Before thy face with them to bow,
Though vilest of them all;
But, can I bear the dreadful thought,
What if my name should be left out
When thou for them dost call?'"

"This did me good. Yet, while I was sitting there, I seemed to see the
Saviour approach me, with a smile. His look seemed very significant, as
though he would say, 'I understand it.' Those words came to my mind:
'Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and, when he had found him, he
said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and
said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said unto
him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. And
he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.' I surely said and did
this."

"Never before," said he, "had I such views of the condescension and
gentleness of Christ toward us, erring creatures. Here was a church
erring, it seemed to me, in a point which must peculiarly wound the
heart of the Redeemer, whose last discourse with his disciples had this
for its burden, that ye love one another. And yet there were, in that
church, many with whom Christ was communing with a love that seemed to
them unqualified. So he treats us all. I never had a greater flow of
charity toward all my fellow-Christians than on that occasion. I
resolved that I never would be a sectarian in anything, while I also
felt more strongly than ever attached to my own views, and confident of
their truthfulness, and in love with their beauty."

When he had finished his narration, his wife asked me what I thought
with regard to her husband's proceedings. I asked her to state
particularly what she had in mind. She then expressed a doubt whether it
were proper for us to intrude upon fellow-Christians, when we know that
their principles forbid their communing with us. She said that she
remonstrated with her husband, as soon as he told her that the ordinance
was not free to all evangelical Christians, and that she tried to
dissuade him from appearing to obtrude himself. She did not view it as
uncharitableness, but only as a denominational rule.

I asked her what her husband said in self-defence;--for we loved to hear
her conversation.

She said that he turned it off by saying, "Men do not despise a thief,
if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry."

She said that soon they experienced the utmost kindness from the members
of that church, who, learning the occasion of the