seemed entirely voluntary, and were quickly checked. Occasionally
they were taken by surprise, as when the course of talk insensibly
turned toward internal ways; and again they were deliberately angled
for with a hook so well concealed that it secured a prize before he
was aware. From these notes we shall here make a few quotations
bearing on the point made above--i.e., that his difficulties prior to
his entrance into the church were neither moral nor spiritual, but
intellectual. Of him, if of any man, it was always true that his
heart was naturally Christian. The first of these extracts, bearing
as it does on a topic constantly in his thoughts, affords a good
enough example of what was meant in saying that his confidences were
sometimes taken by surprise:

"There are some for whom the predominant influence is the external
one, authority, example, precept, and the like. Others in whose lives
the interior action of the Holy Spirit predominates. In my case, from
my childhood God influenced me by an interior light and by the
interior touch of His Holy Spirit."

At another time he said:

"While I was a youth, and in early manhood, I was preserved from
certain sins and certain occasions of sin, in a way that was peculiar
and remarkable. I was also at the same time, and, indeed, all the
time, conscious that God was preserving me innocent with a view to
some future providence. Mind, all this was long before I came into
the church."

And again: