"The Scarlet Letter" we
have the example of a man inspired to do his duty by the revelation of
God. Adoniram Judson was brought to himself by hearing the groans of a
dying man in a room adjoining his own in a New England hotel. Luther
was forced to serious thought by a flash of lightning which blinded and
came near killing him. Pascal was returning to his home at midnight when
his carriage halted on the brink of a precipice, and the narrowness of
his escape aroused him to a realization of his dependence upon God. The
sense of mortality, and the wonder as to what the consequences of
wrong-doing in "the dim unknown" may be, have been potent forces in the
re-awakening of souls.

Still others have been given new and gracious visions of "the beauty of
holiness." They have seen the excellence of virtue, and in its light
have learned to hate the causes of their humiliation, and to press
forward with courage and hope.

Speculations concerning the causes of this spiritual change are easy,
but they are of little value. Observation has never yet collected facts
enough to adequately account for the phenomena. Probably the most
complete and satisfactory answer that was ever given to such questions
was that of Jesus when He was treating of this very subject: "The wind
bloweth where it listeth, thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not
tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth."

The mystery of the soul's re-awakening has never been fathomed.
Sometimes there has been flashed upon conscience, apparently without a
cause, a deep and awful sense of guilt. Whence did it come? What caused
it? Calamities many times sweep through a life as a tornado sweeps over
a field of wheat, and when they have passed there is more than an
appreciation of loss; there is a vision of the soul's unworthiness and
humiliation. Again death comes exceedingly near, and, in a single hour,
the solemnities of eternity become vivid, and the soul sees itself in
the light of God. And again, the essential glory of goodness is so
vividly manifest that the soul instinctively rises out of its sin, and
presses upward, as a man wakens from a hideous nightmare. The more such
phenomena are studied, the more distinct and significant do they appear
and the more impossible becomes the effort to explain them. They may be
verified, but they can never be explained. They are the results of the
action of the Spirit of God on the spirit of man. Is this answer
rejected as fancif