I would fain pray; but doubts arising, partly from my neglect of the means of grace, and partly from the sham religion which everywhere prevailed, cast in my mind a doubt upon all religion, and led me to the conviction that prayers were unavailing and delusive.
In a moment of despair after escaping Covey, Douglass expresses his profound doubts about the value of prayer and the sincerity of prevailing religious practices.
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It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.
We could not but believe that there existed at the South a latent and powerful Union sentiment which would assert itself at last.
His iron sentences, cold and harsh, sunk like heavy weights deep into my heart, and stirred up within me a rebellion not soon to be allayed.