At the inquiry meeting held about this time, some forty or fifty persons remained to be conversed with. We had the presence in the pulpit of a solemn, earnest, able, faithful man from the Valley of Virginia. It was now the first of December. The same awful, breathless silence still reigned in the congregation. Still the word of God was quick and powerful. New cases of awakening occurred steadily, which afterwards proved to be genuine. But the kingdom of heaven was becoming "like unto a net which was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind." The cases of awakening now lost that clear type which they bore while they were confined to the trained children of the church. Several influential men of the neighborhood professed to have found peace in Christ at home. A noted infidel came occasionally to church, and went weeping home. A buzz on the subject of immersion, as the only mode of baptism, sprang up all around simultaneously.

A gay, cultivated lady, who had been reared in the Roman Catholic faith, remained in church at the inquiry meeting. Being spoken to individually, she admitted a deep concern on the subject of practical religion, but requested an interview at the parlor of one of the elders with whom she was sojourning, on the next day. At the appointed time and place, I found her among other persons, who soon retired. The conversation was about this: "I am glad that you have become interested in the great subject of personal religion. Will you be kind enough to tell me how the subject presents itself to your mind? I suppose, of course, that you know and feel yourself a great sinner in the sight of God?"

"Indeed, sir, I do not feel myself to be a great sinner; I may have committed little peccadilloes, have fallen into little faults and foibles; but a great sinner! certainly not!"

"From what, then, do you wish to be saved? Religion is salvation — salvation from sin?"

"Oh! I do not seek religion as salvation from sin! Whenever I have been conscious of sin (as I have been sometimes, in small matters), I have been conscious of a sorrow for my sin and a repentance for it immediately afterwards. But I see the religious people, especially the young converts, at present so frequent, around me, enjoying a happiness with which I am not acquainted. It is to obtain that happiness that I am seeking religion."

"But do you not admit the fallen condition of your own spiritual nature? Do you not admit original sin, and the loss of God's image in original righteousness and holiness, without the restoration of which, by the Spirit of God, we cannot see the kingdom of God?"

"I do not take those dark and puritanical views of human nature. I do not think it so lost and fallen as those views represent it to be. There is much that is good and kind and amiable in human nature."

"There was no doubt much that was good and kind about Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, who came to Jesus by night; but our Savior distinctly announced to Nicodemus that except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."

"Ah! that new birth is at our baptism. It is there that we are thus born again. I have been baptized in infancy."

"But you admit that you have not the comfort of the new converts around you. We must be born of water and of the Spirit also. Your inward nature is fallen and guilty, and must be renewed in the image of Christ and by the Spirit of God."

"I would not on any account adopt those gloomy views of human nature."

I do not know that this case was managed correctly. It was managed according to the measure of grace given me. It was unsuccessful — sadly so. I never heard that her religious impressions proceeded any farther, or that the attitude of her mind changed at all on the subject. Thus, in human probability, she will go, if she is not already gone, into eternity. It was the case of a mind fully and sincerely swayed by religious opinions not derived from the word of God, and, indeed, directly at variance with that word. There must always be many such cases, where the religious training of children is not faithfully attended to. May the Lord God pour out, in rich and prevailing effusion, upon the hearts of Christian parents, the spirit of faithfulness to their covenanted offspring, that their minds may be suitably formed for the exercise within them of the converting power of the Spirit of Christ.

Through these solemn weeks it was my habit to say a word, if possible, on the subject of a personal interest in Christ, cautiously and humbly, but faithfully, to every one who was thrown into my way. During the mild open weather in the early spring there was to be a funeral at a private house in the congregation. One of the most precious of the children of God had passed away, confessed to be among the few righteous chosen ones by all who knew her, her task on earth accomplished, ripe for heaven, and at a full age thus to be gathered. The morning was fair, but there was that peculiar hue and shade and tint about the sky, often observed on such occasions, which makes one feel as if it was, in its whole blue circle, the face of God, wearing a mild, benignant, tender smile of sympathy and love. Of all the many expressions of the face of the sky, this is one of the deepest and most unearthly in meaning to a serious soul.

