G. K. CHESTERTON

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1144, 3 June 1911, Page 15

G. K. CHESTERTON

HOW HE BECAME A CHRISTIAN

Mr. G. K. Chesterton explains how he became a Christian:—All I had hitherto hoard of Christian theology had alienated mo from it. I was a pagan at the ago of twelve, and a complete agnostic by the ago of sixteen; and I cannot understand anyone passing the ago of sevjnteen without having asked himself so simple a question. I did, indeed, retain a cloudy reverence for a cosmic deity, and a great historical interest in the Founder of Christianity. But I certainly regarded Him as a man; though perhaps I thought that, even in that- point, He had an advantage over some of His modern critics. I read all the scientific and sceptical literature of my time—all of it, at least, that I could find written in English and lying about; and I read nothing else—l mean I read nothing else on any other note of philosophy. Tho penny dreadfuls which 1 also read were indeed in a healthy and heroic tradition of Christianity; but I did not know this at tin time. I never read a line of Christian apologetics. I read as little as I can of them now. It was Huxley and Herbert Spencer and Bradlaugh who brought me back to orthodox theology. They sowed in my mind my first wild doubts of doubt. Our grandmothers were quite right when they said that Tom .Paino and tho freethinkers unsettled the mind. They do. They unsettled mine horribly. The rationalist made the question whether reason was of any use whatever;' and when I had finished Herbert Spencer I had got as far as doubting (for the first time) whether evolution had occurred at all. As I laid down the last of Colonel atheistic lectures the dreadful thought broke across my mind, "Almost thou porsuadest me to be a Christian." I was in a desperate way.