HOW JOHN WESLEY REDFIELD WAS CURED OF ATHEISM

HOW JOHN WESLEY REDFIELD WAS CURED OF ATHEISM

"This was too much for my sensitive conscience, and the devil took the advantage of it by setting me to reasoning thus: "Does this man believe the Bible? Did Jesus set such an example of trifling in the presence of a perishing world? Is it true that sinners are now passing away, every hour, to the judgment? Is this like Paul, who for the space of three years, night and day, with tears, labored for the salvation of sinners? Am I in a hallucination? Am I wild, or blind? Be it as it may be, all I can see from my standpoint is the Saviour of the world, staggering under a world's sin, while its masses in proud procession are on their way to eternal night. If the Bible is true, the world is on the eve of a terrible catastrophe, and about to pass into eternity unprepared. I can hardly stop to sleep lest men be lost while I am at rest. There must be a mistake somewhere, and it is quite probable I am the one that is mistaken. The elder is a man of years, and in all probability when young was as zealous and ardent as I am, but he has found that religion is a sham, and now continues to preach for the profit it is to him. I will never accept of a license until I settle the question for myself of the truth or falsity of the Christian religion."

He refused the license, and after the quarterly meeting went home to his father's house. In after years he could look back and see that here was the great mistake of his life. He says: "Little did I dream that I had undertaken one of the most absurd tasks imaginable. I might as well have attempted to solve a question in algebra, by the principles of music, or the science of astronomy by

the rules of grammar, as to attempt to solve the problems of religion by the light of reason. However, I began the attempt. But I again found myself beset with people who would urge upon me their impressions of my duty to go into the gospel field. To get rid of this annoyance, I again resolved to go where I was not known. My motives for going I kept a secret, lest I should involve others in my perplexity."

In the peculiar state of mind described in the foregoing chapter, young Redfield again left home, going about a hundred miles from where he was known. In less than a fortnight after his arrival at his new destination, however, he was questioned about the duty of preaching. This caused him to leave again. This time he chose a place where he felt sure he would not be annoyed by anything of that kind, but here he found old acquaintances who raised the question, within a week. Then he left again, resolved not to profess religion at the next place, nor to have anything to say on the subject, thinking in that way to avoid the annoyance. Soon after this he found himself beset with infidel notions; and at last his faith in Christianity utterly gave way. He could now get along comparatively well in the daytime, but his nights would be filled with dreams of preaching, and so overcome in his feelings would he be, that on waking he would find his pillow wet with tears. He now began to believe that he had been the dupe of deception through all his strange course. To end the matter once and for all he finally resolved to ask God to take away the conviction of duty, even if it was from him. He had heard of a man who did that, and who was instantly relieved, never to have the feeling come back. He now experienced the same relief. In after years, when looking back with horror upon this passage in his life, he could only account for the after return of the Spirit by referring it to the prayers and intercessions of his mother. He says:

"I felt the Holy Spirit leave me as plainly as I ever felt the taking off of my coat; and yet with no greater alarm than at the loss of a penny. To me, now, infidelity was a fact, and right in its wake came downright atheism. For as soon as I resolved to settle all theological questions by my external senses, a vague uncertainty came over everything. Nature's laws were all the God I could find, and the mere notion that a given system of religion might be true was the utmost my reason could conjecture. It now seemed to me that all the phenomena of religious emotion, of mental and moral changes, were due to laws within us, and beyond our control. Now, the funeral pall of annihilation settled down upon me, and I could see nothing but darkness and desolation. Man and earth seemed orphaned. I sought in anatomy, physiology, and philosophy for testimony to clear this up, and, if possible, give me a single fact to settle my distracted mind. One favorite haunt of mine during this period was an ancient Indian burying ground. Some of the graves were entirely gone, washed away by the high waters of an adjoining stream; others were partly gone, the dark sands of which gave traces of the bodies which had been laid there to rest several hundred years before. A few seashells, flint arrowheads and hatchets, and beads were all that bore testimony that these bodies had ever lived. In contemplation of these things my whole soul would cry out, while the suffocation of death seemed to be upon me, "O God, if there be a God, send me to the hell of the Bible, but don't annihilate me." It seemed to me at such times that I could have died a hundred deaths if that would have made the Christian doctrines true, and have run my chances of heaven or hell.

I now commenced the systematic study of anatomy, for the purpose of ascertaining whether man had a conscious, thinking, acting, soul, independent of the body, or whether a fortuitous combination of matter in conjunction with material laws might not produce the phenomena we

observe; and therefore these phenomena cease with the combination. Among other works, treating upon this subject, I met with Paley's Natural Theology Illustrated, which gave a sober, commonsense, bias to my mode of reasoning. As a result of this I was cured of atheism and infidelity. I now saw the fogs of doubt all clear away, and the doctrine of the nature, operations, independence, and perpetuity, of the human soul, redeemed from all doubt, and established upon solid foundations."

While he was passing through all this, his mother, hearing of his infidelity and abandonment of religion and all thought of entering the Christian ministry, became very sad and would not be comforted. Not only were her hopes, but her faith also was involved with his. In his failure, she saw all her hopes concerning him, from his infancy, dashed to the ground. She pined away, and nearly lost her mind in mourning over him. She became so weak, that she would stop strangers as they passed her door, and ask them in plaintive tones, "Have you seen my son, John? Where is he? and what is he about?" Only as a pious mother could, she kept his case before God, and quite likely it was in answer to her prayers that he was finally brought back not only to Christ, but into the work of soul-saving, for which he became so eminent. -- "The Life of John Wesley Redfield," hdm0163, by J. G. Terrill