things which had tried me terribly; and I, with ideas of duty differing from his, had made him very liberal returns, in a way not calculated to leave the most favorable or comfortable impressions on his mind towards me. I had never seen him since our long discussion but once, and then he seemed, to my fancy, to be struggling with an inward tempest of very unhappy feeling towards me, which he was hardly able to keep from exploding. I afterwards found though, that I had not interpreted his looks on this occasion correctly. At the time when I took my leave of the Secularists, my unpleasant feelings towards my old opponent had about subsided; but I had no idea that his unpleasant feelings towards me had passed away. Yet such was the case. He had been reading my periodical for some time, and had been pleased to find that both on religion and politics, I was returning, though slowly, to the views of my happier days. Some time in August, 1862, he called at my office in London, with a parcel of books under his arm. He had been praying for me daily for twelve months, when something seemed to say to him, "You should do something more than pray." And now he had come to try what he could do by a personal interview to aid the wanderer's return to Christ. I was from home at the time, but my eldest son was in the office, and he and the Doctor were at once engaged in friendly conversation. "How like you are to what your father was four and thirty years ago, when I first knew him," said the Doctor. "Your father and I were great friends. It was your father that first directed me to the study of Latin and Greek, which have been of great service to me; and I feel indebted to him on that account. We were afterwards separated. But I have observed, as I think, symptoms that your father is returning towards his former views." And many other kind remarks he made. At length he said, "Do you think your father would accept a copy of my works?" My son, who knew the state of his father's mind, answered; "I am sure he would, with great pleasure." The Doctor left copies of his works, kindly inscribed to me with his own hand; and with the books, he left for me a kind and Christian letter. My son lost no time in forwarding me the letter, together with an account

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of the pleasant and unlooked-for interview which he had had with the writer. I received the letter, and the interesting story with which it was accompanied, with the greatest astonishment and pleasure. I wrote to the Doctor, reciprocating his expressions of kindness, and making the best returns I could for the valuable present of his works. The result was a correspondence, which has continued to the present time. The correspondence led to interviews, in which the Doctor exhibited, in a very striking manner, the graces and virtues that adorn the Christian character. We talked, we read, we sang, we prayed together, and gave God thanks, with tears of gratitude, for all the blessings of His boundless love.

The effect of this kindness on the part of Dr. Cooke was, not only to free my mind from any remains of hurtful feelings towards him, but to dispose me, and enable me, to review the claims of Christianity and the Bible in a spirit of greater fairness and candor, and so to make it possible for me to become, what I had long believed I never could become, a hearty believer in the religion of Christ.

CHAPTER XIX.

SOME OF THE STEPS BY WHICH I CAME TO FAITH IN CHRIST.

I am not certain that I can state the exact process by which I passed from doubt and unbelief to faith in Christ, but the following, I believe, is very near the truth.

1. There was, first, a sense of the cheerlessness of unbelief the sadness and the sorrow resulting from the loss of trust in God and hope of immortality, and from the wretched prospect of a return to utter nothingness.

2. Then came the distressing feeling of inability to comfort my afflicted or dying friends-my utter helplessness in the presence of sorrow, grief and agony.

3. And then I found myself unable to account for the wonderful marks of design appearing in nature, and especially in my own body, without the acknowledgment of an

intelligent Deity. The wonderful perfection and beauty of a flower or a feather would confound me; while mysterious adaptations in my own frame would fill me with amazement. Darwin's theory of development relieved me for a time; but I soon came to see that some of his explanations of natural phenomena. were erroneous, and that none of his facts proved the truth of his theory. Still later I found that Darwin himself acknowledged that the evidences of design in the methods by which certain species of plants were fertilized, were not only overpowering, but startling.

