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A Rational Skeptic

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 19, 1864

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 23, No. 21.

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A Rational Skeptic.

MR. H.—, an eminent lawyer of Western New York, who died a few years since in the triumphs of Christian faith, when a student in the office of Judge H.—, was inclined to skeptical views. His moral character was unsullied, but in his ambitious aspirations he cherished that dislike to the gospel which is the hidden source of nearly all infidelity. The eloquent ministrations of the sanctuary failed to remove the deepening gloom of unbelief.
One day, while absorbed in the study of law, his eye rested upon a copy of the Bible lying on the table before him. He paused, and the thought came like the voice of an invisible spectator to his soul—"What if that book is the Word of God?" Then his conscience inquired if he had, with the earnestness and honesty becoming the momentous question, examined its claims to his faith. He was condemned at the bar of that inward judge and monitor, and he resolved to begin a careful perusal of the sacred volume. The duty and propriety of prayer to the "Father of Lights," for illumination, were impressed upon his mind, and for the first time in his life he solemnly entered on the reading of the Scriptures and on closet communication with God. In a few days he became an anxious sinner, and he very soon rejoiced in the love of Christ.
He made a full consecration of himself to the Redeemer, in a written covenant copied from Doddridge, and found among his papers after his death, and for more than twenty years was an active, growing Christian. In the court-room and social circle his consistent piety revealed itself, calm and clear, beneath the excitements and pleasures of life.
Truly, "atheism is a crime, rather than a mere intellectual error," and so is all fatal unbelief. The heart is wrong, and the head refuses to receive or seek the light of the Cross. This view of the skeptical and scornful gives fearful import to the prophet's question, "What wilt thou say when he shall punish thee?"