expiring within me. Blessed be God, the remembrance of what I had been remained, and constantly aroused me to a consciousness of what I was. I looked into myself, and over the Church, and was shocked at what I felt and what I saw. Two facts in the aspect of the Church and the ministry, struck my mind with gloomy interest. Scarcely an individual, within the circle of my knowledge, seemed to know the gospel as a sanctifying or peace-giving gospel. In illustration of this remark, let me state a fact which I met with in the year 1831 or 1832. I then met a company of my ministerial brethren, who had come together from one of the most favored portions of the country. They sat down together, and gave to each other an undisguised disclosure of the state of their hearts, and they all, with one exception, and the experience of that individual I did not hear, acknowledged that they had not daily communion and peace with God. Over these facts they wept, but neither knew how to direct the others out of the thick and impenetrable gloom which covered them, and I was in the same ignorance as my brethren.

I state these facts as a fair example of the state of the churches, and of the ministry, as far as my observation has extended, and that has been very extensive. I here affirm, that the great mass of

Christians do not know the gospel, in their daily experience, as a life-giving and peace-giving gospel. When my mind became fully conscious of this fact, I was led to compare my own, and the experience of the Church around me, with that of the apostles and primitive Christians, and with the "path of the just," as portrayed in the sacred Scriptures. I found the two in direct contrast with each other. Here the great inquiry arose in my mind, What is the grand secret of holy living? How shall I attain to that perpetual fulness and peace in Christ, which, for example, Paul enjoyed. Till this secret was fully disclosed to my mind, I felt that I was, and must be disqualified, in one fundamental respect, to "feed the flock of God." While the gospel was not life and peace to me, how could I present it in such a manner that it would be life and peace to others. I must myself be led by the Great Shepherd, into the "green pastures, and beside the still waters," before I could lead the flock of God into the same blissful regions. For years, this one inquiry pressed upon my thoughts, and often, as I have looked over a company of inquiring sinners, have I said within myself, I would gladly take my place among those inquirers, if any individual would show me how to come into possession of the "riches of the glory of Christ's inheritance in the saints." But clouds

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and darkness covered my mind in respect to this, the most momentous of all subjects.

In this state of mind, I became connected with the Institution at Oberlin, and continued to press my inquiries with increasing interest upon this one subject, till the fall of 1836. At that time, during a series of religious meetings held in the Institution, a large number of the members of the Church arose and informed us that they were fully convinced that they had been deceived in respect to their character as Christians, and that they were now without hope, and appeared as inquirers, to know what they should do to be saved." At the same time, the great mass of the remainder disclosed to us the cheerless bondage in which they had long been groaning, and asked us if we could tell them how to obtain deliverance. I now felt myself, as one of the "leaders of the flock of God," pressed with the great inquiry above referred to, with greater interest than ever before. I set my heart, by prayer and supplication to God, to find the light after which I had been so long seeking.

In this state I visited one of my associates in the Institution, and disclosed to him the burden which had weighed down my mind for so many years. I asked him, if he could tell me the secret of the piety of Paul, and tell me the reason of the strange

contrast between the apostle's experience and my own. In laboring for the salvation of men, I observed, that my feelings often remained unmoved and unaffected, while Paul was constantly "constrained" by the love of Christ. Our conversation then turned upon the passage, "The love of Christ constraineth us," &c. While thus employed, my heart leaped up in ecstacy indescribable, with the exclamation, "I have found it." I have now, by the grace of God, discovered the secret after which I have been searching these many years. I understood the secret of the piety of Paul, and knew how to attain to that blissful state myself. Paul's piety all arose from one source exclusively, a sympathy with the heart of Christ in his love for lost man. To attain to that state myself, I had only to acquaint myself with the love of Christ, and yield my whole being up to its sweet control.

Immediately after this, I came before the church and disclosed to them what I then saw to be the grand defect in my ministry. 1. Christ had been but as one chapter in my system of theology, when he should have been the sun and centre of the system. 2. When I thought of my guilt and need of justification, I had looked to Christ exclusively, as I ought to have done. For sanctification, on the other hand, to overcome

the "world, the flesh, and the devil," I had depended mainly upon my own resolutions. Here was the grand mistake, and the source of all my bondage under sin. I ought to have looked to Christ for sanctification as much as for justification, and for the same reason. The great object of my being now was, to know Christ, and in knowing him to be changed into his image. Here was the "victory which overcometh the world." Here was the "death of the body of sin." Here was "redemption from all iniquity," into the "glorious liberty of the children of God." At this time, the appropriate office of the Holy Spirit presented itself to my mind with a distinctness and interest never understood nor felt before. To know Christ was the life of the soul. To "take of the things of Christ and show them unto us," to open our hearts to understand the Scriptures, to strengthen us with might in the inner man, that we might comprehend the "breadth and depth, and length and height, and know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge," and thus be "filled with all the fulness of God," is the appropriate office of the Spirit. The highway of holiness was now for the first time rendered perfectly distinct to my mind. The discovery of it was to my mind as "life from the dead." The disclosure of this path had the same effect upon others, who