“Away with you, and never come here again. Henceforward we follow nothing but Christ.”
Crushed by waves of humiliation, such as no bishop had ever met with on this continent, the weight of the ignominy which he had reaped in our midst completely overpowered his mind, and ruined him. He left us to wander every day nearer the regions of lunacy. That bishop, whose beginning had been so brilliant, after his shameful defeat at St. Anne, on the 3rd of August, 1858, was soon to end his broken career in the lunatic asylum at St. Louis, where he is still confined to-day.
Chapter LXVII.
BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS FROM MY CONVERSION TO THIS DAY—MY NARROW ESCAPES—THE END OF THE VOYAGE THROUGH THE DESERT TO THE PROMISED LAND.
The marvellous power of the Gospel to raise a man above himself and give him a supernatural strength and wisdom in the presence of the most formidable difficulties has seldom been more gloriously manifested than on the 3rd of August, 1858, on the hill of St. Anne, Illinois.
Surely the continent of America has never seen a more admirable transformation of a whole people than was, then and there, accomplished. With no other help than the reading of the Gospel, that people had, suddenly, exchanged the chains of the most abject slavery for the royal scepter of Liberty which Christ offers to those who believe in Him!
By the strength of their faith they had pulverized the gigantic power of Rome, put to flight the haughty representatives of the Pope, and had raised the banners of Christian Liberty on the very spot marked by the bishop as the future citadel of the empire of Popery in the United States.
Such work was so much above my capacity, so much above the calculation of my intelligence, that I felt that I was more its witness than its instrument. The merciful and mighty hand of God was too visible to let any other idea creep into my mind; and the only sentiments which filled my soul were those of an unspeakable joy, and of gratitude to God.
But I felt that the greater the favors bestowed upon us from heaven, the greater were the responsibilities of my new position.
The news of that sudden religious reformation spread with lightning speed all over the continents of America and Europe, and an incredible number of inquiring letters reached me from every corner. Episcopalians, Methodists, Congregationalists, Baptists, and Presbyterians, of every rank and color, kindly pressed me to give them some details. Of course, those letters were often accompanied by books considered the most apt to induce me to join their particular denominations.