That I ever should suffer again.”
I thought that I never should have any more bad feelings; I expected to rejoice evermore. This state of things continued about three weeks; when at family prayer in the evening I was very much blessed. “Heaven came down my soul to greet, and glory crowned the mercy seat.” I was praising God with a heart overflowing with love, when suddenly my jaws closed; I wanted to continue praising God, but could not; my jaws were set together like a steel trap; they would not open. I thought it would be some relief if my wife or sister would pray. I tried to turn around to see why they did not, but could not; I was immovably fixed on my knees. I began to wonder what was the matter. The devil told me it was a paralytic stroke. I said, “Yes, I guess it is;” then darkness came upon me. I did not feel quite as well after that. The next accusation was I had got a fit of apoplexy, to which I said, “Yes, I guess I have;” then darkness spread over me afresh. He said that I was a fit subject for apoplexy, and probably I was very near my end, as they generally died with the third fit. I consented to all he said as true, and before this passed off I was feeling bad, all through ignorance and unbelief. I do not know how long I remained in this helpless condition, but when I came out I felt that I had been shocked with a heavy battery. While in this condition I was in full possession of every faculty of the mind, and remember distinctly all that occurred. I was a disbeliever in the power of the Holy Ghost to slay people, notwithstanding I had been accustomed to seeing such things from youth, but really believed it to be mesmerism or excitement. After I came out of this it occurred to me that perhaps what I had just experienced was the power of the Holy Ghost; and if so, I had done wrong. I went immediately to have the matter settled. I told my father that I wanted to be right, and if what I had just passed through was the effect of the Holy Ghost, let it come on me in the same way again. I felt it coming as before; and he that said it was a fit of apoplexy, now said, “Look out, it will kill you.” I sprang to my feet and cried to the Lord to stay his hand. It seemed to me that I could not live under the pressure, under that weight of love that God was letting down into my soul and on my body. I went to bed, but not to sleep. The accuser was after me; he told me that my duty was very plain. “Ever since God converted you, you have been continually asking Him to bless you; it has come very near killing you, and will if you continue in this way; now you must ask God not to bless you.” I very soon learned that these suggestions were from the devil; and that to be the Lord’s entire, to follow the Lamb whithersoever he would lead us, was to place ourselves in direct opposition to the mass of those that profess the religion of Jesus Christ. I began to realize that the religion of Jesus Christ was peculiar; unlike the world; and if I saved my soul, I must be peculiar. The question came with force: Are you willing to be peculiar for God? My spirit seemed to be willing, but the flesh rebelled. I thought much of my good name. Now I saw, that to be a real child of God, was to suffer and bear reproach. O, how I writhed in agony. What! to have my good name cast out as evil, to be misunderstood, considered as filth, rejected of men. Here was dying; this was painful, to bring all my powers to submit to the will of God. I thought, when I was converted that I had given all to him; but here was something that I did not see at that time. I had commenced a pilgrimage, and had no disposition to go back. I had left Sodom, and still the command was ringing in my ears, “Escape for thy life, look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain lest thou be consumed.” As the light was shining upon me, and the way, and after much wrestling in prayer, not only my will responded to the will of God, but I could say all through me—
“Lord, obediently I’ll go,
Gladly leaving all below.”
After this my peace flowed like a river.
“Jesus all the day long
Was my joy and my song.”
I lived in a heavenly atmosphere, far above the common walks of life. Glory to God and the Lamb forever! for a salvation that has life and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, amen! and amen! The fire burns while I write—bless the Lord! I believed that Jesus saved me from all my sins. I did not understand the nature of inbred sin. I had felt nothing but love to God and all mankind. The roots of old depravity had not yet been disturbed, hence I did not believe they existed. I was soon to be tested upon this point.
Soon after my conversion I had placed in my hands several works on holiness: Wesley, Wallace, Foster, and Mrs. Palmer. On examining these books I felt that I had got in the first blessing all they claimed for the second. I was soon to learn that justification, though clear and positive, did not remove the roots of bitterness, the remains of the carnal mind.
About four weeks after my conversion, one cold day in March, I wanted to move a stove of the Clinton air-tight pattern from one room to another with the fire in it, just as we were using it, as it was cold, and the only stove we had up. I laid my plans, and commenced the job in earnest. I succeeded in getting the pipe in position and the stove moved, but now came the tug of war. The pipe would not go together as I expected. I had been feeling remarkably good, but suddenly my feelings underwent a tremendous change; I seemed to be all on fire; and like Mount Vesuvius, just ready to belch forth fire and lava. You ask, dear reader, what was the matter? Why, my pipe would not go together; and besides, I pinched my fingers, the smoke filled my eyes, and yet the pipe would not unite. Again and again I pinched my fingers and smoked my eyes until it seemed to me that I should burst if I did not curse and swear with all my might. I set my jaws together like a steel trap, lest I should give vent to the smoke that raged within. I finished my job, and away I went, to where no eye but God could see me. I fell on my face and cried for mercy. This element in my heart gave me more pain than anything I had ever met with. O, how I loathed myself. I saw clearly the nature of my disease. Old depravity was at the bottom of all this difficulty. The tree had been cut down, but the roots were all there.
Dear reader, these roots may not have affected you just as they did me; but if you are not sanctified wholly, they are there, in the heart and will, when the hot breath of Apolyon comes upon you, strive for the supremacy. This experience brought clearly to my mind, the doctrine of sanctification as taught by John Wesley. I commenced in earnest the study of the Bible, to learn God’s will in this matter. I found it full of holiness. I saw that it was not only my privilege to be made holy in this life, but a positive command: “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” My conviction for this blessing was deep, clear, pungent and abiding. O, how my soul cried out after a clean heart. I said that if the religion of Jesus Christ did not take out all sin from the heart, it was a failure.
Blessed be God! I have proved that Jesus Christ can save to the uttermost. In fifty-eight, at a camp-meeting in Bergen, N. Y., I was enabled to give myself fully to God, and to claim Jesus Christ as my full and complete Saviour. O, how I felt the blood washing and cleansing my heart, from all the remains of the carnal mind. When the blessing came I was lost to all surrounding objects; but what communion I had with the Father and with the Son, and with the Holy Ghost. Light shone all through me. I could see every part of my moral being; and O! how clean and pure; those roots were gone. My soul cried out—
“’Tis done, Thou dost this moment save,
With full salvation bless,
Redemption in Thy blood I have,
And spotless love and peace.”
III.
About My Tobacco.
For years prior to my conversion to God, I had firmly believed that “strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” The consecration to be made in order to receive the grace of God and eternal life seemed to me to include every thing: all we think, speak or do. To meet this demand, my business relations had to be given up. I had used tobacco about twelve years; but in making my consecration to God I left this out. It