1 842.] THE NEW LIFE. 51 



past, I cannot sufficiently admire the love and long-suffering 

 of God towards me. I seem to have been made up of two 

 beings, the natural and the spiritual man. Contrary to 

 theology, the natural man has always been the happy one, 

 receiving a fulness of delight from study, shells, music, etc. — 

 a kind of dreamy joy; a kind of long-continued intoxication 

 which I had thought happiness ; while all the time my spiritual 

 man was dead, more than dead. . . . Through life I have 

 been misrepresented, and not the least by you ; I have been 

 thought good-natured, pure, truthful, diligent, pious, and I 

 don't know what. Nothing has been to me a more bitter 

 satire. The only reproof of my father's that I remember to 

 have made much impression on me, was a passage in a letter : 

 ' Continue in a virtuous course ; ' that stung me. 



" I look back now on this dreamy happiness with a shudder, 

 and yet with sometimes a longing after the flesh-pots, when I 

 think of college days, and organs, and companions, and shells. 

 But all have been corrupted ; there is no pursuit of my boy- 

 hood that I can look on with unmixed pleasure. And why ? 

 Because I did not love God, though I often fancied I did. 

 ... I am now striving to forget the past (yes, to confess that 

 for ten years I was dead), and set myself to the new life 

 that is in Christ Jesus.' I read the Epistles now with an 

 understanding heart. I have tried all ways : happiness without 

 God, morality without religion, half-service; but nothing will 

 do but to give the whole heart to God. This is what I now 

 long to do. I know it is hard ; but there are the promises : 

 ' My grace is sufficient for thee ; ? He who hath begun a good 

 work is able to complete it. I cannot tell you what I have 

 suffered; and yet, strange to say, what joy has been mingled 

 in my cup ! Time after time have I rebelled ; and yet God 

 has not given me up, and, instead of punishing, has heaped 

 His mercies upon me. Oh, how I have longed for sympathy, 

 and yet feared to open my mind, lest I should corrupt others, 

 and that were the bitterest pang. But 6 when thou art con- 

 verted, strengthen thy brethren' — and this has always been 

 my leading desire in undertaking the ministry. Yes, strange 



