THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
even seemed to me at times that this had been accomplished, and I went through the act of the “First Communion” in a state of religious exaltation. But very soon the old scruples and doubts returned stronger than before. What was most repugnant to me was the claim of the church to be not merely the only true church, but also the only saving one, and that there was absolutely no hope of salvation outside of its pale, but only damnation and eternal hell-fire. That Socrates and Plato; that all the virtuous men among the heathen; that even my old friend, the Jew, Aaron; nay, that even the new-born babe, if it happened to die unbaptized, must forever burn in unquenchable fire—yes, that I too, were I so much as to harbor the slightest doubt concerning their terrible fate, must also be counted among the eternally lost—against such ideas rebelled not only my reason, but my innermost instinct of justice. Such teachings seemed to me so directly to contradict the most essential attributes of the all-just Deity, that they only served to make me suspicious of other tenets of the creed. High authorities in the church have indeed not maintained teachings so extreme, but assigned to unbaptized, innocent infants and to virtuous heathen after death a mysterious state intermediate between heaven and hell. Yet certain it is that the religious teachings of my youth held to the immoderate tenets I have described, thus enforcing with a rude and relentless logic the dogma of original sin and the necessity of infant baptism. What a blessing it would have been to the church and to all within reach of its influence, if, not only some, but all of its teachers had opened its whole heaven, with the full countenance of God, not only to its believers, but to all innocent and virtuous human souls.
I was distressed beyond measure. Often I prayed fervently for light, but in answer to my prayers only the old
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