"Then you have no fear in prospect of going into the great invisible world."
"No, Sir; and I long for the hour to come when I shall depart and be with Christ. I saw him in the visions of the night, when deep sleep had fallen upon me, and he appeared in glory, as when he was transfigured on Tabor."
"Do you place much dependence on dreams?"
"I place dependence on nothing, Sir, but the exceeding great and precious promises of my Bible; but it is delightsome to have, in the visions of the night, the re-appearance of day-thoughts and meditations; it is often then, from some cause which I cannot explain, they are clothed in a more visible and substantial form."
"Now, Mrs. Allen, one more question, and I have done. Do you think it possible for any argument to convince you that Jesus Christ is not a real being, only an imaginary one?"
"Do you, Sir, think it possible for any argument to convince you that you are not a real being, or that we are not all real beings, only imaginary ones. The one thing is just about as likely to be done as the other, and just about as easy."
I read part of the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John, making a few remarks on what I read, and then went to pray with her, Mr. Tennent, from a sense of politeness, if not from a superior reason, kneeling with me before the throne of mercy. As the storm was now abated, and the evening far spent, we left her; but, on shaking hands with her, Mr. Tennent gave her a sovereign.
We walked away in silence, but at length he said, "Well, Sir, if your religion be, what unbelievers say it is, an invention, it is a very soothing and inspiring one. On such an occasion as this we cannot help wishing it to be real, even if we can't believe it to be so."
"You see, Sir, it answers all the purposes of a reality at the great crisis in the history of human life."