“MY DEAR SIR—In compliance with your request, I write to say that I have followed your advice as to the reading of the Scriptures, and have been astonished at the effect upon my mind. Many things are dark to me, and some involve considerable difficulties; but the more I read the more I am attracted and delighted. Indeed, I have found myself, at times, in a new world. My mind has opened, in a most unexpected way, to spiritual realities. It is as if some mysterious change had taken place in my modes of thinking. Instead of being shut up, as I have hitherto been, to the narrow domain of the senses, or the region of abstract ideals. I wander at will in a new spiritual world, as real and palpable as it is sublime and glorious. Where have I been all my life? How blind to all spiritual realities I how blind especially to the immediate power and presence of God! I am amazed beyond measure that I ever doubted the existence of God, or the immortality of the soul. I believe them—I feel them now. The difficulty is to believe in the existence of dead matter, and, above all, of sin, under the dominion of God. And yet I can deny neither. Indeed, I have painful evidence in my own soul, of the power and predominance of sin. I am a sinner, in myself undone; and yet I see God, I hear His voice, I feel His power, I recognize His love. He is to me more real now than all other realities. The finite is explained by the Infinite, the effect by the Cause. All things are full of God. Earth is His footstool; heaven is His throne. Man is His offspring. In Him we live, and move, and have our being.
“Thus, you perceive how rapidly I have got beyond your proofs, interesting as they were. It is as if, by stepping-stones or stairs, my spirit has been assisted to climb some lofty elevation, where, to quote your own language, the whole universe could be seen lying in God, as stars lie in the depths of space.
“The Bible, as you have remarked, is indeed penetrated and filled with God. Every leaf is stamped with His glory and might; every word and sentence breathe His grace. It is, take it as a whole, God imbreathed. But the Bible alone, it seems to me, could not have produced this wondrous effect upon my mind. I had read it before, but saw little more than the words; at most, but the bare facts and doctrines, dead and withered, like Ezekiel’s dry bones in the valley of vision, or like this cold, hard world of ours in wintry weather. Now the whole is alive, not simply with human, but with divine life and beauty. The winter has passed; spring and summer have come, with their light, fragrance, and power.
“As I have stated, some things are dark, others are perplexing; but I leave them, as I would leave dark shadows or barren spots in a wide landscape. There are anomalies and mysteries in my own frame; strange aspects and even enigmas in nature; and I must expect such things in the Bible. Besides, I have much to learn from observation, reflection, and books, and, above all, from the Bible itself. But I see a clear track of light; I follow from afar the windings of the river of life. Now and then I come to a tangled forest, or rocky pass, and sometimes I topple headlong into some hidden pit; but yonder I once more see the guiding light—yonder the living stream.
“The great thing I have found, is God, and with God, the soul, spiritual and immortal through Him. The Bible reveals God, and vindicates His ways. It makes man, sinful as he is, the child of God. It recalls him from his wanderings. It invites him to become a partaker of the Divine nature, an heir of endless joy.
“Conversing upon the subject with a Christian friend the other evening, he suddenly turned upon me, and said, ‘Why, you are converted!’ I was startled, almost alarmed. ‘You are mistaken,’ I replied, I am only enlightened a little. I see only in part; but alas! I fear, not converted; for the very thought (I cannot tell why) sent a strange pang through my heart. It recalled me to myself. And though I had tried to pray, and found it delightful, that evening I could not pray. God was all about me as before; nay, nearer than ever; but mind and heart seemed suddenly oppressed, as by some dread impending calamity. The light was yet above me and before me, clear and beautiful as ever. But I was burdened with a sense of personal insignificance and unworthiness. Nay, the thought occurred to me, What if all this be delusion, so far as my own personal well-being is concerned. God is, but what am I to Him? A child—but perhaps a rebellious child, not yet renewed, not yet forgiven.
“This feeling, in more or less degree, has lasted ever since. Occasionally the burden is lifted up, and an unspeakable repose comes to my heart; but soon again the doubt and fear falls upon me with crushing weight. And yet right before me yonder is the goodly land of promise, through which I see the gleam of the river of life. God is all good; and a step or two only would seem to take me to His bosom. But I cannot take it. Write immediately, and tell me what you think of this.
Yours most truly, FRANK—.”
THE learned and courted infidel, the “brilliant Frenchman,” VOLTAIRE (born 1694; died 1778) has left us his view of life in the following words:— “In man there is more wretchedness than in all animals put together. He loves life, and yet he knows that he must die. If he enjoys a transient good, he suffers various evils, and is at last devoured by worms. This knowledge is his fatal prerogative; other animals have it not. The bulk of mankind are nothing more than a crowd of wretches equally criminal and unfortunate, and the globe contains carcasses rather than men. I tremble at the review of this dreadful picture, to find that it contains a complaint against Providence itself, and I wish I had never been born.”