"But God, who is rich in mercy, whose eye is pity, and whose arm is power (to quote your own expression, which I admired for its beauty when you uttered it), in an unlooked for moment, and in a strange place, brought about a wonderful change, by renewing me, I trust, in the spirit of my mind, and bringing me again to say, 'Precious Bible, what a treasure!'
"The means which he employed to effect this wondrous revolution in my opinions and in my heart were very simple, but they were effectual: he chose to let me see and feel that the work was his own work. Such was the restlessness of my mind, that I was compelled to keep perpetually moving about, that by seeing various sights, and going into fresh society, I might be diverted from the gloomy terror of my own thoughts, and the dread of what was to come. I spent two years on the continent, but returned to England last spring the same man as when I left it—with this difference, that I seemed nearer the verge of absolute despair. After spending a few weeks in London, and visiting many places in South Wales, I went to Bristol, and then to Bath, and from Bath to Ryde, in the Isle of Wight, where I took lodgings, making up my mind to stay there during the summer. When returning one evening from Newport, I met a lad with a small basket, who asked me to buy a little book, telling me, as an inducement, that he had been walking about all day long, and had not got enough money to buy a supper for his poor old mother. His doleful tale touched my heart, and I gave him some relief, but said, 'Keep your books, lad, they may be money to you.' We both passed on, but when at some distance from each other, I thought, perhaps he has in his basket something that would amuse me. I turned and hailed him, and he ran back. On examining his basket I found a largish lot of religious tracts; I took two, paid him for them, put them into my pocket, and went home. I was so knocked up by my long walk that I was soon in bed and asleep, and the tracts were not thought of. The next evening, when sitting on a large stone on the beach, looking at the ships sailing and at anchor, at the varied movements of the sea-gulls, and the gentle ebbing of the tide, I felt a momentary elation of spirit, such as I had not felt for years; it was something like the sudden return of an old friend after years of absence. I will not, Sir, trouble you by recounting the thoughts that passed through my mind in this elysian reverie, but one thought came and went so often, that it became the master thought of this delightful mood of thinking. 'Yes,' thought I, 'man has a capacity for happiness, why, then, is he not happy? Why am I not happy? and why do I not enjoy life when I possess so amply the means of enjoying it? What can be the reason why I am so cast down and wretched?' On putting my hand into my pocket to get my knife, I felt the tracts I had put there when I bought them, and I took them out. Their titles, Covey[4] and Poor Joseph, had caught my eye when I saw them in the lad's basket, and I was induced to select them, imagining they narrated some interesting tale.
"I read the account of Covey, but his daring courage when going into battle, which forced him to risk disobedience to orders rather than skulk from the advancing foe, made a stronger impression on my imagination than his after conversion did on my heart. It carried me back also to the scenes which my old friend, Captain Dunlop, had often pictured to me, of his hairbreadth escapes from danger; and then his last words recurred to my memory with terrible force—'Mr. Tennent, I am a wreck, and lost.' I put the tracts again into my pocket, as I thought, and sat in terrible and depressing cogitations for a long time; but providentially I had put back only one of them; the other had fallen on the ground, and a slight breeze blew it just under the notice of my eye. I took it, and read the title—Poor Joseph; an Authentic Narrative.[5]
"On any other occasion I should have doubted the truthfulness of the narrative, and should have ridiculed it as a tale got up for dramatic effect. But I did not do so now. The sentiments of the tale came with such force, that a flood of tears bore testimony to its wondrous effect on my proud spirit, and I was now deeply humbled and abased before Him whose eye is pity and whose arm is power.
"Returning to my lodgings I bought a Bible, now no longer an object of scornful contempt, but of veneration and love, and sat down to read it with as much eagerness of soul as a disconsolate child in a distant country would open an unexpected letter from his father. I am not ashamed to confess to you that I shed many tears that night, as the Bible lay on the table before me; tears of contrition, when recalling to my remembrance some of my reproachful sayings against it; and tears of gratitude to Jesus Christ, the friend of sinners, for causing me once more to revere and love my Bible. For some time I was fearfully anxious lest the newly-enkindled emotions of my heart should die out, and that I should again be left to go back into my old practices of evil, and possibly re-occupy the seat of the scorner. I therefore resolved to let time test the genuineness of the great change before I said anything to any one about it. Time has done this; and you, Sir, are the only person to whom I have made the disclosure; and I have no doubt but you will rejoice to hear from me a simple statement of what the Lord has done for me, and how he has had compassion on me. We may meet again; and if we should, we shall meet as fellow-believers in the precious Bible, and in the Saviour it reveals to us. Last week I sent a family Bible to the woodman, and a small Bible to each of his children, simply telling him that it was a present from one who once attempted to sap his faith in the divine authority of the Bible, but who now venerates and loves it as God's best gift to man.—I remain, yours respectfully,
"George Tennent."