of a mountain, for there were none in his neighbourhood, nor to
plant a tree in the sea, for Bedfordshire is an inland county; but
it was of the humblest kind--that some puddles on the road between
Elstow and Bedford should change places with the dry ground. When
he had thought of praying for ability, his natural good sense led
him to abandon the experiment.[75] This he calls 'being in my plunge
about faith, tossed betwixt the devil and my own ignorance.'[76] All
this shows the intensity of his feelings and his earnest inquiries.

It may occasion surprise to some, that a young man of such
extraordinary powers of mind, should have indulged the thought of
working a miracle to settle or confirm his doubts; but we must take
into account, that when a boy he had no opportunity of acquiring
scriptural knowledge; no Sunday schools, no Bible class excited
his inquiries as to the meaning of the sacred language. The Bible
had been to him a sealed book until, in a state of mental agony,
he cried, What must I do to be saved? The plain text was all his
guide; and it would not have been surprising, had he been called
to bottle a cask of new wine, if he had refused to use old wine
bottles; or had he cast a loaf into the neighbouring river Ouse,
expecting to find it after many days. The astonishing fact is, that
one so unlettered should, by intense thought, by earnest prayer,
and by comparing one passage with another, arrive eventually at so
clear a view both of the external and internal meaning of the whole
Bible. The results of his researches were more deeply impressed
upon his mind by the mistakes which he had made; and his intense
study, both of the Old and New Testaments, furnished him with an
inexhaustible store of things new and old--those vivid images and
burning thoughts, those bright and striking illustrations of Divine
truth, which so shine and sparkle in all his works. What can be