5. Another dear one was afflicted; and again my heart was torn, and again my lips were sealed. I could not even say to the suffering one, "God bless you."

6. I was called to attend the funeral of a child. The parents were in great distress, and I was anxious to speak to them a word of comfort; but doubt and unbelief had left me no such word to speak. I remembered the day when I could have said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven."

"They rest in Jesus, and are blest,
How sweet their slumbers are."

But the happy day was gone, and I was dumb in the presence of the mourners.

7. I was called, on another occasion, to visit a friend, a brother skeptic, who was sick and likely to die. I had often visited him when he was well, and we had managed, on those occasions, to interest or amuse each other; but now we were helpless. Both were in sorrow, and neither could console his brother. And there we were, looking mournfully on each other in the face of death, speechless and comfortless. I am horrified when I think of the dreadful position in which I was placed on those solemn occasions. It seemed to me as if I had been enchanted all those dreary days by some malignant demon, and made the sport of his infernal cruelty. My friend, like myself, had been a Christian in his earlier days, and had rejoiced in the assurance of God's love and favor, and in hopes of future and eternal blessedness; and now he was passing away in utter cheerlessness and hopelessness. He died, and I followed his remains to the grave. I spoke; but I had no great comforting truths with which to cheer the sad hearts of his weeping kindred. I looked down, with his disconsolate widow, and his sorrowing children, into the dark cold vault, but could say not a single word of a better life. We sorrowed as those who have no hope.

8. While I was in Nebraska my mother died. Like my father, who had died some years before, she had been a Christian from her early days; a very happy one; and she continued a Christian to the last. She was one of the most affectionate and devoted mothers that ever lived. She had eleven children. The eldest one died when he was twenty-one, after having spent a number of years, young as he was, as an able and useful minister of Christ. He died a happy death. The remaining ten were all permitted to grow up to manhood and womanhood, and my mother had the happiness at one time, an unspeakable happiness to her, to see them all, with one exception, devoted to the service of God, and several of them engaged as preachers of the Gospel. They were joyful days to her when she could get them all together, as she sometimes did, to sing with her the sweet hymns of praise and gratitude, of hope and rapture, which had cheered her so often during the years of her pilgrimage. And now she was gone. I had seen her some years before when on a visit to my native land. She know of my skeptical tendencies, and though she had faith in my desire to be right, she was afraid lest I should miss my way, and entreated me with all the affectionate tenderness of an anxious mother, not to allow myself to be carried away from the faith and hope of the Gospel. "Do pray, my dear son," she said,—"Do pray that God may lead you in the right path. I want to meet you all in heaven. It would be a dreadful thing if any of you should be found wanting at last. Don't forsake God. Don't leave Christ. Religion is a reality; a blessed reality. I know it, I feel it, my dear son. It is the pearl of great price." These were the last words I heard from her lips. I listened to them in silence. Though I was too far gone to be able to sympathize with her remarks as much as I ought, I was wishful that she should enjoy all the comfort that her faith could give her. She wept; she prayed for me; she kissed me; and I left her, to see her face no more on earth. I returned to my home in America, and the next thing I heard of the dear good creature was, that she had finished her course. I kept the sad intelligence to myself, for my heart was too full to allow me to speak of my loss, even to those who were nearest and dearest to me. I thought of all her love for me from my earliest days; and of all her labors and sacrifices for my comfort and welfare. I remembered her counsels and her warnings. I remembered her last kind words, her kiss, her prayers, her tears. It seems dreadful; but unbelief had so chilled my soul, that I could no longer indulge the sweet thought of an immortal life even for the soul of my dear good Christian mother. I had once had visions of a land of rest, a paradise of bliss, and countless crowds of happy souls, and rapturous songs, and shouts of praise, and joyous meetings of loving and long parted friends in realms of endless life and boundless blessedness; but all were gone. A sullen gloom, a deathlike stupor, a horrible and unnatural paralysis of hope had come in place of those sweet visions of celestial glories. My only comfort was, that though I had ceased to believe in the divinity of Christianity myself, she had retained her faith, and had lived and died in the enjoyment of its consolations.

