sons have we for concluding that the universe has a
Contriver and Maker?"

I was no sooner fully satisfied of the existence of a God, than I
trembled at the thought of his attributes, and my relationship to him.
The sense of my unworthiness and sinfulness deeply affected me. When
I called to mind the many years I had passed in forgetfulness of
this great God; in indifference to, or in a culpable unbelief of
his existence; I felt that I must indeed be, in his sight, the most
ungrateful, and the most sinful of his creatures. My next feeling was
an anxious desire to amend my conduct, and I determined to lay down
such a plan for my future life, as I hoped might not be unworthy of
that Being whose eye I then felt was upon me. After having made many
efforts to recall the best maxims of wisdom and rules of virtue that
I had met with in the course of my reading, I at length came to a
resolution of examining what moral precepts the New Testament might
contain, and whether it might not afford me the rules I was seeking
for the regulation of my conduct.

This was the motive which brought me again to the New Testament, and
induced me to undertake a fourth time the perusal of it. I wish it
were in my power to recount to you, my dear children, all the effects
that the eternal word of God produced upon my heart; for from that
time I recognised it to be, what it is in fact, the revelation of
sovereign wisdom; the genuine expression of the Divine will; the
message of a tender and compassionate Father, addressed to his
ungrateful and rebellious children, soliciting them to return and find
happiness in him. I wish I could retrace all the impressions that this
divine message produced on my mind, the vivid emotions I experienced,
and the thoughts and feelings (never, I trust, to be forgotten)
excited by that reading.

I was like a man born blind, who should suddenly recover his sight in
a magnificent apartment, splendidly illuminated. My feelings at least
corresponded with those of a man under such circumstances, were they
possible. How glorious was the light of the Gospel to me! I sought for
morality, and I found _there_ the most simple, clear, complete, and
perfect system of morality that could be conceived; and _there_ I
found precepts suited to every circumstance that could present itself
in life, as a son, a brother, a father, a friend, a subject, a
servant, a labourer, a man, a reasonable creature: my duty in every
relation of lif