a friend offered to lend me Southey's
"Life of Wesley," and said, "You will find it all about conversion;" and
a few days after came a tract, "John Berridge's Great Error Detected."
This tract was carefully marked in pencil, and had several questions
written in the margin. I found out that it came from a person to whom I
had given it, and who was anxious to know its meaning.

I read it with much interest, for I saw that the first portion of the
history of Berridge corresponded with mine; but as I went on reading, I
wondered what he could mean by "Justification." What was that wonderful
thing which God did for him and for the souls of his people? What could
he mean by having his eyes opened to see himself a wretched, lost man?
What was "seeing the way of salvation"? He said that he had preached for
six years, and never brought a single soul to Christ; and for two years
more in another place, and had no success; but now, when he preached
Christ instead of the Church, people came from all parts, far and near,
to hear the sound of the glorious Gospel; and believers were added to
the Church continually. I grappled with this subject; but I could not,
by searching, find out anything, for I was in the dark, and knew not as
yet that I was blind, and needed the power of the Holy Spirit to awaken
and bring me to see myself a lost sinner. My soul was now all a stir on
this subject; but, as far as I can remember, I wanted the
information-not for myself; but because I thought I should then get hold
of the secret by which the Wesleyans and others caught and kept their
people, or rather my people.

Soon after, my gardener, a good Churchman, and duly despised by his
neighbours for attaching himself to me and my teaching, fell seriously
ill. I sent him at once to the doctor, who pronounced him to be in a
miner's consumption, and gave no hope of his recovery. No sooner did he
realize his position, and see eternity before him, than all the Church
teaching I had given him failed to console or satisfy, and his heart
sank within him at the near prospect of death. In his distress of mind,
he did not send for me to come and pray with him, but actually sent for
a converted man, who lived in the next row of cottages. This man,
instead of building him up as I had done, went to work in the opposite
direction-to break him down; that was, to show my servant that he was a
lost sinner, and needed to come to Jesus just as he was, for pardon and
salvat