bout my intentions; I did not answer them;
presently strangers or friends wrote, begging to be allowed to answer
them; and, if I still kept to my resolution and said nothing, then I
was thought to be mysterious, and a prejudice was excited against me.
But, what was far worse, there were a number of tender, eager hearts,
of whom I knew nothing at all, who were watching me, wishing to think
as I thought, and to do as I did, if they could but find it out; who
in consequence were distressed, that, in so solemn a matter, they
could not see what was coming, and who heard reports about me this
way or that, on a first day and on a second; and felt the weariness
of waiting, and the sickness of delayed hope, and did not understand
that I was as perplexed as themselves, and, being of more sensitive
complexion of mind than myself, were made ill by the suspense.
And they too of course for the time thought me mysterious and
inexplicable. I ask their pardon as far as I was really unkind
to them. There was a gifted and deeply earnest lady, who in a
parabolical account of that time, has described both my conduct as
she felt it, and that of such as herself. In a singularly graphic,
amusing vision of pilgrims, who were making their way across a bleak
common in great discomfort, and who were ever warned against, yet
continually nearing, "the king's highway" on the right, she says,
"All my fears and disquiets were speedily renewed by seeing the most
daring of our leaders (the same who had first forced his way through
the palisade, and in whose courage and sagacity we all put implicit
trust) suddenly stop short, and declare that he would go on no
further. He did not, however, take the leap at once, but quietly sat
down on the top of the fence with his feet hanging towards the road,
as if he meant to take his time about it, and let himself down
easily." I do not wonder at all that I thus seemed so unkind to a
lady, who at that time had never seen me. We were both in trial in
our different ways. I am far from denying that I was acting selfishly
both towards them and towards others; but it was a religious
selfishness. Certainly to myself my own duty seemed clear. They that
are whole can heal others; but in my case it was, "Physician, heal
thyself." My own soul was my first concern, and it seemed an
absurdity to my reason to be converted in partnership. I wished to go
to my Lord by myself, and in my own way, or rather His way. I had
neither wish