4. Then came dissatisfaction with the theories by which unbelievers sought to account for the existence and order of the universe. They supposed the universe to be eternal, and attributed the production of plants, and animals, and man to the blind unconscious working of lifeless matter. They attributed to dead matter the powers which believers attributed to a living God. They were obliged to believe that senseless atoms could produce works transcending the powers of the mightiest minds on earth. To reconcile their belief in the eternity of the universe, and in the unchanging properties of matter, with the phenomena of change and progress, they supposed an infinite succession of worlds, or of beginnings and endings of the same world, and imagined the earth running exactly the same course, and having exactly the same history, every time it came into existence. Hence it became with them an article of faith, that we had ourselves lived an infinite number of times, and should live an infinite number of times more in the future, repeating always exactly the same life, with exactly the same results. It was also an article of faith that we were mere machines, governed by powers over which we had no control; that our ideas of liberty, and our feelings of responsibility, or of good and ill desert, were all delusions; that all the errors, and crimes, and miseries of our race were inevitable, and were to be eternally repeated; and that a change for the better was eternally impossible. But time would fail me to mention all their theories. It is enough to say that the wild and unsatisfactory nature of these dreams helped to drive me back to Christianity.

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5. There was, of course, no tendency in unbelief to promote virtue, or to check vice. Its natural tendency was to utter depravity. And Christianity retained such an influence over me, even to the last, that I could never reconcile myself to a vicious life.

6. Then came another trouble. Infidelity could give no guarantee that wrong should not finally triumph, and right be finally crushed. It is belief in God alone that can give assurance that virtue shall be ultimately rewarded, and vice ultimately punished. The Christian can believe past doubt, that "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap;" that "with what judgment we judge, we shall be judged; and with what measure we mete, it shall be measured to us again." But the infidel has no foundation for such a faith. For anything he knows, a man may sow villany, and reap honor and blessedness. He may live by injustice and cruelty, and meet with no punishment, either here or hereafter; while another may spend his days in doing good, and, give his life for the salvation of his fellows, and receive only torture, reproach, and death.

Nor is there any security for the triumph of truth on the infidel principle. For anything infidelity knows, truth may be always in the mire, and its friends be forever reproached and shunned; while error may always be in the ascendant, and its propagators honored and rewarded. Indeed this is the case at present, if infidelity be true. For infidelity is in the dust, while faith in God. and Christ is in high repute. And infidels are suspected and dreaded, while consistent believers are loved and trusted. Faith smoothes man's way through life, and in some cases raises him to honor and power; while Atheism makes a man's pathway rugged, and prevents his elevation. This state of things is exceedingly unsatisfactory to unbelievers. They ought, if they are the wisest of men, as they suppose, to be everywhere received with honor. They ought to be placed in power. The world should ring with their praise. The universe should enrich them with its treasures. The names of their predecessors in unbelief should be had in the greatest honor. They should stand first on the roll of fame. Their monuments should fill

the earth. The sweetest poets should sing their praises: the most eloquent orators should proclaim their greatness; and the nations should delight to celebrate their worth. Their pictures and statues should grace our courts, our temples, and our palaces. Their deeds should form the staple of our pleasant histories, and their writings crowd the shelves of our libraries. Children should be taught to lisp their names with reverence, and the aged should bless them with their parting breath.

On the other hand, if religion be false and foolish, if it be unnatural and mischievous, its friends should be pitied or despised, if not rebuked and punished. Its founders and propagators should be branded as the weakest or the basest of men. Their names should be had in contempt or abhorrence. Their writings should be everywhere decried. Their pictures and statues should-fill some chamber of horrors. Historians, poets, and orators should hold them up to reprobation. Christians should be kept from places of trust, and from posts of honor. They should be wretched, and poor, and miserable, and the hearts of men, and the powers of nature, should combine for their destruction, and for the utter extinction of their cause.

Yet the state of things is just the contrary. Christianity triumphs, and Christians are honored; while infidelity languishes, and its disciples are covered with shame. On the Atheist's theory the human race has existed for millions of years, yet it has never produced more than a few individuals who have acknowledged the principle of his creed. The mass of men, in all ages, have been believers in God. The civilized as well as the savage, the learned as well as the ignorant, the high as well as the low, alike have adored a Deity. Even the greatest of our race have been believers. The sweetest poets, the profoundest philosophers, the greatest statesmen, the wisest legislators, the most venerable judges, the most devoted philanthropists, have all believed in God. Two or three tribes have been found, it is said, without an idea of God; but they were savages of the lowest grade; and it is not yet settled whether the accounts that have been given of those wretched creatures be correct or not.

And Atheism has always been regarded with horror. 'It