an be saved except that of the Lord Jesus Christ.'
No words were spoken to me; my soul seemed to see my Saviour in the
spirit, and from that hour to this, nearly nine years now, there has
never been in my life one doubt that the Lord Jesus Christ and God the
Father both worked upon me that afternoon in July, both differently,
and both in the most perfect love conceivable, and I rejoiced there and
then in a conversion so astounding that the whole village heard of it
in less than twenty-four hours.

"But a time of trouble was yet to come. The day after my conversion I
went into the hay-field to lend a hand with the harvest, and not having
made any promise to God to abstain or drink in moderation only, I took
too much and came home drunk. My poor sister was heart-broken; and I
felt ashamed of myself and got to my bedroom at once, where she
followed me weeping copiously. She said I had been converted and
fallen away instantly. But although I was quite full of drink (not
muddled, however), I knew that God's work begun in me was not going to
be wasted. About midday I made on my knees the first prayer before God
for twenty years. I did not ask to be forgiven; I felt that was no
good, for I would be sure to fall again. Well, what did I do? I
committed myself to him in the profoundest belief that my individuality
was going to be destroyed, that he would take all from me, and I was
willing. In such a {219} surrender lies the secret of a holy life.
From that hour drink has had no terrors for me: I never touch it,
never want it. The same thing occurred with my pipe: after being a
regular smoker from my twelfth year the desire for it went at once, and
has never returned. So with every known sin, the deliverance in each
case being permanent and complete. I have had no temptation since
conversion, God seemingly having shut out Satan from that course with
me. He gets a free hand in other ways, but never on sins of the flesh.
Since I gave up to God all ownership in my own life, he has guided me
in a thousand ways, and has opened my path in a way almost incredible
to those who do not enjoy the blessing of a truly surrendered life."

So much for our graduate of Oxford, in whom you notice the complete
abolition of an ancient appetite as one of the conversion's fruits.

The most curious record of sudden conversion with which I am acquainted
is that of M. Alphonse Ratisbonne, a free-thinking French Jew, to
Catholicism, at Ro