rdered that I
should be shut up for the remainder of the winter.

During this season of retirement, I spent my time most happily in
reading and prayer, and found great delight in this occupation. I was
able to say, with the Psalmist, "I love the Lord, because He has heard
my voice and my supplication;" and, like him, I could say, "I will call
upon Him as long as I live; I will walk before Him in the land of the
living; and I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of
the Lord." That is, in secret or private life; in social intercourse
with my fellow-men; and in the worship of the sanctuary, I will seek the
glory of God. I used to have much pleasure every day in asking God to
give me a deeper sense of His love, that I might unfeignedly thank Him,
and show forth His praise with my life as well as my lips.

All this, be it observed, was because God had saved not my soul, but my
life; for as yet I had not, like the Psalmist, felt any trouble about my
soul. I knew nothing of what he describes as the "sorrows of death and
the pains of hell." I had not been awakened by the Spirit to know the
danger and sorrow of being separated from God (which is spiritual
death). I was perfectly unconscious that between God and myself there
was the "impassable gulf" I have already referred to, and consequently I
had not experienced such overwhelming anxiety as made the Psalmist cry
out, "O Lord, I beseech Thee, deliver my soul." I knew nothing of the
necessity of passing from death to life, and therefore I could not say,
"The Lord has delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my
feet from falling."

The only thing I knew was that God was good to me, and therefore I loved
Him, and was thankful, not for the sake of getting His favour, but
because I thought I had it. I turned over a new leaf, and 'therewith
covered up the blotted page of my past life. On this new path I
endeavoured to walk as earnestly in a religious way, as I had before
lived in a worldly one.

This mistake into which I fell was natural enough and common as it is
natural; but for all this it was very serious, and might have been fatal
to me, as it has proved to multitudes. I did not see then, as I have
since that turning over a new leaf to cover the past, is not by any
means the same thing as turning back the old leaves, and getting them
washed in the blood of the Lamb.

I have said before that I did not know any better; nor was I likely to
see