of my father and mother, and of all dear to me, on first hearing the
tidings of my arrest.

At this moment, said I, they are sleeping in peace; or perhaps,
anxiety for me may keep them watching, yet little anticipating the
fate to which I am here consigned. Happy for them, were it the will
of God, that they should cease to exist ere they hear of this
horrible misfortune. Who will give them strength to bear it? Some
inward voice seemed to whisper me, He whom the afflicted look up to,
love and acknowledge in their hearts; who enabled a mother to follow
her son to the mount of Golgotha, and to stand under His cross. He,
the friend of the unhappy, the friend of man.

Strange this should be the first time I truly felt the power of
religion in my heart; and to filial love did I owe this consolation.
Though not ill-disposed, I had hitherto been little impressed with
its truth, and had not well adhered to it. All common-place
objections I estimated at their just value, yet there were many
doubts and sophisms which had shaken my faith. It was long, indeed,
since they had ceased to trouble my belief in the existence of the
Deity; and persuaded of this, it followed necessarily, as part of
His eternal justice, that there must be another life for man who
suffers so unjustly here. Hence, I argued, the sovereign reason in
man for aspiring to the possession of that second life; and hence,
too, a worship founded on the love of God, and of his neighbour, and
an unceasing impulse to dignify his nature by generous sacrifices.
I had already made myself familiar with this doctrine, and I now
repeated, "And what else is Christianity but this constant ambition
to elevate and dignify our nature?" and I was astonished, when I
reflected how pure, how philosophical, and how invulnerable the