I saw our holy law struggling to keep itself in existence, compressed on every side by idolatry; a little fountain feebly urging its way through its native rocks, but exhausted and dried up at the moment it reached the plain. But here was an ocean, an inexhaustible depth and breadth of power made to roll round the world, and be, at the will of Providence, the illimitable instrument of its bounty. I saw our holy law feebly sheltering under its despoiled and insulted ordinances the truth of Heaven. But here was a religion scorning a narrower temple than the earth and the heaven!
“The Hour is Come”
Yet I turned away from those convictions. A thousand times I was on the point of throwing myself at the feet of the men who bore this transcendent gift and asking: “What shall I do?” A thousand times I could have cried out: “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.” But oh, my doubting heart! I make no attempt to account for myself or my career—I have felt as strongly driven back as if there were an actual hand forcing me away. The illusion was a willing one, and it was suffered, like all such, to hold me in its captivity. But even when I shrank away I have said: “Whence had those men this knowledge? If angels from God were to come down to reclaim the world, could they tell us things different or tell us more?”
I looked round upon the labors of ancient wisdom, and I saw how trivial a space its utmost vigor had cleared, and how soon even that space was overrun by the rankness of the world, and I said: “Here is the central fire, the mighty reservoir of light, awaiting but the divine command to burst up in splendor, consume the impurities of the world at once, and regenerate mankind.” But the veil was upon my face. I labored against conviction, and shutting out the subject from my thoughts, sternly determined to live and die in the faith of my fathers.
I now heard but the few and simple closing words of the speaker in this group of the devoted. He was sorrowful that the Gospel had been so long committed to his hands in vain. He had, through fear of his own inadequacy, and in the remaining deference to the prejudices of his people, suffered the truth to decay, and seen the illustrious labors of the apostles without following their example.
“But,” said he, “I was rebuked; the opportunity once neglected was refused even to my prayers. I was thenceforth in perils, in civil war, in domestic sedition. I am but now come from a dungeon. But in my bonds it pleased Him, in whose hand are the heavens, to visit me. I knelt and prayed, acknowledging my sin, and beseeching Him that before I died I might proclaim His truth before Israel. In that hour came a voice, bidding me go forth; and lo! my chains fell from my hands and I went forth. And when I came to the gates of the dungeon, I willed to go forward to the city of David. But I was forbidden, and my steps were turned here, to awake my brethren to knowledge before they perish.”
The trumpets rang again as a new crowd were drained off to execution. My heart sank at the melancholy sound, but among the converts there was not a murmur.
“Kneel,” said the preacher; “the hour is come!”
They knelt and he poured out his spirit aloud in prayer