lf in the future, were all
promised me as the reward of continued devotion to the cause of God and
Christianity. As the reward of heresy and unbelief, I had to encounter
suspicion, desertion, hatred, reproach, persecution, want, grief of
friends and kindred, anxious days and sleepless nights, and almost every
extreme of mental anguish. Still, inquiry forced me into heresy further
and further every year, and brought me at length to the extreme of doubt
and unbelief."

It was, then, in no light mood that I gave up my faith in God, and
Christ, and immortality. The change in my views was no headlong, hasty
freak. It was the result of long and serious thought--of misguided, but
honest, conscientious study. And hence I have sometimes thought, and am
still inclined to think, that God had a hand in the matter--that He led
me, or permitted me to wander, along that strange and sorrowful road,
and to pass through those dreary and dolorous scenes, and drink so
deeply of so dreadful a cup of sorrow, for some good end. "He maketh the
wrath of man to praise Him," and perhaps he may turn our errors also to
good account. I am not disposed to believe that my life has been a
failure. It may, for anything I know, prove to have been a great
success. "Men are educated largely by their mistakes," says one. It
hardly seems likely that God would suffer a well-intentioned, though
weak and erring child, to ruin either himself or others for ever. God is
good, and the future will justify His ways, and all His saints shall
praise Him.

My business meanwhile is, to do what I can to promote the interests of
truth, and the welfare of mankind. I must, so far as possible, redeem
lost time. I have a thousand causes for gratitude, and none for
complaint. I am very happy in general; as happy as I desire to be, and
as happy, I expect, as it is good for me to be. I sometimes feel as if
I were _too_ happy. And I certainly never ask God to make me _more_
happy. I ask Him to make me wiser, and better, and more useful, but not
more happy. At times my cup of joy runs over. It is strange it should be
so, yet so it is. But joy and sorrow are often found in company. Paul
says of himself, "Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing." The author of _Ecce
Deus_ says, "The good man's life is one unbroken repentance. Throughout
his life he suffers on account of his sins. What, then of joy?" he asks:
and he answers, "It is contemporaneous with sorrow. They are
inseparable. The joy