Moncure Daniel Conway

Man vs God: forsaking dogma

When I left the Baltimore Conference, the Quakers were given by many Methodists the discredit of having undermined my faith, but their only contribution to my new faith was in enabling me to judge the unorthodox tree by its fruits of culture and character. If theology were ever discussed by them, it was I who introduced the subject. They had no proselyting spirit. I thought of joining the Quaker Society, but Roger Brooke advised me not to do so. “Thee will find among us,” he said, “a good many prejudices, for instance, against music, of which thou art fond, and while thou art mentally growing would it be well to commit thyself to any organized society ?” [1]

How often have I had to ponder those words of Jesus, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?” Men do not forsake their God, he forsakes them. It is the God of the creeds that first forsakes us. More and more the dogmas come into collision with plain truth: every child’s clear eyes contradict the guilty phantasy of inherited depravity, every compassionate sentiment abhors the notions of hell, and salvation by human sacrifice. Yet our tender associations, our affections, are intertwined with these falsities, and we cling to them till they forsake us. For more than a year I was like one flung from a foundered ship holding on to a raft till it went to pieces, then to a floating log till buffeted off,—to every stick, every straw. One after another the gods forsake us, —forsake our common sense, our reason, our justice, our humanity.

SOURCE: Conway, Moncure Daniel. Autobiography: Memories and Experiences of Moncure Daniel Conway (Boston; New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1904), vol. 1, Chapter IX, The Hicksite Quakers, p. 108.

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