' So I used to live in perpetual fear and dread, and often I
wished myself dead. I tried to submit and lay down the weapons of my
rebellion, I tried to surrender everything; but it did not seem to do
any good, and I thought it was because I did not do it right. I tried
to consecrate myself to God, but all to no purpose. I did everything,
so far as I could, that others did who professed to be Christians, but
I did not feel any better. I passed through two or three revivals. I
remember, when Mr. Nettleton was preaching in Litchfield, going to
carry a note to him from father; and for a sensitive, bashful boy like
me it was a severe ordeal. I went to the room where he was speaking,
with the note in my trembling hand, and had to lay it on the desk
beside him. Before I got halfway across the floor I was dazed and
everything seemed to swim around me, but I made out to get the note to
him, and he said: 'That's enough; go away, boy,' and I sort of backed
and stumbled toward the door (I was always stumbling and blundering in
company) and sat down. He was preaching in those whispered tones which
always seem louder than thunder to the conscience, although they are
only whispers in the ear.
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