is no
stranger. For years, poor Mrs. Erskine has wept in secret over her
husband's unregenerate heart and unspiritual ministry. But now a
terrible sickness lays her low. Her brain is fevered; she raves in her
delirium; her words are wild and passionate. Yet they are words that
smite her husband's conscience and pierce his very soul. 'At last,' so
runs the diary, 'the Lord was pleased to calm her spirit and give her a
sweet serenity of mind. This, I think, was the first time that ever I
felt the Lord touching my heart in a sensible manner. Her distress and
her deliverance were blessed to me. Some few weeks after, she and I were
sitting together in my study, and while we were conversing about the
things of God, the Lord was pleased to rend the veil and to give me a
glimmering view of salvation which made my soul acquiesce in Christ as
the new and living way to glory.' The old text comes back to him.

'_I am the Lord thy God!_'

'_I am the Lord thy God!_'

Once more it sounds like a claim. And this time he yields. He makes his
vow in writing. '_I offer myself up, soul and body, unto God the Father,
Son and Holy Ghost. I flee for shelter to the blood of Jesus. I will
live to Him; I will die to Him. I take heaven and earth to witness that
all I am and all I have are His._'

Thus, on August 26, 1708, Ebenezer Erskine makes his covenant. 'That
night,' he used to say, 'I got my head out of Time into Eternity!'

III

Ten more years have passed. It is now 1718; Ebenezer Erskine is
thirty-eight. Filled with concern for the souls of his people at
Portmoak, he preaches a sermon on the text that had played so great a
part in bringing his own spirit out of bondage.

'_I am the Lord thy God!_'

'_I am the Lord thy God!_'

As he preaches, the memory of his own experience rushes back upon him.
His soul catches fire. He is one moment persuasive and the next
peremptory. No sermon that he ever preached made a greater impression on
his congregation; and, when it was printed, it proved to be the most
effective and fruitful of all his publications.

IV

Five and thirty further years have run their course. Mr. Erskine is now
seventy-three. He has passed through the fires of persecution, and, in
days of tumult and unrest, has proved himself a leader whom the people
have delighted, at any cost, to follow. But his physical frame is
exhausted. An illness overtakes him which, continuing for over a year,
at last proves fatal. His e