divine truth sent us for discord and for condemnation? I sickened at
the idea of a Church Tribunal, where none has any authority to judge,
and yet to my extreme embarrassment I saw that no Church can safely
dispense with judicial forms and other worldly apparatus for defending
the reputation of individuals. At least, none of the national and less
spiritual institutions would have been so very unequitable towards me.

This idea enlarged itself into another,--_that spirituality is no
adequate security for sound moral discernment_. These alienated
friends did not know they were acting unjustly, cruelly, crookedly, or
they would have hated themselves for it: they thought they were
doing God service. The fervour of their love towards him was probably
greater than mine; yet this did not make them superior to prejudice,
or sharpen their logical faculties to see that they were idolizing
words to which they attached no ideas. On several occasions I had
distinctly perceived how serious alarm I gave by resolutely refusing
to admit any shiftings and shufflings of language. I felt convinced,
that if I would but have contradicted myself two or three times, and
then have added, "That is the mystery of it," I could have passed
as orthodox with many. I had been charged with a proud and vain
determination to pry into divine mysteries, barely because I would not
confess to propositions the meaning of which was to me doubtful,--or
say and unsay in consecutive breaths. It was too clear, that a
doctrine which muddles the understanding perverts also the power of
moral discernment. If I had committed some flagrant sin, they would
have given me a fair and honourable trial; but where they could not
give me a public hearing, nor yet leave me unimpeached, without danger
of (what they called) my infecting the Church, there was nothing left
but to hunt me out unscrupulously.