The coffin was delayed, and the friends and neighbors began to drop in a good deal in advance of the hour of public worship. Among the early arrivals was a near neighbor, a man whose residence I knew only from the distant view obtained of it from the public road, whom I had never seen at church, but with whom my acquaintance was very kindly for so slight an acquaintance. We sat solemnly waiting together in the porch, thinking and occasionally speaking of the deceased. With the most studied respectfulness in my manner of approaching the subject, and with the most cautiously kind tones of voice, I asked this man if he was himself ready to meet God when his own time came? He replied:

"I endeavor to discharge my duties to my fellow men. That is all I do."

"But have you not a soul? and is there not also a God above, to whom we owe duties, as well as to our fellow men around us?"

"There may be a God or there may not be, and I may have a soul or I may not have; these are things too deep for me."

"You do not feel sure, then, whether there is a God or not, or whether you have a soul or not?"

"No, I do not feel certain. How do we know that it is anything more when a man dies than when a horse dies?"

"We see many things die in the winter and come to life again in the spring. Every blade of grass that springs up from a seed which has been buried in the winter, every butterfly that springs from a worm, every new robing of the trees and fields in green, is an eloquent argument for the immortality of the soul."

"That may all be so; but those are too deep waters for me to fish in. I cannot understand the immortality of the soul and the existence of God; and until I can comprehend them in some way or other, there is nothing which stirs me to prepare for another world."

"Do you comprehend how the corn grows in your fields, or the grass in your pastures, or the young fruit in your orchards? You admit that you do not?"

He did admit that.

"Why, then, do you not take the same ground concerning your corn and your cattle and your fruit, which you take concerning your soul; that as you do not comprehend how these things grow and ripen, you find nothing stirring you to provide for your family."

"I do endeavor to provide for my family, to pay my just debts and perform my duties to my fellow men; that is all that I can understand."

I saw immediately that I had unskillfully employed one of his hobbies as an illustration, and he speedily leaped from the argument to the back of the hobby. I said:

"But you cannot understand how the cultivation of corn will provide for your family. You admit that you do not comprehend the growth of the stalk and the blade and the ear; yet you do cultivate it, and it does become a provision for your family. Why not cultivate the garden of your soul on the same principles upon which you work your corn?"

"I can see the effects of the working of my corn."

"So also you can see the effects of the soul. Motion, voice, smile, speech, are all the effects of the soul. And you may just as well believe in the existence of an immaterial and immortal soul, because you can see its effects, as to believe in the existence of the inward life and sap of the corn, because you can see its growth."

"I do not comprehend all that, and there is nothing to stir me up to think of such things or to take any concern about my soul."

"Yet you do not reason in the same way about your crops as about your soul. The soul, like the soil, must be deeply plowed to produce a crop."

But now the hearse entered the yard, that solemn black-waving thing whose curtains cast a gloom over the whole sky, and we entered the house for the funeral services. Outward scenery sometimes connects itself with the thoughts and experiences of our souls in ways which seem fortuitous at the time, but which afterwards have a strange and mysterious depth and likeness to destiny, and the touch of the hand of the unseen intelligences above us. With a sinking heart I record that case as one terminated by the entrance of a hearse and coffin. He came to church once or twice after this, and then subsided again to dark settled atheism, in the oldest of the States of the Union and in a neighborhood thick with churches! There had been, as I learned, deep and dreadful defects in his education. His faith still indubitably suffices to cultivate corn, but not to admit the unseen things of religion.

There was a case of religious interest not far off, just about the antipodes of this. There had appeared regularly in the inquiry meetings a young woman, of some of the most excellent of intellectual gifts, whose parents had been of the most cultivated and faithfully pious and godly people in the whole community, and whose life was of that tranquil, sequestered purity, met with more eminently, to say the least, nowhere that I know of than in that excellent type of country-house society in the Southern States in the olden time, which one fears is now passing away, or is failing of a just and due appreciation, even from those who owe it a large and generous revenue of love and gratitude.

