I went into an
ecstasy of anguish. At intervals, for days and weeks, I cried and
prayed. There was scarcely a retired place in the garden, in the
woodhouse, in the carriage-house, or in the barn that was not a scene
of my crying and praying. It was piteous that I should be in such a
state of mind, and that there should be nobody to help me and lead me
out into the light. I do not recollect that to that day one word had
been said to me, or one syllable had been uttered in the pulpit, that
lead me to think there was any mercy in the heart of God for a sinner
like me. For a sinner that had repented it was thought there was
pardon; but how to repent was the very thing I did not know. A
converted sinner might be saved, but for a poor, miserable, faulty boy,
that pouted, and got mad at his brothers and sisters, and did a great
many naughty things, there was no salvation so far as I had learned.
My innumerable shortcomings and misdemeanors were to my mind so many
pimples that marked my terrible depravity; and I never had the remotest
idea of God except that he was a sovereign who sat with a sceptre in
his hand and had his eye on me, and said: 'I see you, and I am after
you.
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