His words rang in my ears--I was stunned. What he had said I feared might
be true. Giant despair felled me to the earth. He had recalled, and
lighted up with a glare from the pit, remembrances with which I knew not
how to cope. It was true I had spoken with daring impiety of subjects
whose sacredness I now began to appreciate. With trembling hands I opened
the Bible. I read and re-read the mysterious doom recorded by the
Redeemer himself against blasphemers of the Holy Ghost--monsters set
apart from the human race, and damned and dead, even while they live and
walk upon the earth. I groaned--I wept. Henceforward the Bible, I
thought, must be to me a dreadful record of despair. I dared not read it.

I will not weary you with all my mental agonies. My dear little wife did
something toward relieving my mind, but it was reserved for the friend,
to whose heavenly society I owed so much, to tranquillise it once more.
He talked this time to me longer, and even more earnestly than before. I
soon encountered him again. He expounded to me the ways of Providence,
and showed me how needful sorrow was for every servant of God. How mercy
was disguised in tribulation, and our best happiness came to us, like our
children, in tears and wailing. He showed me that trials were sent to
call us up, with a voice of preternatural power, from the mortal apathy
of sin and the world. And then, again, in our new and better state, to
prove our patience and our faith--

"The more trouble befalls you, the nearer is God to you. He visits you in
sorrow--and sorrow, as well as joy, is a sign of his presence. If, then,
other griefs overtake you, remember this--be patient, be faithful; and
bless the name of God."

I returned home comforted and happy, although I felt assured that some