theologically. I was not aware of any special weakening of my own devotion to the Creed I had confessed.

Afterwards, however, I could see that during those months my mental attitude towards the Calvinism of my inheritance had begun to be changed. Thitherto I had never ventured beyond a solicitous questioning of the Creed. Before I had returned to the Seminary my questionings had become positive doubts.

c. First Knowledge of Dr. Bushnell's Theology.-I do not remember just how I came into contact with Rev. Dr. Horace Bushnell's books; but one of them dealing directly with the doctrine of the Atonement fell into my possession that autumn. It started reflections which went far towards giving me mental relief.

I was in no way desirous then of emancipation from my creedal inheritance as a whole. I cherished a good deal of satisfaction because of my family lineage, which was almost wholly Scottish; and I had a large circle of kindred and friends which was almost entirely included in Calvinistic Churches. Naturally, I wished to keep within the beliefs and ways of my fathers. Dr. Bushnell, prospectively, gave me much needed relief; and I felt at the same time that the modification and widening of theology which he was making for me, would leave me, for the larger part, still true to my inheritance.

I was not fully committed, at least not consciously, to Dr. Bushnell's interpretation of the Atonement for some time after I returned to the Seminary and had begun the studies of the Senior year. But, not long after the opening of the session, it is fact that I was no longer a Calvinist who was merely troubled by solicitous questionings.

My long held liking for New England and for New

England people, I am confident, had nothing to do, worth serious consideration, with the relief I was finding in Dr. Bushnell's writings. However, a letter that came to me that autumn, from one who had the right to speak frankly, brought me these comments:

I feared when you went West that you would fall under the influence of the New England religious views which prevail over a great part of the Northwest. Most of the dwellers in that region come from New England. Those views have always been latitudinarian, free thinking, 'progressive. I have never had much liking for New England theology. Where God has not made his purpose clear, it hastens to help Him explain His meaning by making it accord with some Yankee' interpretation of the Divine purpose."

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Another letter from the same correspondent directly charged me with having "strayed from the path of right and duty" because of "association with those who teach a Progressive Christianity,' the followers of that kind of Christianity taught in the New England States."

This charge, however, was not made not made with Unitarianism in the writer's mind.

d. Increase of Unrest.-In that autumn, it was, I carried my mental debate over the tenets of my inherited Creed concerning the "Divine Decrees" and the "Vicarious Atonement" to one of the professors in the Seminary; a friend to whom I had at times previously given special confidence. But this venture was met with a severe rebuke. "These doubts," he asserted, "do not come from any fault in the doctrine. There is no trouble with the doctrine. The difficulty is in yourself. Your doubtings are the promptings of your depraved, sinful nature. Go to your room, and, on your knees, ask God to forgive

you." A letter from home came at about the same time that the conversation just repcated took place. In it I was asked,

"Have you ever thought that perhaps your 'conscientious' scruples-the objections and difficulties that you have been so long and so fearfully fighting,-are but the creations and devices of the great enemy of your Saviour and your soul; raised up and urged upon you for the very purpose of bringing about your downfall. Go to your God, and upon your bended knees wrestle with Him in prayer for your guidance, and for a decisive victory over the Devil. Go, too, to those whose pupil you are and plainly explain your difficulties, and seek the aid of their more experienced counsel with God's blessing; and the light you seek will not fail to come. They that seek shall find. If the countless thousands of God's ministers who have lived, and yet live, could believe, and teach, and confidently rely upon what the Bible taught, why can't you? I hope that God in His infinite mercy will enlighten your mind and guide your understanding.'

My mental unrest, however, against all wish and effort to the contrary, increased as the autumn passed. There happened then another bit of experience which affected, positively, my theological transition. Upon impulse one afternoon, I read Paul's Epistle to the Romans through, as though it were only a natural, personal effort of the Apostle to express his thoughts upon "faith in Christ." I tried to ignore, in the reading, my belief that the Epistle was an infallibly inspired message, through him, from God. The immediate effect was extraordinary. I arcse from the reading feeling that I had seen Paul's letter in a new light. I had never, thitherto, read any part of the Bible as though it were a product of natural human authorship. Now, it had become illumined with meanings I never before had found in it. I was exhilarated, and yet

y de Epistles of the great Apostle and, herewith, to in the other New Isaben writings had began to change.

Evidently, to judge from letters then reived, my own letters had begun to t of the essing change I was undergoing. In the time where no hesitation in opinion or judgment was necessary, many important letters were interchanged. Especially pertinent to these "Memories" is this one, from which I quote freely :

“I feel sorry to hear of your mental troubles. You can not, by searching, fathom the mysteries of Revelation. God has given us, in the 013 and and New Testaments, a revelation of His wil in regard to Man. If, through your knowledge, you can satisfy yourself that any part of the received translation is erronecus, you would, of course, be justified in adopting what your knowledge of the original would lead you to. But when you attempt to reconcile one doctrine with another, as declared in the Scriptures, you undertake to do that for which knowledge, as we have it, is utterly incompetent. We cannot try God's will, or purposes, by human reason.

While I can not understand, I do not condemn Old Calvinism,' as you call it. I give great weight to the Fathers in the Church who lived much nearer God than I do, and had much better spiritual and temporal opportunities to fathom the mysteries of the Word' than I have. Where I can not see as they saw, I trust that they are right. Their opinions and the continuous teachings of the Church should have great weight in the formation of any opinions, especially by so young and inexperienced a mind as yours."

e. Decision to become a Liberal Congregationalist.— Before that mid-winter had passed I was fully convinced that if my coming ministerial career were to have any satisfaction in it for myself, or to be in any honest way

useful to others, I must have a freer ecclesiastical relationship than that in which I had been reared. Nevertheless, all my instinctive impulses, and, especially, all my family and personal associations, led me to follow then, and always in my after experiences, as conservative a course as I could possibly take honestly,-that is, under the demands made by my conscience for truth. I had become much at ease mentally, with a larger knowledge of Dr. Bushnell's thinking. Besides, his unhampered freedom, as a minister among the Congregational Churches, gave me the stimulating hope that I, also, might find ample scope for my ministry in the pulpit of some Society of the Congregational fellowship.

Much regret was expressed by some friends to whom I made this hope known. I met with no resolute opposition from those who were nearest to me. They believed that, though I should, as a Congregationalist, be separated from the Presbyterian ministry, I would still be at work within an accepted, Evangelical, ecclesiastical fellowship. A letter received from home, in comment upon my proposed association with the Congregational ministry, will make this part of my experience clearer.

"That you have had mental struggles is doubtless true. But if others were blessed with victory and subsequent peace, so should you be. That God doubtless tries, as in a fiery furnace, those whom He desires to use for His service and glory is beyond doubt; and that He, in due time, gives them peace and content is also the experience of His servants. Why should you have so much unrest, so much doubt, where others are at peace? We now hope that the day of doubt is past: that you have secured the victory, and will now go on in the path He appears to have chosen for you.

Pass through your Seminary course, and the field of the