CHAPTER III.
Religious Experience--Conviction--Conversion.
Just about the close of my apprenticeship, and as I began to feel myself a man, I commenced to visit the girls, which induced me {to} go still more frequently to church.
At that time, there were four churches in Fredericksburg. The colored people had apartments for worship with the white people, at each of these churches. They were Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian and Baptist.
I had no particular preference for any one of these denominations, more than another; but, went wherever my favorites went. One night a young lady invited me to go to the Methodist church, where a prayer-meeting was to be held. During the meeting, a venerable old gentleman rose to his feet, and related an account of the sudden death of a young lady, which he had read in a newspapers. When he related that solemn circumstance, it so affected me, that I felt as if I was about to die, in a sudden manner also.
Having always, from parental training, purposed in my mind to become religious before I died, I thought that now was the time to begin to pray. But I could not try to pray in the church, for I was afraid that the girls would laugh at me. Yet I became so troubled, that I left the house, girls and all, intending to seek some place where I might pray. But to my horror and surprise, when I got out of the church, this reflection occurred to me, "God is in heaven, and you are on earth:--how can He hear you?" O, what distress of mind I now felt! I began to wonder how God could hear my prayer; for, sure enough, He was in heaven, and I on the earth. In my perplexity, I started for home.
Just before I reached the shop, where I slept, this thought struck me, if possible with more force than the former reflection: "God does see you!" It really appeared to me as if I could see that God was indeed looking at me; and not only so, but I felt that He had been looking at me all my life. I now said to myself, "It is of no use for me to pray.--If God has seen all my wickedness, as I feel that He has, then there is no mercy for me."
So I ran to my lodging-place, and tried to hide myself in a dark room. But this was useless; for it appeared that God could see me in the dark, as well as in the light.
I now felt constrained to beg for mercy, and spent the time in trying to obtain pardon for my sins. But the morning came, and the hour drew near for the hands to go to work, and I was still unhappy.