misrepresented, and guarded the subject on all sides. I got beyond that
point. I found that I got on better when, without regard to
consequences, I threw myself upon the hearts and consciences of my
hearers.

In those early days of my pastoral experience I saw how men reason
themselves into scepticism. I knew what it was to have a hundred nights
poured into one hour.

I remember one infidel book in the possession of my student companion.
He said, "DeWitt, would you like to read that book?" "Well," said I, "I
would like to look at it." I read it a little while. I said to him, "I
dare not read that book; you had better destroy it. I give you my
advice, you had better destroy it. I dare not read that book. I have
read enough of it." "Oh," he said, "haven't you a stronger mind than
that? Can't you read a book you don't exactly believe, and not be
affected by it?" I said, "You had better destroy it." He kept it. He
read it until he gave up the Bible; his belief in the existence of a
God, his good morals; until body, mind and soul were ruined--and he went
into the insane asylum. I read too much of it. I read about fifteen or
twenty pages of it. I wish I had never read it. It never did me any
good; it did me harm. I have often struggled with what I read in that
book. I rejected it, I denounced it, I cast it out with infinite scorn,
I hated it; yet sometimes its caricature of good and its eulogium of
evil have troubled me.

With supreme gratitude, therefore, I remember the wonderful impression
made upon me, when I was a young man, of the presence of a consecrated
human being in the pulpit.