9. We had a young woman that had lived with us, with the exception of two short intervals, all the time we had been in America. She had come to regard us as her natural guardians, and we had come to look on her as one of our family. The second time she left us she caught a fever, and returned to us in hopes that in her old and quiet home she would soon be well again. We procured her medical aid, but the fever got worse. The doctor lost hopes, and it soon began to be evident, that she was doomed to a speedy death. I attended her during the last sad night of her sufferings. I heard her moanings as her life drew slowly towards a close. I wanted to comfort her, but I had lost the power. I could once have spoken to her of a Father in heaven, and of a better world; but I could speak on those subjects no longer. I could once have kneeled by her side and prayed; but I could pray no more. I could neither comfort myself nor my dying charge. She passed away without a word of consolation or a whisper of hope to cheer her as she trod the dark valley of the shadow of death. I stood by, afflicted and comfortless, when her lifeless form was committed to its final resting-place, unable to speak a word of hope or consolation to the sorrowing minds that were gathered around her grave. She was interred on the slope of the hill, on the opposite side of the stream over against my farm, within view of the field and the garden in which I often worked, and the lonely dwelling in which I frequently slept. And there she lay, far from her kindred and her native land, the wild winds moaning over her solitary grave, and no sweet word about God, or Christ, or a better life, to mark the spot where she slept. And there, on that quiet farm, and in that solitary dwelling, with that one melancholy grave in view, I passed at times the long sad days, and the still and solemn nights, in utter loneliness, gazing on the desolate scenes around, or feeding on saddening thoughts within, "without hope and without God in the world." I sought for comfort in a Godless and Christless philosophy, but sought in vain. I tried to extort from nature some word of consolation, but not a whisper could I obtain. I tried to forge some theory of my own that might lessen the gloom in which I was wrapt; but my efforts were fruitless. The light of life was quenched; the joy, the bliss of being was no more. I had "forsaken the fountain of living waters," and nothing remained but broken cisterns that could hold no water. I was wretched; and, apart from God, and Christ, and immortality, my wretchedness was incurable; and the sense of my wretchedness prepared me, and ultimately constrained me, to look once more in the direction of the religion that had cheered me in my earlier days.

10. I had a great and grievous trial of another kind while in Nebraska. When we removed to that far-off country, we left our eldest son in Ohio to look after our interests there, and to send off to us what goods we might require in our new home. The river Ohio, down which our goods had to be sent, was low at the time, and the steamer on which they were placed, while racing recklessly with another steamer, struck on a rock and was wrecked. There were over a thousand volumes of my books on board, the best and principal part of my library; nearly all my manuscripts too were on board, and much other property, amounting in value to twelve or thirteen hundred pounds; over $6,000; and nearly all was lost, or irreparably damaged.

This however was but a light part of the trial. As soon as my eldest son got news of the wreck, he hastened to the spot, to save what portions of our property he could. The weather was hot by day, and cold by night. Both the season and the place were unhealthy, and by his great anxiety, and excessive labors, and continual exposure, he brought on a violent fever. The first information we received about the matter was that he was dying. When the dreadful tidings reached us we were more than a thousand miles away. I started at once for Ohio, and made what haste I could to reach my son; but go what way I would, I must be four or five long days on the road, and four or five long nights. I took my way down the river. For four long days and four long dreary nights I travelled, in doubt all the time whether my child was dead or alive. And all that time I was unable to offer up a prayer, either for my son, myself, or the anxious and sorrowing ones I had left behind. Nor could I apply to myself a single consolatory promise of Scripture. My mad antichristian philosophy had robbed me of all. God and His Providence, Christ and His sympathy, heaven and its blessedness, were all gone, and nothing was left but the hard blank horrors of inexorable fate. My soul was shut up as in a dungeon, unable to help itself. It was stretched on a rack, and tortured with excruciating pain. Those four long dreary days and nights were the darkest and most miserable I ever passed. But God was merciful. I lived to reach the end of my dreadful journey, and He had spared my son. We embraced,—we wept. We were spared—the whole of our family were spared, thank God—for better days, and for a happier lot.

11. There were other events which befell me while I was in Nebraska, that had a salutary influence on my mind. I was frequently in the greatest danger, and was as frequently preserved from harm. As I have said, I slept three nights with a rattlesnake within three inches of my breast. My eldest son slept repeatedly in the same terrible position; yet we both escaped unhurt. Once I was within an inch—within a hair's breadth, I may say—of being killed by the kick of a horse. On another occasion, when my eldest son was forking hay in the field, and I was piling it on the wagon, he heard a rattlesnake, and looked all round upon the ground to find it, with a view to kill it, but looked in vain. At length, turning his eyes upwards, he saw it writhing and wriggling on one of the prongs of his hayfork, which he was holding up in the air. He had pierced the deadly creature while forking the hay, and I had taken the hay from the fork with my naked hands, and escaped unbitten. I had quite a multitude of escapes from deadly peril, some more remarkable than those I have described. And there were times when the thoughts of those wonderful deliverances made me feel, that there were far more incredible doctrines than that of a watchful and gracious Providence.