n and was equally
afraid to dismiss.

This was his dilemma. He had been taught by a father whom he trusted
implicitly that life was only a short and precarious opportunity
for working out his salvation with fear and trembling; peradventure
he might be counted among the remnant whom God would elect to
save from eternal misery. And in a measure the constant east
winds and cloudy heavens, the cold and stormy seas, and the gloom
and poverty of all his surroundings were so many confirmations of
this unhappy conviction. Yet it was very hard for him to believe
that the God of the Bible, "like a father pitying his children,"
was the God of his Shorter and Longer Catechisms. As his twentieth
year approached these doubts and questions would not be put away,
and yet he dared not speak of them either to the minister or to his
father.

Then, one night, as he was watching his lines and hooks, something
happened which broke the adamantine seal upon his soul. He was quite
alone in his boat, and she was drifting slowly under the full moon;
there was not a sound upon the ocean but the wash of the water
against her sides. He was sitting motionless, thinking of the sadness
and weariness of life, and wishing that God would love him, though
ever so little, and, above all, that he would give him some word or
sign of his care for him. His hands were clasped upon his knees,
his eyes fixed on the far horizon; between him and the God whom he so
ignorantly feared and desired there was apparently infinite space and
infinite silence.

All at once some one seemed to come into the boat beside him. An
ineffable peace and tenderness, a sweetness not to be described,
encompassed the lonely youth. He was sensible of a glory he could
not see; he was comforted by words that were inaudible to his natural
ears. During this transitory experience he scarcely breathed, but as
it slowly passed away he rose reverently to his feet. "An angel has
been with me," he thought.

After this event the whole fabric of his creed vanished at times
before the inexplicable revelation. Yet the terrible power of early
impressions is not easily eradicated, even by the supernatural; and
whenever he reasoned about the circumstance he came to the conclusion
that it might have been a snare and a delusion of the Evil One. For
why should an angel be sent with a word to him? or why should he dare
to hope that his longing after God's love had touched the heart of
the Eternal? Yet,