bout the state
of his soul. If he be a man of excitable nerves and strong imagination,
he thinks himself given over to the Evil Power. He doubts whether he has
not committed the unpardonable sin. He imputes every wild fancy that
springs up in his mind to the whisper of a fiend. His sleep is broken by
dreams of the great judgment-seat, the open books, and the unquenchable
fire. If, in order to escape from these vexing thoughts, he flies to
amusement or to licentious indulgence, the delusive relief only makes
his misery darker and more hopeless. At length a turn takes place. He is
reconciled to his offended Maker. To borrow the fine imagery of one who
had himself been thus tried, he emerges from the Valley of the Shadow of
Death, from the dark land of gins and snares, of quagmires and
precipices, of evil spirits and ravenous beasts. The sunshine is on his
path. He ascends the Delectable Mountains, and catches from their summit
a distant view of the shining city which is the end of his pilgrimage.
Then arises in his mind a natural and surely not a censurable desire, to
impart to others the thoughts of which his own heart is full, to warn
the careless, to comfort those who are troubled in spirit. The impulse
which urges him to devote his whole life to the teaching of religion is
a strong passion in the guise of a duty. He exhorts his neighbors; and,
if he be a man of strong parts, he often does so with great effect. He
pleads as if he were pleading for his life, with tears, and pathetic
gestures, and burning words; and he soon finds with delight, not perhaps
wholly unmixed with the alloy of human infirmity, that his rude
eloquence rouses and melts hearers who sleep very composedly while the
rector preaches on the apostolical succession. Zeal for God, love for
his fellow creatures, pleasure in the exercise of his newly discovered
powers, impel him to become a preacher. He has no quarrel with the
establishment, no objection to its formularies, its government, or its
vestments. He would gladly be admitted among its humblest ministers.
But, admitted or rejected, he feels that his vocation is determined. His
orders have come down to him, not through a long and doubtful series of
Arian and popish bishops, but direct from on high. His commission is the
same that on the Mountain of Ascension was given to the Eleven. Nor will
he, for lack of human credentials, spare to deliver the glorious message
with which he is charged by the true