Some days after this, the examination of a watch, its springs, its
various wheels, and its motions, brought me afresh to the same
conclusion, and for ever confirmed me in the belief of a God, the
Creator of all things. "If this watch," I argued, "could not make
itself, and necessarily leads us to suppose an artist who made each
part, and so arranged the whole as to produce these movements--how
much stronger reasons 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