All this is done to humble man, and to bring about his conversion. The Scriptures also represent the Almighty as angry with poor, feeble man, and that he will eventually pour out his wrath in never-ending torments! These doctrines, so earnestly taught, and so fully credited, constitute a principal part of what comes from ten thousand preachers; and if we examine the truth of them, none can we find. As it respects man's rebelling, and turning his back on his Creator, man's error and misfortune has ever been in trying to find out something about his Maker.
This curiosity, no doubt, originated in a state of ignorance. And even in the present day, man has yet to learn the inutility of every attempt to discover any thing as to the being and nature of a Supreme Power that is supposed to govern the universe. We are lost in wonder and admiration when we contemplate the mighty universe! but of the Grand Regulator of all, we are, and no doubt shall ever remain, in total ignorance. It is a libel on man, then, to teach that human beings are at enmity against God. I ask my readers, both male and female, whether they ever had those feelings of hatred against the unknown Governor of the grand and sublime universe? But Christian priests proclaim it; and to those who believe it, it is a source of lamentation; and being under the belief that man is the natural enemy of God, the minds of such persons become prostrated, and then this otherwise happy world is despised and neglected for a future state of supposed bliss.
Let any one attend a Protracted Meeting, where there may be some hundreds of persons, and among the number, many youths of both sexes; both young and old are appealed to by the speakers, who describe them as enemies of God, and as having turned their backs on the God of goodness. They become alarmed, not having before conceived that they could have been so wicked. I have seen upwards of fifty, at one time, sobbing and crying and imploring mercy, who, poor, weak mortals, until this foolishness of being at enmity with God was preached to them, had no conception of their dreadful enormities and danger. By exciting the feelings with falsehood, this process is called conversion and the work of the Holy Ghost. At the same time that the most virtuous females are denounced as deserving damnation for their wickedness, and told that, without repentance, their future state will be wretched to all eternity, should one word derogatory to the character of these females, thus represented by the priests, be spoken by any body else, an action for slander would be instituted.