characters in sacred history,
after having proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah to others, came himself to
doubt, whether He was really "the one that should come, or they should
look for another." Like the early disciples of the Saviour, and the
Jewish people generally, John expected the Messiah to take the throne of
David by force, and to rule as a temporal prince; and when Jesus took a
course so very different, his confidence in his Messiahship was shaken.
And one of the sweetest Psalmists tells us that, as for him, his feet
were almost gone; his steps had well-nigh slipped: and that, not because
he was eager for sinful pleasures, but because he saw darkness and
clouds around the Providence of God: he could not understand or "justify
the ways of God to man."

And there are thoughtful and good men still who fall into doubt and
unbelief from similar causes. The kind of people who, like Thomas, are
constitutionally inclined to doubt, are not al