expected, it is very often inaccurately picturesque, and is framed
after the model of the journey to Damascus. A sinner, for example,
who swears at his pious wife, and threatens to beat her, is suddenly
smitten with giddiness and awful pains. He throws himself on his
knees before her, and thenceforward he is a "changed character". I
had to tell the church that my experience had not been eventful. I
was young, and had enjoyed the privilege of godly parents.

What was conversion? It meant not only that the novice
unhesitatingly avowed his belief in certain articles of faith, but
it meant something much more, and much more difficult to explain. I
was guilty of original sin, and also of sins actually committed.
For these two classes of sin I deserved eternal punishment. Christ
became my substitute, and His death was the payment for my
transgression. I had to feel that His life and death were
appropriated by me. This word "appropriated" is the most orthodox I
can find, but it is almost unintelligible. I might perhaps say that
I had to feel assured that I, personally, was in God's mind, and was
included in the atonement.

This creed had as evil consequences that it concentrated my thoughts
upon myself, and made me of great importance. God had been anxious
about me from all eternity, and had been scheming to save me.
Another bad result was that I was satisfied I understood what I did
not in the least understand. This is very near lying. I can see
myself now--I was no more than seventeen--stepping out of our pew,
standing in the aisle at the pew-door, and protesting to their
content before the minister of the church, father and mother
protesting also to my own complete content, that the witness of God
in me to my own salvation was as clear as noonday. Poor little