self-contradictory and confusing, and their explanations failed to explain. During the next eleven years my convictions underwent little change. I read everything that came in my way that had any bearing upon, or pretended in any degree to explain, the problem of life; and while I gained some knowledge of a general nature, I was no nearer the solution of life's problem than when I began my investigations years ago, and I had given up all hope of ever being able to come to a knowledge of the truth, or a satisfactory explanation of the enigma of life.
In all my intellectual wanderings I had never lost my belief in a great First Cause, which I was as well satisfied to call God as anything else; but the orthodox explanations of His or its nature and power were to my mind such a mixture of truth and error, that I could not tell where fact left off and fancy began. The whole effort of the pulpit being put forth, seemed directed to the impossible task of harmonizing the teachings of Jesus Christ with the wisdom of the world; and the whole tendency of our religious education was to befog the intellect and produce scepticism in a mind that presumed to think for itself and to inquire into the why and the wherefore. I fully believe that the agnosticism of yourself and myself was produced by the futile attempt to mix and harmonize the wisdom of the world with the philosophy of the Christ.
In my investigations into the researches of the savants and philosophers I found neither any satisfactory explanation of things as they seemed to exist, nor any solution of the great and all-absorbing question, “What is Truth?” Their premises appeared to be sound, and
