"I know I felt very differently when I came out of the chapel that evening, from what I felt on entering; but whether I then actually passed from a state of spiritual death to newness of life, is a question I cannot decide. But now I can say what Paul said—By the grace of God I am what I am."
"Do you ever doubt the reality of the spiritual change which you have undergone?"
"No, Sir, that's impossible. I know that I was once living in a state of spiritual death, or mental alienation from God, neither loving nor fearing him—living without him in the world; but it's the reverse of this now. I now revere him as my sovereign, whose laws are my delight; and I now love him as my reconciled Father through Jesus Christ. All through life, up to my first visit to your chapel, the invisible world flitted before my imagination, more as a fairy land than a real world of spiritual beings; and the immortality of man I considered more a thing of speculation than of positive certainty; but now I am compelled to believe, and by the force of evidence which sophistry cannot falsify, that it is the habitation of the high and lofty One whose name is Holy, and before whom I hope to be presented faultless with exceeding joy when the crisis comes."
"But, Sir, does your old philosophy never suggest to you the idea that these new discoveries and emotions, with their consequent anticipations, may be referable to the mysterious action of a disturbed imagination, rather than the direct action of a supernatural power—what scepticism designates the flights of fancy?"
"I must confess that such an idea has more than once obtruded itself on my mind; but I at once dismiss it as an intangible fiction; for when I turned my attention to study the Christianity of the Bible, which I did very closely as soon as I felt the new impulse from your first sermon, I perceived that it not only offers remission of sin to the penitent and contrite sinner, but that it is essentially a restorative scheme of grace, constructed for the very purpose of rescuing man from the moral ruin in which sin has involved him, and ultimately to re-produce that spiritual similitude to the Divine likeness in which man was created, and which would still have adorned humanity, if the first transgression had not been committed. Hence the discoveries and emotions I have made and felt, and the conflicts through which I am now passing, are the initiate of this grand design of the high and lofty One—the preparatory steps in the progress of recovery, which is to lead to such a glorious issue."
"Have you, Sir, any distinct recollection of the order of thought which followed—the unanticipated impressions and emotions which you felt while listening to the sermon?"
"I recollect saying to myself, when passing home—I have heard many sermons in my own country, and many in England, more elaborate, more argumentative, and more brilliant; and yet no one ever produced such a series of novel and strange convictions and impressions as this simple and plain appeal to which I have been listening. Myself, my moral condition and danger, now absorbed my attention: I felt, and for the first time in my history, that I had been living without God—living the life of a practical atheist—that I deserved his anger, and that he might justly leave me to perish."
"Did you entertain any idea that this new moral discovery would lead to an eventful issue; or did you suppose it would vanish away, and leave you to live as in former years?"
"Why, Sir, I felt that the discovery I had made was no mental illusion, but a palpable and awful reality; and though it excited emotions of alarm and terror which I could scarcely endure, yet I felt more inclined to cherish than repress them; and at times during the ensuing week, I did indulge a vague hope that God would have mercy on me and comfort me."
"Did you tell Mrs. Lobeck where you had been, and what you felt?"