On turning and looking carelessly round the room, he saw his copy of Tremaine lying on the side-board. He took it up and opened it; the chapter on Providence caught his eye, and he read it. "This," he confessed to me, he found to be but "starlight-reading; clear, but cold; brilliant, but wanting in power; expanding the intellect, and charming the imagination, but not finding its way to the heart. I read, and believed; read, and yet doubted. I was," he said, "completely bewildered; but I recollect saying, O that I had the faith of the cottager, or my servant, my mind would be in perfect peace."
His housekeeper, who, as yet, was ignorant of the novel process of thinking which was going on in his mind, informed me that she was astonished and delighted one evening by his asking her for the loan of her Bible. She fetched it, and on giving it to him, said, "That book, Sir, will do you good, if you pray over it when you are reading it." He read the sixth chapter of Matthew; read it several times; and when referring to it in our conversation, he said, "What a difference, Sir, between the two readings! Tremaine reasons closely and clearly; he almost demonstrates and compels belief; but there is no pathos, no power; the heart still remains sceptical and unmoved. Jesus Christ asserts, commands, and promises; the heart is captivated, and induced to place its trust in God. Yes! 'it must be,' as the pious cottager remarked, 'an inestimable privilege to be able to believe the consolatory and soul-sustaining truths which I have now been reading.' I believe now. But how is this? Logic has not been reasoning. My intellect is dormant; and yet it is spell-bound by novel and solemn thoughts. It is making new spiritual discoveries, which, I believe, are grand realities, but which I have long despised and rejected as legendary tales; and I feel tranquil. And yet, as the process of reflection goes on, I feel again bewildered. My calm is becoming a tumult; and out of satisfaction springs up anxiety. Is this a delusion, or am I waking up out of a mental torpor amidst sublime spiritual realities? I am conscious of a change which has come upon me, and very unexpectedly."
"You do not doubt its reality?"
"No, Sir; it is no sham. I am as conscious of its reality as I am of my own existence. I am no sceptic now. I have no hostile feeling now against the remedial scheme of salvation. I adore Christ now. I can give him my heart. I am astonished by my own utterances; but they are the genuine expressions of my feelings."
"I presume, Sir, you ascribe the great change which has taken place in your belief, and in your moral taste, to a supernatural cause; to what the apostle calls the grace of God?"
"I do, Sir. There are three things which satisfy me that this marvellous change is the work of God. In the first place, I had no conception that such a change was either necessary or possible; in the next place, I had no more power or inclination to effect it myself than I have to raise a dead man to life; and then it has been produced so suddenly, preceded by no intimations or anticipations of such an occurrence, and by such apparently inadequate means. The simple prayers of the rustic cottager subdued me. They touched my heart. I could, as you know, withstand the assaults of the most acute and powerful reasoning; your persuasive eloquence touched no cord of my heart. I could repel, with a sarcasm, the most awful warnings; and stand immoveable when death was advancing to execute the penal sentence; but I could not stand out against the simple prayers of the pious cottager. Indeed, I felt more inclined to yield than to resist. It is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in my eyes. He made me willing in the day of his power. On this principle it can be accounted for, but on no other. Reason, as well as gratitude, compels me to say—By the grace of God, I am what I am. But O, my friend, where can I find language to give full expression to the astonishment and gratitude which I feel when reflecting on the long-suffering and the forbearance of God, whose majesty I have so often insulted, and whose authority I have set at nought, defying his threatenings, and spurning his overtures of mercy! How marvellous the condescending compassion and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has at last brought me to penitence and contrition, and given me a hope of salvation!"
"I suppose you now recal to your recollection, at times, some of the subjects of our former discussions; both your objections to the various parts of revealed truth, and how I endeavoured to refute them?"
"In the first place, I may mention, that from the outset, on the Saturday evening we first met,[39] and through every succeeding encounter, I had a latent apprehension that you were right; and that your belief, with its consolations and prospects, was far more conducive to human happiness, than my disbelief, with its suspicions and uncertainties; I clearly saw, that on your hypothesis, the loss of life, which is the greatest of human possessions, would be an incalculable gain; but on mine, it would be an irreparable loss. When reasoning in my calmer moments on these data, I arrived at this conclusion—for man's sake the Christian faith ought to be a genuine faith, even if it is not so; and I recollect when you were assigning the causes which invest the name of Jesus Christ with such great power over the human mind on its passing through scenes of extreme privation and peril, and especially when passing from one world to another, I felt that I would gladly exchange my disbelief and its uncertainties, for your faith and its assurances. I now, Sir, by the grace of God, can add my testimony to the truthfulness of what you asserted in that encounter. The Christian faith is both a renovating and consolatory power, and it does the work ascribed to it; it gives peace to a wounded spirit, and a hope full of immortality to the guilty and morally worthless."
"You would not now willingly be what you once were?"
"Be what I once was! no, Sir. As readily suppose that a glorified spirit, if left to his own choice, would choose to come back to earth, to re-tread its polluting soil, to raise again the standard of rebellion against the Majesty of heaven, and again intermingle with the workers of iniquity. Be what I once was! no, Sir. Like the man in the gospel who found the pearl of great price, I have no wish to lose what I have miraculously found; I have found the Messiah, Jesus Christ the Saviour, mighty to save; and to his service I now consecrate myself for life and for ever."