"Yes, Sir," I replied; "and it would have been a happy world, if sin had not entered and defiled it, and thus marred our happiness. The beasts of the field and the birds of the air appear to have escaped its withering influence. They are happy. It is only man, the noblest specimen of the Divine workmanship, who is groaning and pining away in mournful sadness, under its polluting and destroying power."
"To me, Sir, it appears surprising that the Deity should have permitted sin to enter this province of his vast dominions, and allow it to become the active agent of so much crime and misery, when he could so easily have prevented it, if he had chosen."
"I am not surprised by your remarks, for unquestionably the dispensation under which we are living is awfully mysterious; but still, notwithstanding the impenetrable darkness which envelopes certain parts of the Divine procedure, other parts are plain and intelligible, obviously conducive to our present and final happiness. Hence, if we act wisely, we shall turn our attention from what we cannot know, to what we may know-from concealed reasons and causes, to revealed facts. Instead, then, of perplexing ourselves about the origin of evil, we shall sit at the feet of Jesus, and he will tell us what God has done to repair the injury of the fall—'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life' (John iii. 16). This, Sir, is plain, and this is intelligible; and we are assured by the Son of God himself, that if we believe in him we shall not perish, but have everlasting life."
"Your remarks, Sir, interest me. They illumine the darkness in which my own thoughts have been long revolving in shapeless con fusion. I begin to perceive that my salvation is possible. You referred just now to another sense in which man is dead, in addition to the forfeiture of his life, by his violations of the law of God; will you explain what that other state of death is?"
Our conversation was here interrupted by a summons to tea. Mr. Ryder was now profoundly silent on the questions which had engrossed our attention, leaving an impression on my mind that his sister had no sympathy with his spiritual anxieties and depression. She was about twenty-five years of age, of very pleasing manners, and an apparently amiable disposition—neither obtrusive nor reserved; sprightly, and somewhat of a facetious turn. When looking at and listening to her, the words which our Lord addressed to the accomplished young ruler of Judea involuntarily occurred to me—"One thing thou lackest." Her brother now proposed another stroll in the garden, which was prevented by the arrival of some visitors, and the rest of the evening passed away without any recurrence to our former topic of conversation. On taking leave, Mr. Ryder made me promise that I would soon repeat my visit, which I accordingly did in the course of the ensuing week.
On this occasion I again met Mr. Ryder, as before, taking an evening stroll, and we walked to Aston together. On passing an old dilapidated mansion, we saw its proprietor standing in the porch, a nondescript both in appearance and character. "That, Sir," said Mr. Ryder, "is the most singular man I ever knew; he is very wealthy, and leads a very selfish and sensual life; he loves nothing but himself, his dogs, and his gun. He has sympathy for a dog when in pain, but none for a human being. His dogs are fed sumptuously, and taken the greatest care of, but he has never been known to give anything in charity to his own species. He shuns all intercourse with his fellow-men, and is, in fact, a perfect misanthrope—a being without a heart. Not long ago, his father, who lives in extreme poverty in the adjoining county, came to see him, but he peremptorily ordered him away without giving him bit or drop."
"This man," I replied, "loving nothing but himself, his dog, and his gun, not even his own father, is happily a very rare case, but it is one which is both illustrative and suggestive. He is a living emblem of the unregenerate man; who is a selfish being, loving nothing but what ministers to his own sensual gratifications. He has no heart to revere and love his heavenly Father, and is consequently unfit for heaven, and unfit to live amongst, and associate with the pure and happy spirits who dwell there. If he were taken to heaven in his present moral and spiritual condition, he would appear as strange a being amongst them, as this man does amongst you—shunning all, for want of congeniality of taste and disposition; and shunned by all as odious and repulsive; his expulsion would be an act of necessity, both in relation to himself and to others. Hence it is obvious from the nature of the case, as well as from the Word of God, that before an unregenerate man is meet for heaven, the sentence of condemnation which is recorded against him must, by an act of free grace, be repealed, and then all his sins are forgiven. In addition to this, he must be renewed in the spirit of his mind, and a spiritual life must be breathed into him by the power of the Divine Spirit."
"I have, Sir, I think, a clear apprehension of what you mean by an act of grace in repealing the sentence of condemnation recorded against us for the sins we commit; but you say, that in addition to this we need the infusion into our mind of a new life, which you call a spiritual life. But if we are pardoned by an act of free grace, will not this secure to us an admission into heaven, without that additional operation to which you refer, and of which I can form no clear conception?"
"The exercise of free grace in pardoning a sinner is merely exempting him from a liability to punishment in this world, and in the world to come; but if he remain unrenewed, he will be the same in his moral principles, in his predilections, and antipathies, after he is pardoned, as he was while under a sentence of condemnation. He will feel no filial reverence for God; the love of Christ will not glow in his soul; he will possess no aptitude to hold fellowship with the pure spirits of the celestial world; nor can he live and move amongst them with dignity and ease, as one of their order."
"I perceive, Sir, the drift of your meaning; but yet it is enveloped in mysticism. One moment I seem to have it; but it is gone ere I can lay hold of it; it flits before me, and vanishes. However, there is one question which I shall feel obliged by you replying to: By what process can I originate, or get originated, this new spiritual life into my soul; and how must I set about it?"