ASHAMED OF SKEPTICISM

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 15, 1881

ASHAMED OF SKEPTICISM.

A WELL-KNOWN judge in one of the Southern States, speaking of his younger days, says that some seventy years ago he had become skeptical, and that Mr. H., a noble, whole-souled man, whom he revered almost as a father, but who was a confirmed deist, though he had a Christian wife, soon found him out and endeavored to instill into his mind his own deistical notions.

"But he charged me," says the judge, "not to let his wife know that he was a deist or that I was skeptical. I asked him why. To which he replied that if he was to marry a hundred times he would marry only a pious woman. Again I asked why. 'Because,' he said, 'if she is a Christian it makes her a better wife, a better mother, a better mistress, and a better neighbor. If she is poor it enables her to bear adversity with patience and fortitude. If she is rich and prosperous it lessens her desire for mere show. And when she comes to die, if she is in error, she is as well off as you and I; and if we are in error, she is a thousand times better off than we can be.' I asked him if he knew of any other error, or system of error, attended with so many advantages. His reply was evasive. But what he had said led me to examine the subject for myself. And I often look back to that conversation as one of the most important incidents of my life, and to it I trace my determination to study the Bible carefully and to examine the evidences of the Christian religion for myself, the result of which has led me to a full and living faith in the Saviour."