The friend at whose house I was
staying took me to see Mr. Walker, who received me with great kindness,
invited me to dine with him, and conversed with me in a truly Christian
manner. He even came to one of my lectures, in hopes of helping me over
the difficulties which blocked my way to the faith of Christ. I did not,
however, treat him with the kind and considerate tenderness with which
he had treated me. I was under unhappy influences, and I spoke on the
Bible in such a manner as to try him past endurance, and he left me that
night with very painful feelings, regarding me, probably, as lost past
hope. Should he read this work, it may give him satisfaction to know,
that his kindness, and his work on Christ as a revelation of the Eternal
Father, had a part in helping me back to the religion of Christ.

4. Five years ago last December, Mr. John Mawson, Sheriff of
Newcastle-on-Tyne, was killed on the Town Moor by a terrible explosion
of nitro-glycerine. I had been acquainted with him more than
five-and-twenty years. He joined the church at Newcastle, of which I was
a minister, and remained my friend to the last. He had his doubts on
certain points of theology, but he never lost his faith in the great
principles of Christianity. When I was over from America once, I spent
some time in his company, and we had frequent conversations on religion.
"It seems to me," said he, "that we ought to put some trust in our
_hearts_. My head has often tempted me to doubt; but my heart has always
clung to God and immortality. It does so still; and I believe it is
right. Indeed, I have no doubt of it." I remembered his words. They led
me to study the moral and spiritual instincts of my nature more
thoroughly than I had done before. They led me to study the subject of
instinct and natural affection generally. _My_ instincts, like the
instincts of my friend, had always clung to God and a future life, and
to the principles of religion and virtue, even when reason hesitated and
doubted most. I had never given up my belief in any of the great
doctrines of Christianity without a painful struggle. But I had been led
to think it my duty, when there was a conflict between my head and my
heart, to take part with my head. My heart, for instance, would say,
"Pray;" but reason, or something in the garb of reason, would say,
"Don't. If what you desire is good, God will give it you, whether you
pray for it or not; and if it be evil, He will withhold it, p