once had a natural origin in the necessities of human nature, and might
therefore be so interpreted as to become a necessity again. To reach
through to that original necessity; to explain the atonement as I
believed it appeared to Paul, and the sinfulness of man as it appeared
to the prophets, was my object. But it was precisely this reaching
after a meaning which constituted heresy. The distinctive essence of
our orthodoxy was not this or that dogma, but the acceptance of dogmas
as communications from without, and not as born from within.

Heresy began, and in fact was altogether present, when I said to myself
that a mere statement of the atonement as taught in class was
impossible for me, and that I must go back to Paul and his century,
place myself in his position, and connect the atonement through him
with something which I felt. I thus continued to use all the terms
which I had hitherto used; but an uneasy feeling began to develop
itself about me in the minds of the professors, because I did not rest
in the "simplicity" of the gospel. To me this meant its
unintelligibility.

I remember, for example, discoursing about the death of Christ. There
was not a single word which was ordinarily used in the pulpit which I
did not use--satisfaction for sin, penalty, redeeming blood, they were
all there--but I began by saying that in this world there was no
redemption for man but by blood; furthermore, the innocent had
everywhere and in all time to suffer for the guilty. It had been
objected that it was contrary to our notion of an all-loving Being that
He should demand such a sacrifice; but, contrary or not, in this world
it was true, quite apart from Jesus, that virtue was martyred every
day, unknown and unconsoled, in order that the wicked might somehow be
saved. This was part of the scheme of the world, and we might dislike