Arizona weekly citizen., 1881-11-20
DR. TRorHNeHAM CEASES TO DENY.


 the decade. and We might almost add of the last half century, is the recent posi- tion taken by Dr. Octavius Frothing- ham, the leading Free Thinking divine and one of the most talented pulpit orators in New York City, who has stopped denying the truth of Christian ity. According to the Christian Intelli- gencer, which, when MT. Frothincham went to Europe two years ago, devoted a special article to him, he was accus- toned to open his services with prayer, but his prayers were addressed tO un Ul,- known God, whose existence was largely matter of doubt. Fr5thingham, in this statement, speaks first O, the fact that he had to fight aIone;uo young men grew up into his way of thinhnc; then people thought because Ee was a radical preacher he must be radical in every- thing else He was expected to give moral and material assistance to an. one whose ideas of right and wrong differed from those of other people, and his in dependent church became a sort Of magnet for queer and not altogether pleasant persons. Mir. Rockingham says.
 "One fact began to loom up hefo-e my mental vision in a disquieting way-that the drift of free-thOUght teaching was unquestionably toward a dread material ism, which l abhorred as deeply as any Evangelical. clergyman that | know. Men who would become leaders in the free-thOught movement don't stop where l stop; they feel no traditions behind them; they have no special training for the work Of restoring, in which light l regard much of my work. The sItul- tion, when l stopped preaching two years ago and went to Europe, are about as follows: The Evangelical religion was stronger; the churches were better filed; there was more of religious spirit abroad than when I began twenty years ago; such men-as came forward as teach CTS in the free-thought movement were cut and out materialists. Lastly, my own position was unpleasant and my health was failing. As to the fact that revealed religion, as We call 1t, Is stronger to-day than # was twenty years ago. l have no doubt 1t is stronger here and in Europe, notwithstaniin the much talked-of German materialism, and the religion of to-day Is all the stronger than that of twenty years ago, in that it Is throwing off the secretions of ignorance and presents fewer features incompatible with good sense and charity
 The statement, which is very long, gives in detail the free-thinking preach CTS struggles with himself, and finally confesses that either his inherited con seryatism has deserted him or he has re- ceived more light. He is not sure that he regrets his past work in New York, for there is much that needs to be re- formed in revealed religion, even if its foundations be sound. He is unsettled about matters concerning which years ago he had no doubt, and has expert enced a growing suspicion that there might be something behind or below what We called revealed religion, of which scientific thinkers of our tlme are beginning vaguely to distinguish as an influence that cannot be accounted for at present, but which nevertheless exists. He concludes: "To my old friends and followers who may feel grieved at such an admission on my part, I would say that 1 am no more believer in revealed religion to-day than l was a year ago, but, as I said before, 1 have doubts which had not then. The creeds of to-day do not seem in my eyes to be so wholly groundless as they were then, and while I believe the next hundred years will see great changes in them, I do not think they are destined to d5sap- pear. To sum up the whole matter, the work which I have been doing appears to lead to nothing, and may have been grounded upon mistaken premises. Therefore it is better to stop; but I do not want to give the impression that I recant anything; I simply stop denying and wait for more light