In frequent interviews she admitted to me that she felt a deep concern for her salvation; that a faithful and godly brother would not leave her to security in sin; that his letters kept her mind directed to the subject; that she read the Scriptures with an earnest spirit of inquiry; that she prayed frequently for direction; that she gave very close attention to preaching; that she earnestly desired to feel deep contrition for sin, but could not do so. With the exception of a vein of sarcasm which occasionally showed itself, her life was admitted by all to have been so pure as to put that of many professors of religion to the blush. I tried all the Scriptures about the carnal mind and the natural man. She admitted them all to be true; admitted them fully and cheerfully; said she had always admitted them and endeavored to profit by their teachings. She knew she was a great sinner by nature, and earnestly desired to feel deeply that horror of great darkness from the clear conviction of sin, which she believed to be a necessary part of saving repentance, but could not feel it, and all her prayers for grace and light would not induce the Almighty to send her that gift. There was not a single spark of implication that God was dealing unjustly, unequally or severely with her. On the contrary, she appeared to think that there was some hidden cause which rendered it entirely just and righteous, and consistent with the Scriptures and the plan of salvation revealed in them, that she should not be saved; some destiny of woe, independently of God's promises as revealed in the Scriptures, on account of which he would not hear her particular prayers for a contrite heart. She did not think, either, that she had committed the fearful sin unto death, the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost; but only that on some other ground, and for some less glaring reason, God would not hear her prayers and had no mercy for her. It was a lingering and distressing case. I studied it as closely as I could for weeks and months. It finally became my conclusion that nothing could be done, but just to tell her to look entirely away from herself to Christ; not any longer to spend her time on those Scriptures which analyze and cut up guilty human nature, but on those which present the Lord Jesus Christ; and to hang upon the visions of him wherever they occurred, with constant prayer for grace to perform the act of faith. This was the touch of the right string. It had been an attempt at a Christless godliness before, bearing about the same relation to true godliness, in its power to cheer the heart and life, which the starry skies in July do in their power to warm the earth, to the sun in his solstitial beams. In many cases, it appears to me that sinners must be commanded to look at once to Jesus Christ and live, entirely irrespective of their own consciousness of the state of their own hearts. And moreover, a heart experiencing the darkness and gloom of daily sorrow that it is not contrite is in fact often indeed the most contrite of hearts. In an interview soon afterwards she simply said, "I am resolved to trust." And she has, I think, heartily trusted and believed, and loved and served Christ ever since.

One day I was informed that the wife of one of the elders of the church was extremely ill — that she was so ill that her recovery was regarded very doubtful, and that they were all anxious to see the pastor of the church. It is an act of cheap and easy kindness to your pastor to let him know when there are circumstances in your family which require a visit from him. It is an act which not every one, however, will perform. There are persons who will keep perfectly still under such circumstances, without ever taking the least pains to see that the pastor knows the state of things, and say, Let be, let us see if he will come to see us as promptly as if we were his favorites! Such persons will most generally be a little dissatisfied with their pastor. Looking back over many laborious and delightful years with harness on, my testimony is, that the worst method in the world to make your house a favorite resort of the pastor is to be always reminding him that he does not take pleasure in coming to see you; always holding him to account for not doing so; always exacting duty of him in duty's name, and for duty's sake. It is a wonder that he visits you at all, if such is your habit. He needs to be cheered. He will naturally prefer cheerful, hopeful spirits, and associate with them, as far as he can control his own associates. And then, in fact, your pastor will find a constant difficulty in performing his duty towards you, when it is exacted as a duty for another reason: he will think your exaction selfish and not unselfish; jealous and not liberal; embarrassing to him, as it is your duty not to be, instead of helpful, as it is your duty to be.

