into my mind
like a powerful but small still voice. You have been seeking, praying,
reforming, laboring, reading, hearing, and meditating, and what have
you done by it towards your salvation? Are you any nearer to
conversion now than when you first began? Are you any more prepared
for heaven, or fitter to appear before the impartial bar of God, than
when you first began to seek?

"It brought such conviction on me that I was obliged to say that I did
not think I was one step nearer than at first, but as much condemned,
as much exposed, and as miserable as before. I cried out within myself,
O Lord God, I am lost, and if thou, O Lord, dost not find out some new
way, I know nothing of, I shall never be saved, for the ways and
methods I have prescribed to myself have all failed me, and I am
willing they should fail. O Lord, have mercy! O Lord, have mercy!

"These discoveries continued until I went into the house and sat down.
After I sat down, being all in confusion, like a drowning man that was
just giving up to sink, and almost in an agony, I turned very suddenly
round in my chair, and seeing part of an old Bible lying in one of the
chairs, I caught hold of it in great haste; and opening it without any
premeditation, cast my eyes on the 38th Psalm, which was the first time
I ever saw the word of God: it took hold of me with such power that it
seemed to go through my whole soul, so that it seemed as if God was
praying in, with, and for me. About this time my father called the
family to attend prayers; I attended, but paid no regard to what he
said in his prayer, but continued praying in those words of the Psalm.
Oh, help me, help me! cried I, thou Redeemer of souls, and save me, or
I am gone forever; thou canst this night, if thou pleasest, with one
drop of thy blood atone for my sins, and appease the wrath of an angry
God. At that instant of time when I gave all up to him to do with me
as he pleased, and was willing that God should rule over me at his
pleasure, redeeming love broke into my soul with repeated scriptures,
with such power that my whole soul seemed to be melted down with love,
the burden of guilt and condemnation was gone, darkness was expelled,
my heart humbled and filled with gratitude, and my whole soul, that was
a few minutes ago groaning under mountains of death, and crying to an
unknown God for help, was now filled with immortal love, soaring on the
wings of faith,{215} freed from the chains of de