I recollect that from the time
that I was about ten years old I began to have periods when my
susceptibilities were so profoundly impressed that the outward
manifestations of my nature were changed. I remember that when my
brother George--who was next older than I, and who was beginning to be
my helpful companion, to whom I looked up--became a Christian, being
awakened and converted in college, it seemed as though a gulf had come
between us, and as though he was a saint on one side of it while I was
a little reprobate on the other side. It was awful to me. If there
had been a total eclipse of the sun I should not have been in more
profound darkness outwardly than I was inwardly. I did not know whom
to go to; I did not dare to go to my father; I had no mother that I
ever went to at such a time; I did not feel like going to my brother;
and I did not go to anybody. I felt that I must try to wrestle out my
own salvation.
"Once, on coming home, I heard the bell toll, and I learned that it was
for the funeral of one of my companions with whom I had been accustomed
to play, and with whom I had grown up. I did not know that he had been
sick, but he had dropped into eternity; and the ringing, swinging,
booming of that bell, if it had been the sound of an angel trumpet of
the last day, would not have seemed to me more awful.
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