The elder in this case, like a true friend as he was, had quickly contrived me word of the desirableness of a visit, and accordingly the visit was paid forthwith. I found the patient under typhoid fever, and becoming prostrate rapidly. She had joined the church on examination about two years before this time. I felt satisfied, as I saw her from time to time, that she was living the life of the Christian, and patiently making her way to final glory. But her husband, a settled, quiet, decided Christian, informed me, immediately on my arrival there at sundown, that she was in a fearful religious gloom. I approached the bedside with this communication in mind. It is not mentioned here to extol the skill of the instrument, but to show the methods of the Spirit in such cases. She was requested to state, as exactly as might be, the causes of her gloom. She said she had been looking back, from what might be her dying bed, over her past life, and was dismayed, and all but overwhelmed, to find how dark it appeared. She had been a mistress and head of a family, she said, and had endeavored to perform her whole duty in that most important and responsible relationship. She did not know but, in a few days or even hours, she might have to look upon her past life as mistress and head of a family, drawn out in vivid pictures, before the eyes of her soul in eternity, and before God. And now it appeared so dark! In the same manner she said she had been trying also to look at her life as a mother and wife, and as a Sabbath-school teacher, and as a church member, and as an individual soul in the sight of God. All was dark! Could I give her any comfort? Did any comfort properly belong to her? Did her case admit of any comfort?

Humbly lifting my heart to heaven for guidance, I gave her answer about as follows: It is very natural, at such a time as this, that you should be examining your past life. You have also skillfully distributed it under the various heads or departments of life under which it may be most conveniently contemplated. It is also entirely natural that you should desire to find your obedience complete and perfect as you look back upon it; for nothing less than complete and perfect obedience will satisfy divine justice at the judgment bar of God. But the complete and perfect obedience in which we are to appear in the eternal world is not our own. It is the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. When you were first brought to Christ you had — did you not? — a view of sin as appallingly dark and aggravated.

Then came the gospel of Christ to you, saying, from the Redeemer, "Look unto me and be ye saved." You found that the plan was, that you should look away from dark and aggravated sin, look away from weak and helpless self, look away from vain and ineffectual earthly help, look away from every earthly refuge, to the atoning Son of God. And it was not while looking at your sins, but while looking at the Lord Jesus Christ, that comfort came. That was the plan of salvation while you were seeking to be justified; that is the plan while you are seeking to be so sanctified as to be prepared for eternity. It is well that you have been talking with your past hours, and asking them what report they bore to heaven. It is well that you have been endeavoring to look closely and honestly upon the scenes of past life. But every man's life, even the life of the most eminent saints that ever lived, must appear spotted and imperfect under such circumstances, because it is spotted and imperfect in fact. And these spotted and imperfect righteousnesses can never appear before the holy eyes of God in heaven. When, therefore, your imperfections as mistress and head of a family rise to your view, your privilege and duty as a Christian is to look away from your own spotted and imperfect righteousness, to the spotless and perfect righteousness of Christ, and to appeal to the bleeding Redeemer upon the cross, and say, "It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth?" So also, when your imperfections as wife and mother arise to view, appeal to the righteousness of Christ. So, when your shortcomings as a Sabbath-school teacher arise, appeal also boldly to the Lamb of God, to the righteousness of another, to Jehovah our righteousness, to him who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. So also, when Satan accuses you, or memory accuses, or truth and fact accuse you, of imperfections as a church member, or as an individual and responsible soul in the sight of God, or in any other respect which a faithful conscience can bring up, the peculiar act of Christian faith is to appeal from these condemning voices to the righteousness of the Great High Priest of God's appointment, wrought out in the wilderness, in Gethsemane, and on the bloody cross, presented on our behalf by the divine High Priest himself in the holy place in heaven, humbly received by faith, and rested upon in love and confidence. This appeal to Christ from the accusings of sin and Satan was illustrated by reference to an event in Sir Walter Scott's account of the night before the battle of Flodden at the market cross in Edinburgh. A voice is heard, as is related, summoning the nobility of Scotland to their doom on the approaching bloody field, and fearfully calling their names aloud. But two of those whose names were called were there present and heard, and arose and defied the dark voice of doom, and appealed against it to the living God. So our souls appeal from sin and Satan and memory, to the great historical and glaring and blazing fact that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and that they are not to appear in heaven in their own righteousness, but in his.

Then we all knelt to pray. When we arose from our knees, the calm tears of peace and satisfaction were streaming down the cheeks of our sick friend. "I have been so comforted in prayer" were her only words. That was the turning-point of her disease. There was rapid recovery. Her mental gloom had been a great part of her disease.