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.' 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. He had not uttered more than three sentences
before my feelings were excited, and the more I listened the more awful
I felt; and I said to myself: 'I will stay to the inquiry meeting.' I
heard Mr. Nettleton talking about souls writhing under conviction, and
I thought my soul was writhing under conviction. I had heard father
say that after a p